Christmas Morning

Santa was kind to the Bear this year. Her list comprised of the following five things:

• Car Pillow (for her to rest during road trips)
• Books
• Paints
• Long Sleeve Leotard
• Nightgown

The elves were able to, luckily, construct a suitable car pillow. There was a bit of doubt about their ability to produce such a device, but those little guys managed a nice purple one that looks a lot like the one One Step Ahead sells.

Books were plentiful. New editions of some of her faves: Llama Llama Mad at Mama, Pecorino Plays Ball, Harold at the North Pole, Berenstein Bears Messy Room, Knuffle Bunny Too, and Laurie Keller's hilarious Open Wide Tooth School Inside among others.

The "big gift" was a Melissa & Doug art/chalkboard/dry erase easel and a lot of paints. It was all put together for her, next to the tree. Very nice touch by the big guy.

Two long sleeve leotards were opened and immediately put on, along with a new black tutu/skirt with silver glittery stars. This became the Christmas morning attire, complete with a sceptre in her stocking. She truly is a little Princess, there is no fighting it. As long as the word Disney is not planted in front of that word, I'm cool with it...'cause they don't own the Princess world dammit. In fact, the Mrs. and I were talking about starting our own line of Princess books and dolls to complete with those bastards.

She is really into "getting married". Her little stuffed Gustafer will serve as a silly J.O.P. and marry her and I (yeah, a little odd) before we dance around the house. Despite her girly tendencies, she flipped out when my mom gave her a Michigan State Spartans (daddy's team) kid's uniform, complete with helmet. She wore it immediately (over top the leotard that had been packed for the trip to Grandmom's) with pride, along side her boy cousins who got Eagles and Bengals NFL sets.

The sweetest thing about the whole day? The Bear wanted to help the Mouse open the first couple gifts on Christmas morn. I had to convince her to find some of her own packages to open and do so without discouraging the kindness and selflessness that she possesses. Amazingly beautiful to witness her love for her kid sis.

Christmas in my family is a slower affair than most. At my parent's house, we take turns opening and do our best to watch and enjoy other's gifts. This tradition has been made slightly more difficult by the presence of 7 children in the family now, ranging from age 7 months to 9 years but we still manage to pace ourselves and stretch out the Christmas experience for a good 5-6 hours. At my own house, we didn't even get to open everything, even after 4 hours (with a break for breakfast). We read 1/2 the books as she opened them (a habit of the Bear's that I adore) and played with a lot of the toys fresh out of the boxes.

All in all a nice day that went too fast.

In other, non-holiday news...

The Bear is being moved up to the next class at school. In 2008 she will start Pre-K. Exciting, because she will be in a room with kids that are older and can do a bit more, like write letters and such. Scary because she is not socially "there-yet". But, her teacher's thinks that at 3 3/4 years old she is already getting bored in her preschool classroom. Something that I predicted would happen eventually, over a year ago.