Christmas is coming...

" The goose is getting fat. Pleased to put a penny in the old man's hat..."

Oh, sorry...just some old Raffi song running through my head. LOL

When you are an adult everything goes by so fast. You "dread" putting up the decorations because you know that they will need to come back down shortly and you just don't don't want the extra work. The days rush by so quickly in a flurry of chores and every day task. Suddenly, it's Christmas Eve and you are wrapping that last present and filling the stockings...again..while you get the feeling of de'javu because you've done this so many times before. There are years when I am not so thrilled about Christmas and this is one of them. It's hard to stay upbeat when your husband has been given a lay off notice. It's difficult to be cheery when the Wii breaks 10 days before Christmas and you've bought several presents that directly relate to that Wii working. :(



But then God sends you a 5 year old who is filled with enough excitement to keep this entire house afloat. You have to smile when he walks into your room each morning with his big smile ( and missing tooth ) giving you a huge hug and saying " 11 more days and it's CHRISTMAS!".

This is a typical day with Jake:

He wakes up very early and runs to the advent calendar to hang the days ornament. Then he counts all the boxes that are left and rushes through the house giving everything that moves a hug and a report on how many more days are left before Christmas. Throughout the day we will all receive several reminders on this count down...followed by this statement given on tippy toes with folded hands, "and I'm sooooo EXCITED!". Even the cat has to sit through his hourly reports. LOL

I've been wrapping 1-3 presents a day and letting Jake put them under the tree. He will spread all the presents around and count them in several different ways -- how many are his, how many are red, how many there are total, ect. Often he will walk up to people and tell them how many presents they have in comparison with him. (he has the most). In the evening he runs through the house and turns off every single light, but plugs in the Christmas tree, fireplace lights and mini snowman tree. Then he does what we like to call, "the parade of presents". He will march past us with one present at a time and as he is passing by he says, "this one is dad's" or "this one is Jake from Alex". We don't do the Santa thing at our house and we never have. This year as Jacob was celebrating the presents I started flashing back to Caleb and Micah doing the same thing and I realized that the Santa believers are missing out on this fun tradition of embracing allllll those mysterious presents and imagining what each box holds.

Last night as I was sitting at the PC near the tree, Jake walked up to me and said, "Hey , we don't have one of those throwing holes where Santa tosses the presents to the tree". LOL LOL I pointed out the fireplace and he quickly ran to it and had a good look and then said, "Oh, well this is probably to far from the tree. If Santa comes here he is going to be lost and he won't know which pile of presents are mine." . I asked him how he knew about Santa and he said, "Haliegh told me that he's bringing all her presents and that he needs a throwing hole". Then I had to tell him that all his presents are already here because mom and dad buy them for him and Santa doesn't come here. He bit a big piece off his candy cane and said, "good , because I don't like him and I don't want him throwing my presents".

He goes to bed early every night on his own because he wants to wake back up and do the next day of the advent calendar. He gives me a big hug and says, "I love you mom....tomorrow are you gonna wrap another present?". heeheee



So....it's really hard to be a "scrooge" when you have a little ball of Christmas cheer living in your house.