Holiday Season with a Little Elf

Soaking up the Christmas glitz at the mall. This is one of the two looks you’re likely to get if you tell Alexander to smile for the camera.

So the pace is picking up a bit as we’re in full swing of the holiday season. Alexander is even more excited about absolutely everything this year:

He loves to help wrap presents (he holds the tape pieces on his fingers and gives them to you when you say you’re ready) and carry them down the stairs to put under the tree. And if you catch him, or Papa, or even the cat for that matter- “snooping” and ask him “Uh-Oh! Is Tatou snooping?” He just cracks up laughing and laughing.

He’s been delighting in all the “pretty” lights decorating houses and talks alot about “sun down, tree on” “sun up, tree off.” He loves to come down the stairs and turn on the Christmas tree, and is just in awe of all the sparkles and decorations when you go anywhere like… the mall- oooh then he can hardly contain his joy.

He’s actually a relatively decent shopper– especially when you take him during morning snack and he can munch on Cheerios for all or part of the trek. But he’ll certainly offer his opinion on presents. If you pick the wrong color shirt for Papa, he will not accept it in the cart no matter how many times you put it back in after he throws it out, and he’ll let you know which one you should pick instead. (It ended up being the gray one over navy).

He gives you the daily snow report. There’s either a “lalala sown” (a little snow), or “woah sown!” (a lot of snow). He’ll let you know several times a day whenever he looks outside. He will also excitedly point out any pictures of snowmen, angels, and Baby Jesus.

He’s added a few twists of his own to the nativity story. When decorating the house for Christmas, we unpacked his Little People Nativity much to his glowing smile “fun! fun!” But in addition to having the little people act out the story of Christ’s birth, we also have the wolf that visits the shepherds on a daily basis and who needs to be ‘shooed’ away several times by the shepherds. We tried to decide that the wolf (actually a sheepdog) was friendly and be accepted with the other characters, but that was short lived. Also, after the wise men come to see Baby Jesus everyone else gets invited to a big meal around the table, where of course, there must have been cake.