In which Christmas preparations can give a guy a good scare.
It all starts innocently enough. You might, for example, take an evening to set up your Christmas tree and use the time to explain the holiday traditions to your son.
"Let's hang the ornaments on the tree."
"Ball?"
"Yes, they look like balls, don't they?"
"Ball?"
"No, they're ornaments, but they look like balls."
"Ball?"
"No, ornaments."
"Ball?"
"Sure. Ball."
This ritual is followed by the litany of "look, but don't touch." The litany works best when chanted while chasing your family heirloom clutching son around the room.
Next, we grease the skids for the impending meeting with Santa by going to Kathy Wren's annual holiday party. (You can see Kathy sharing her Tigger jack-in-the-box with Owen at left.) The Wren party is a huge and delightful Christmas event. It comes complete with a lighted display on the front yard, food, drinks, gifts and, most intriguing of all, the dancing robot Santa and Mrs. Claus.
(Robot Santa and Mrs. Claus can be folded flat and stored until needed. This is a useful skill more people should have.)
Now the hope was that exposure to that much holiday cheer would make the unsettling experience of a first time meeting with Santa a little less traumatic. No such luck.
Instead, we taught Owen about accessorizing. He was quite intrigued with little Katie's hair ribbon at the party. When he came home, he attached everything he could find to his head. ("Hat! Hat!") You can see him at left with dress-me doll Oleg's Velcro snail-- don't ask-- stuck to his hair.
We think Owen looks quite fetching. And, yes, this picture will resurface on prom night because Owen's parents are mean.
And so, all decked out, we went to see the primo Kansas City Santa Claus at Crown Center. The Crayola Adventure Land, cleverly placed between the door and Santa to make sure all the hopped up little monsters wore themselves out before climbing onto the Jolly Man's lap, was a big hit. Santa himself, as you can see from the photo at left, was less so.
It wasn't a complete loss, however. We did see, for the first time, Owen string sets of words together in an attempt to make a sentence. "Bye-bye, GO! Bye-bye, GO!" to be specific.
Undaunted, we gave Owen a little break and then ventured out for Santa opportunity number two. This time to the Great Plains Mall in Olathe for an 8:30 a.m. "breakfast" with St. Nick. The playland was only acceptable, breakfast was a nicely sugared bowl of Fruit Loops and Santa, while still ordered to "Bye-bye!" was more tolerable thanks to Godmother Norma who offered her body as a shield.
All in all, however, it was a good trip. We got to spend time with good friends Sherese and Daxton (pictured between the Santas) and the Schroeders.
Other than Santa, things have gone pretty well other than the horror of the snow. A big blanket of snow hit Kansas City, happily closing schools all over town and perplexing our little Siberian.
All decked out in his new snowsuit, we took him outdoors to play. He touched the white stuff once and that was plenty. He now uses the same word for snow and negation: "NO!" Owen finds it endlessly fascinating to look at, but he has no interest in venturing out into it.
In the question of nature versus nurture, here's where we put all that genetic stuff aside. He clearly gets his love of spring and summer from us.
One of the Christmas time traditions Owen did enjoy was the children's musical at Grandma and Grandpa's church. To be truthful, he enjoyed running back and forth on the far side of the gymnasium more than the singing, but he did enjoy it.
While Grandma and Grandpa chased him, Robin and I listened to about thirty preschoolers and kindergartners howl carols.
"We'll be coming to these things soon to hear Owen," Robin said.
That was the Christmas news that scared me.
