As it seems to be each year, the Christmas season is a fun and exhausting whirlwind.
This is particularly so with both kids off school for two full weeks. That so-called “break” turns into a two-week Christmas mania of special events, family activities and lots of gifts.
My boys don’t fully realize it at their young ages of 6 and 5, but they are incredibly blessed with generous family members who go out of their way to spread their cheer and love for them.
Along with that, some other highlights included:
Although nobody enjoys gifts more than him, Beckett seems to always be aware of the true reason for the season. It’s remarkable to me how often he works God and Jesus into daily conversations.
On Christmas morning, even amidst all the hysteria, he kept it in mind, referring more than once to the spiritual meaning behind the holiday. Because he has a unique way of putting things into words, he often cracks me up with these references.
For example, after realizing he received the gift he wanted the most this year — an Xbox One — he seemed especially thankful. In fact, after opening a couple games, he pointed upward with both pointer fingers, mocking a football player he recently saw, and said, “Thank you God and Santa and thank you for sacrificing your only son, Jesus.”
I like the fact he worked Santa into the equation. He is only 6 years old after all.
A few days before Christmas, we arranged for Santa to send the boys a video email.
There are many services that offer this sort of personal communication these days and we knew the kids would get a kick out of it. The problem was the excitement for the holidays was resulting in some bad decisions and disrespectful behavior, and I thought maybe they needed to be sent a message that Santa was still watching.
On the website that creates the email, you can enter several different personal items, such as name, photo, grade, desired gift and hobbies, to be worked into the email from Santa. Another option was to click how the child’s was throughout the year — naughty, not so nice or nice.
Because of the recent issues we were having with smart mouthing and not listening, I clicked “not so nice,” thinking Santa would have a creative way of reminding them he is always watching and how important it is to be respectful. The plan being if it modified behavior to a couple days later have a new message delivered.
Because Carson was not around at that moment, we showed the email first to Beckett, who was enthralled with the whole thing and felt so privileged to be getting a personal message from Santa. He was amazed with the whole thing, particularly that he knew where he lived and his grade. The email continued with the elves researching his year and determining whether he made the “nice” list or not. Santa concluded it was unknown because of poor choices he had been making and reminded him how important it was to be nice.
The poor kid took it hard and had a horrible meltdown. While Pam comforted him, I immediately went to the computer to redo the message with the “nice” list, but Pam talked me out of showing it to him to see if it altered his behavior.
Eventually, he settled down and realized over the next couple days he needed to behave better and change his ways. It turned out to be successful albeit with some drama.
We always like to hold back a surprise for the kids after all the gifts from Santa have been opened and this year we pulled off a good one.
Under the tree this year was luggage for the boys, which they both liked and wheeled around for a couple minutes. Later, after things had settled down a bit, we told them about a note in the bags from Santa. Since Beckett is a reader now, he did the honors and it was a trip to Great Wolf Lodge the next week.
Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Va. is both boys’ favorite place to visit at this time. That will probably all change once Disney World enters their lives, but for now they love this place, which features an indoor water park among other kid-centric amenities.
Last year’s visit was too much fun for Carson, who passed out on the dinner table both nights from complete exhaustion. This year was a slightly different story, but it again tired him out. Instead of sleeping at dinner, he fell asleep during story time one night in the lodge lobby in Pam’s lap and the next night dozed off while I was carrying him back to the hotel room.
The major change with Beckett between this visit and a year ago was his independence. While he wanted to ride some slides with us and have lunch and such, he was anxious to tackle the water park with some newfound friends. At one point, he and I were on our way to hit the biggest slide in the place when he came across a friend from the day before. They hugged and exchanged high-fives and took off up the steps to the slide leaving me behind. It stung for a second, but I was happy to see it.
Now if I only can get him to put his own socks and shoes on in the morning. That’s where his independent will seems to stop at this point.