I have a three year old who, despite my best efforts at emphasizing the true meaning of Christmas, continues to walk around singing “Oh I wonner what I’m gonna get for Cwistmash!”
(Seriously, that lyric is from a Veggie Tales Christmas song that is all about how Christmas is NOT about getting toys. I like how Scarlette has edited the entire song down to just that one line.)
This is the first year that she really gets the whole “people are going to give me presents” thing and let me just tell you, she is a fan of that.
Sweet girl that she is, she also is really excited to give gifts to other people. Which is super cute when she walks around the house collecting random objects, puts them in a box, and then brings it to me while gleefully announcing “Mommy I got you a pwesents!”
(Except for that now I am missing my flash drive, coupon divider, and a jar of pumpkin butter. I suspect that they are in one of the gifts under the tree that are in bags, so that should make for an entertaining gift exchange for someone in our family.)
What is not as super cute is when she went into some sort of state of Christmas cheer in the middle of the grocery store and started frantically filling my basket with tiny toiletries while yelling “OH WE NEED TO GET DIS FOR NANA FOR CWISTMASH! WOW WE NEED GET DIS ONE FOR MY DADDY FOR CWISTMASH! OH! OKAY! WOOK AT DIS! WE NEED GET DIS FOR POP FOR CWISTMASH PWESENTS!”
(Okay, it was a little cute.)
She was like a little whirlwind as she darted around me grabbing mini bottles of shampoo and boxes of feminine products and hurled them towards my shopping basket.
She was so excited that I literally had to get down on my knees, hold her arms firmly to her sides and calm her down as we discussed how it was very wonderful to give gifts to other people and that we would choose them very carefully together and also how we don’t act completely crazy cakes in the middle of aisle seven.
To properly tell this story, I also should mention that we are not doing Santa Claus traditionally in our house. We had planned to avoid Santa all together but thanks to the fact that I did not screen Super Why’s Christmas Adventure, Scarlette is now all about Santa Claus and his flying red rocketship. That and the fact that random strangers constantly stop to ask her if Santa is going to visit her this year.
But so far we had still managed to avoid the whole “Santa brings presents” thing, until the day I tried to teach my child to do a good deed.
I took her with me to pick out a few gifts for family members and at the front of the store stood the bell ringer. So I gave Scarlette some money to put in the bucket because, you know, parenting.
And the sweet old man looked right at Scarlette and he said “God Bless You, little girl. You know what? Santa Claus is going to bring YOU a PONY.”
Oh yes he did.
And then Scarlette tiny voice went up about six more octaves as she jumped up and down and shrieked “SHANTA ISH GOING TO BWING ME A PONY?! A PONY?!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
She has not quit talking about said pony.
“Mommy, when ish Shanta going to comming to my houshe and bwing me dat pony on hish wed wocketship?”
“Shanta bwinging me a PONY to MY HOUSHE!”
“When is Shanta gonna be at my houshe wif dat pony for ME?”
Next time I’m mailing a check.
