Harlan Place

Christmas was so much fun this year. Joshua’s talking up a storm, and his favorite song of the season was “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” - he sang it nearly every day for a month! In fact, he’s still singing it!

And every few days Joshua would ask “Santa comin’?” - I’d confirm, and he would continue” “Bring new truck? New toys? Presents?”. I know that as his mom, I’m totally biased… but the exchange was cute beyond words!

Joshua also really enjoyed playing with all of the Santa figurines around the house - his favorite description of Santa was “BIG… Santa… Tummy”.

The “Christmas balls” on the Christmas tree was another favorite. In fact, the tree as a whole was a delight. Joshua littered the tree with all of his toy animals - we had tigers, lions and bears (oh my!) hanging from the tree.

Joshua received a tent for Christmas from his Aunt Dacyl (and Lou!) that has provided him hours of endless entertainment. He especially loves to “hide” in the tent with Daddy. Every day he begs: “Hide? Daddy hide? Tent?” Of course this great hiding game is almost always followed up with a good game of chase, with Joshua and Daddy running in circles around the house. Joshua used to ask Mommy to hide and play chase, but her big pregnant belly prohibits her involvement in much active play these days.

Here’s a picture of him hiding with his big (2nd?) cousin Adam on Christmas.

Joshua also had his first dose of video games this Christmas. Uncle Jon got him a fun, interactive, educational video game set for Christmas. It’s a little old for him, but with his companion Adam at the helm, they navigated the video game waters quite happily.

Another notable Christmas discovery was Joshua’s allergy to cats! It turns out that he has one or two of my genes after all! He happily chased around Aunt Laura’s cat on Christmas Eve (though the cat’s happiness with the chase was definitely in question), only to find that he later exhibited tell-tale signs of allergy to the hair that clung to him afterward. I made the mistake of letting him wear the same turtleneck the following day (under a different Christmas sweater), and he was scratching and rubbing his neck, head, nose, eyes… everywhere throughout the day, until I made the cat connection. I removed the shirt and wiped down his face and hands with a wet cloth and magically, Joshua was itch-free. The cat was the culprit! It’s a little sad, because he loves kitty cats, but I was secretly (or perhaps not so secretly) happy, because I detest those loathesome creatures!

I didn’t manage to get any good belly shots of myself at Christmas, mostly because I chose to follow Dacyl and Favor’s example by wearing comfy pajama clothing all day (excellent plan!), but you can see from this picture that my face is nearly as round as my belly these days… something that seems unavoidable toward the end of my pregnancies. I suppose the dozens of cookies and chocolate bars I eat contributes to this a bit…

All in all, Christmas really was a fun and happy time this year. Joshua fully grasped the concept of presents (which he still asks for occasionally - I’m not sure that he understands that Christmas is over), he now knows who Santa is, and we tried to introduce Jesus into the equation, though I’m not sure he grasped that. I think in future years it might be fun to have a birthday cake for Jesus, in an effort to bring him into the center of the celebration.

Joshua is a little sad now that the Christmas balls are gone, and he keeps asking us to put them back. He also misses playing with his snowman and Santa figurines. But he got a taste of the Christmas spirit, and we got a taste of the magic of celebrating Christmas with our little boy. Next year will be even better, I’m sure… just as every day is better than the last. As the song goes, “I love you more today than yesterday… but not as much as tomorrow”