Christmas

One of the interesting things about having kids is seeing how they react differently to annual holidays each year.

Vincent is at the age where he realizes it's Christmas and gets excited for every aspect of it without focusing so much on the fact that he can ask for specific presents and possibly even (gulp) get them! Peter is at the age where he wants to chew on Christmas.

After church on Christmas Eve, Vincent and I scattered some reindeer food (oatmeal mixed with glitter that school gave him) on the front lawn, then Rose helped him pick out cookies and an apple for Santa and his crew. I'll note that over the past month, Vincent has been worried about Santa actually setting foot in our house. He prefers the presents get in and the snacks get out via "magic." That way we don't have to see Santa, thus avoiding fear! He seemed to buy this even though he asked several times if he'd be hearing the reindeers' "jingle bells" from his bed.

Ah to be young, ridiculously cute and kind of terrified. I've been there, kid. Minus the cute.

Both boys slept until 8:30 (!) on Christmas morning before we all headed down for THE GREAT UNWRAPPING. To be honest, it was actually pretty mellow. Vincent opened one present at a time and even stopped to incorporate them into his life. For example - he'd open a package of Disney guys, get excited about them and immediately pop them into the basket with his others. He even took the clothes out of their boxes and held them up!

Peter liked the larger boxes specifically because they provided his favorite new thing about life - leverage. He pulled himself up onto them and stood there for minutes at a time, laughing and screaming at Vincent.

After the paper cleared, we headed on over to Mom-Moms for THE GREAT UNWRAPPING 2, where the boys were showered with more gifts. Round 3 occurred at Aunt Alice's with my side of the family, before ending up at Nonna's where Rose's side had arrived bearing gifts aplenty. It was pretty amazing to see the haul these kids brought in.

What's going to be even more amazing is seeing how Rose and I fit everything into this place. We may sell tickets.

P.S.: Cool byproduct of Christmas from a parent's perspective - NEW INSTRUMENTS! Vincent got a bad*ss electronic drum kit from Mom-Mom and Grampa AND a cool starter drumkit from Uncle George. We've already started writing our rock opera - Clownophenia.