Took down the Christmas decorations today, officially
marking the end of the holiday season.
The kids go back to school on Monday and life gets back to normal.
It’s always a little sad and somewhat of a relief when this
day comes. After almost six weeks of
holiday cheer, I’m ready for a little sarcastic reality. But at the same time, it’s nice to have
something special going on.
This is the first year Nathan has “gotten” the concept of
Christmas. He was very excited with
putting up the decorations and I could share the stories with him. Like our Christmas Bear who hangs from the
lamp and watches over the tree. He was
bouncing around waiting to see what Santa brought him and he sat on my lap to
read the letter Santa left in his stocking.
We’ve always gotten letters from Santa telling us about his adventures
at the North Pole and letting us know which of the elves helped with making our
presents. It’s been wonderful to see him
participating and believing in the magic.
Alex still finds Christmas more stressful than special. His routine is disrupted, he gets sugared up
by well-meaning relatives and spends days after in a state of agitation. It’s sad to see but he still finds his own
enjoyment and I’m learning to let him go at his own pace rather than dragging
him with me. It’s been difficult
managing his aggression at home these last two weeks, which makes me worry
about school next week. We’ll just have
to see what happens.
My favourite parts of this holiday season have been:
Rediscovering the Muppet Christmas Carol with Nathan. I’d forgotten how fabulous Dickens can be
when you have puppets involved. And
Michael Caine does a great job as Scrooge.
We picked up the DVD at the beginning of the season.
Decorating the tree with Nathan and my parents. Usually I end up doing it by myself but this
year I had helpers. It makes things more
fun to have other people joining in. We
put on Christmas carols and I think everyone had a good time.
Visiting with my sisters while they were here from
Toronto. I got to spend some one on one
time with both of them. And we had a lot
of fun Christmas night playing The Hobbit (board game) and Mah Jong.
Our visit to Santa.
Not only was Nathan good as gold but we got see a surprise marriage
proposal with the couple ahead of us.
Nice to still see some romance and optimism in the world. For the record, Nathan didn’t ask Santa for
anything specific this year. He just
wanted some new toys.
Having Christmas crafts from both kids to put on the tree
and around the house. Alex made a wreath
of hand cutouts and a hand and foot cutout reindeer head for the tree. Nathan made a lightbulb reindeer for the
tree, a red and green candle holder, a giant paper candy cane and a wreath.
My gift from Dave (although it’s only funny if you watch
Castle). On the show, Castle is a writer
who follows around a police detective and helps her to solve crimes. All the police have flak jackets that say
NYPD on them. He got one which said
“Writer.” Dave got me a t-shirt with the
same “Writer” on it.
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