Santa came!!!

Merry Christmas!! Santa came last night!!! Now I realize that it isn’t Dec 25, but we had a deal with Santa. We would get ready for him to come early so that Caleb could open his presents at home and we wouldn’t have to worry with finding extra space in the car on the way back from middle TN. We put the tree up before Thanksgiving, all of our presents are wrapped, and I managed to get the house cleaned. The Christmas cards are ready except for stamps and the pictures. So Santa came and brought lots of fun presents for us. Caleb finally woke up around 9:30 (he’s a night owl) and he remembered that Santa was supposed to come. He said “santa…presents…tree?”. We got him up after a few games of “where’d he go, daddy? Where’d he go, momma?” (I’ll explain later). He walked into the living room right past the presents and almost walked right into his new train table. I don’t think he really knew what that was but he stood by it, patted and said “table? One…two tables!” (the second table is the one in the kitchen). Then we pointed him toward the presents and he said “oh wow! Presents!”. I don’t think he understood that he was supposed to open them because he just looked at them at first. I handed him one and told him to open it. He started ripping small pieces of wrapping paper off that put my paper shredder to shame. I tried to show him how to tear it open with one big rip. He finally got to where he could see what was in it, a little red car, and said “help! Help! It’s stuck! It’s stuck!”. We helped him open it and he couldn’t be happier with what Santa brought. He played and played with his car and I look around at all of the other presents under the tree and thought…hmmm, Santa brought him way more than he needed and unwrapping those things was going to take forever! We finally got them all opened and I made some Christmas tree muffins for breakfast. I knew Caleb would not sit down and eat anything because he would be too excited. Caleb was sitting beside the Christmas tree as Jason showed him the muffin and he pointed to the muffin and the Christmas tree and said “two trees…one…two”. Then he took a bite out of the top of the muffin and looked at it with a horrified look on his face and said “oh-no!”. Now I know you are thinking those must have been some nasty muffins, but they were good. He said that because he damaged the Christmas tree muffin. After Jason got him to eat most of the “birthday muffin” (adding birthday in front of any food automatically makes it a fun treat that Caleb will try…hmm, wonder if birthday broccoli would work), we got ready to go to the movies....Caleb's first movie.

We took Caleb to see Madagascar Return to Africa. We were a tad bit late which we thought would be perfect to miss the previews. Unfortunately they were having sound issues and started the movie late so we had to sit through that mess. Normally I don’t mind them, but there were previews I didn’t necessarily want my two year old to see. Jason and I kept trying to cover his eyes or get in front of him. Of course, that made him want to see it more and he would lift himself up a little further in his chair to peek those big brown eyes over our hands. One preview was a movie about aliens vs. monsters. Yeah, nice, huh? It was actually an animated movie so that makes it ok, right? Aarghhhh!!! I mean, it really is a kid’s movie, but a bit much for a 2 year old that doesn’t understand sarcasm. Then there was another movie preview about some kids that rescue dogs. It seemed like it would be scary for a little kid that, again, didn’t understand sarcasm. I guess that’s what PG means, huh? I was disappointed in the movie. My friend warned me about the “butt” jokes and the potty humor. I was ok with that because that isn’t something that Caleb would catch on to right now. (Don’t worry, I know that’s coming soon.) The parts that bothered me were the scary parts in the beginning and the part where the old lady and the lion are fighting. I whispered to Caleb something about hitting being a no-no and he told the lion “no, no, no hitting”. When we first sat in the seats and Caleb saw the movie on the big screen, he looked at us with a big smile on his face and wide eyes and said “more…more” while signing the word more with his hands. It made my heart so happy to see him so excited.
Caleb sat in his chair for most of the movie but started getting antsy toward the end. He finally stood up and proclaimed “ALL DONE!”. A bag of goldfish crackers, fruit snacks and a sippy cup of milk bought us a few more minutes. I tried to bribe him with some raisons but they were buried at the bottom of my bag and I was having a hard time trying to find them while trying to keep him from slipping into the fold of the chair as he was trying with all of his might to stand up. Thank goodness there was no one on our side of the movie theatre and only a handful on the other side. Jason took him out, thinking he just needed to run around a bit. They came back after a few minutes and Caleb was none the quieter. We both left this time and tried to watch the last 10 minutes from the exit aisle. It would have worked except Caleb bolted away from us and stood front and center of the screen and started dancing and shouting “ohhhhhhh weeeeee!!!”. Then we grabbed him and hurried out.

After the movies, Caleb and Jason both got haircuts. Caleb sat still while I told him a story about Santa Claus. The barber was very impressed with how well he sat still for her. She complimented him on his good behavior and I smiled and nodded like it was nothing out of the ordinary for him to be so well behaved. Little did she know that I was holding my breath the whole time wondering when he was going to get restless and proclaim “ALL DONE” as he did in the theatre.

The rest of the day Caleb spent playing with his new toys, eating very little, and even got a long nap in. It was really a fun, wonderful day. I think this will be our tradition. I love that Caleb gets to open Santa’s presents here at home and we don’t have to worry about being anywhere at a certain time. And I love that we will still be able to celebrate Christmas with our families later in the week. It made me sad to think about not visiting our families at Christmas and at the same time, I really wanted Caleb to wake up on Christmas morning in his own bed and run to find out what Santa had left for him. I got to thinking more about it and the whole reason we celebrate Christmas is to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. We celebrate on December 25 but we don’t really know the exact date of his birth. So for all we know, December 20 is really Jesus’ birthday. So Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

Oh, and Santa forgot stockings at our house. Silly Santa. Maybe next year he will remember. Thankfully, Caleb doesn't understand about stockings yet or Santa would have been in big trouble. Or maybe Santa did it on purpose. Maybe if Caleb is a little bit nicer next year, he will get a stuffed stocking. Or maybe Santa is waiting until Caleb comes home after Christmas with our families to bring his stockings. Oh, the possiblites of what Santa can do. See, another advantage of having Christmas early.

Oh, and we had Burger King for lunch and homemade pizza for dinner. I love being a grownup and making traditions for our family. :)