Our Christmas

Time rushed right on past this first year. 

     Once we got home from our visit with family, Christmas rushed up on us like the Polar Express.  That’s Little Bell’s new favorite thing in the all the world:  trains, particularly the Polar Express.  His uncle gave him some GeoTrax that his kids had outgrown.  Some... Some is a big fat lie.  That man gave Little Bell a box 2 foot by 2 foot by 4 foot slam full of track pieces, train cars, engines, remote controls, stations, buildings, and associated paraphernalia.  I don’t know who has more fun with them, Little Bell or Pa Bell. 

      They get in there in Little Bell’s room and play with the tracks for hours, assembling, disassembling, and running the trains round the circuits they’ve made.  Little Bell yells, “CHOO-CHOOOOOOO!!!  Daddy fik it the tracks, Mama!” 

     A couple weeks before Christmas, right after Little Bell’s birthday, Santa came for a brief visit, and he brought a few books and a letter.  I’m sure it’s hard to read in the picture, but it says:

“Dear Little Bell,

     I know you have been trying very hard to be a good boy, and I know waiting for Christmas gets very hard when it’s so close.  So I am bringing you these books to help pass the time.  I know, if you ask nicely, Mama or Daddy would love to read them to you.  But these are special books, only for the Christmas season.  Leave them out for me on Christmas Eve, and I’ll take them back to the North Pole with me when I bring your presents.  I’ll bring them back every year and maybe even add a few new ones, too!” 

     The post script says, “Some of the books and toys I bring have been loved by other children before.  If you want to share some of your love this Christmas, leave what you would like to share in a box under the tree on Christmas Eve.  I’ll pass it along as I make my rounds, and you can help make someone else’s Christmas brighter.”

     

     If any of you have ever had a toddler (and I know some of you have), you know they get a hold of a particular book or movie or whatever, and they get fixated on it.  You have to read it over and over and over and over, or watch it over and over and over and over.  It’s enough to drive a saint nuts.  So this way, he has to give back the Christmas books.  Also, I love the idea of opening up a bundle of books each year to read up to Christmas, but how do you do that without reusing old books each year?  There’s no way folks buy new Christmas books every year to give their kids, right?  And it seems kind of weird to take books off the shelf in the kid’s room and stick them under the tree on some random night in December.  Where’s the magic?  It’s Christmas, after all.  So this is my solution.  Also, I am hoping to encourage Little Bell to voluntarily donate his old things that he no longer plays with each year, and while watching Polar Express, and hearing the Conductor talk about the “rebicycling” I got the idea to incorporate that into our Christmas traditions.  We’ll see how it works.

     His other most favorite gift was a tool set from Gramma Terri and Grampa John.  I don’t have a whole lot of pictures, because the tools are mostly out in the shop where Pa Bell and Little Bell work on things together.  Usually while they do that, I’m taking advantage and getting stuff done in the kitchen or cleaning, organizing pictures, knitting, maybe even writing a blog post.

   

It was a quiet Christmas, and I think those are the best kind.  We made gingerbread cookies to leave for Santa. 

(I’ll share the recipe in the next post.)

      Little Bell loved the Christmas tree.  He would ask us to light it every night around dinner time.  “Turn on the Christmas tree, Mama Daddy?”  Once it was on, he would stay near it until bedtime, gently touching the branches, exclaiming about the lights, or rearranging the ornaments. 

     I think Pa did a great job setting up the tree, and Little Bell helped decorate.  He did a great job, too.  He has his own Polar Express ornament that he would move to various locations on the tree as the month progressed toward Christmas.

     Christmas morning, he woke us up at 4:00 a.m. but seemed rather underwhelmed that Santa had come in the night and brought presents to put under the tree and goodies to stick in the stockings.  I supposed the excitement for Christmas will grow as he gets a bit older.  But it was fun, and he spent the entire day playing with each of his new things in turn.  Not all of his new toys have actually survived to the New Year, sadly.  His “delivery truck,” in actuality a long-haul 18-wheeler, was played plumb to death.  It hauled dirt, rocks, toys, the dog’s bone, and all manner of other things before it was decommissioned.  It just couldn’t handle the rough-and-tumble demands of a three-year-old boy. 

     There is something to be said for a big family Christmas, and I caught myself missing certain people this holiday season.  It’s a bit lonely out here sometimes with just the three of us, but there was also a distinct absence of the present guilt, the stress of trying to see absolutely everybody, and the anxiety that goes along with having to play nice with folks you generally avoid for the other 364 days of the year.  You know y’all all have one or two of those in your families, too.  Everybody does.  And you make nice for a little while just so the holiday is peaceful, and then, as soon as you can, you get away to sanctuary. 

     The thing is, that isn’t a peaceful holiday to me.  I don’t like having to feel like I’m walking on eggshells.  It puts knots in my belly and goes counter to the loud-mouthed, say-what-I-mean type of person that I am.  By the end of the holidays, I need a holiday from the holiday so I don’t feel like I need medication to maintain an even keel. 

     This was a peaceful holiday, though.  We didn’t have to go anywhere, do anything, play nice with folks we don’t even like, or feel guilty about the presents we couldn’t afford to get.  We just enjoyed each other, our home, and the joy our little boy found in a few new toys and a couple of cookies.  I hope your holidays were as wonderful as ours!