The Holiday Virus

I just looked at the calendar this morning and it's December 14th!  10 days until Christmas eve! 

I've been trying to just float on by this holiday doing as little as possible.  We haven't put up ANY decorations, Didn't even bother dusting off the crappy door wreath even.  Not the blow up snow man, and the tree?  The tree that's still got lights on it from last year and is waiting, menacingly in it's box in the garage?  HAHAHA!  John and I have had exactly one conversation about holiday decorating this year and we decided, yea, we'll do it later. It's looking like later, may be 2009.

It's not that I'm feeling grinchy, just...lazy.  But I'm starting to snap out of it.  Starting to get my holiday groove on.  Thanks to Alex who demands to know where Santa is several times a day.  Alex and Santa, that's a whole other story. For years I'd get up on my soapbox and announce to John that we weren't going to DO Santa with our kids.  I didn't want to raise snotty little "gimmie gimmie" kids who thought the holidays were just a reason for them to get presents.  I also was a little hippie about it and didn't want to lie to my children.  I'd tell them that some kids believed in Santa, but that he's not real, just a symbol of the holiday spirit, yadda, yadda... But then I told Alex there was a monster in our hall closet and if he gets in there one more time, he might get bitten.  So, apparently I'm just fine with lying to my kids after all, especially if it could cause lifelong phobias of hall closets. (For the record, Alex STILL gets into the hall closet, so I don't think he's been scarred at all)

Alex is LOVING the holiday season.  He loves the decorations in people's yards and in stores we go to.  He loves talking about Santa and where is he? And will he bring presents?  He loves wrapping up random things around the house and giving them to me and John saying "Happy Christmas Birthday Mommy!"  When I see his eyes light up at the sight of a Christmas tree, how can I deny him?  He wants to know where Santa lives, how his sleigh flies, why he brings presents... I find myself telling him, repeating the things I "learned" about Santa when I was a kid, and it's FUN.  Watching his eyes get all big when I tell him the reindeer eat magic hay and it makes them fly.  Telling him Santa lives at the North Pole with toy making elves, that his favorite food is pomegranates... I think I get it now.  I think I understand why parents make up Santa and try to keep up the ruse as long as they can.  It's fun to watch your kids believe in magic. 

So, now I have work to do.  I want to write a letter to Santa with Alex and take it to Macy's (This is Alex's idea, he saw a commercial about it and now asks every day to take his Santa letter to Macy's).  I'm going to find the best Santa I can and have Alex sit on his lap (Which I've done every year just for the photo op, but this year, it will be for Alex).  We're going to make cookies and hang our stockings, and watch Santa Tracker on the news on Christmas eve.  Maybe we'll put up decorations.  Maybe not.  Ok, probably not.  But this week we are going to go look at lights and I'm going to check out some holiday books at the library to read to Alex (I think it's important for Alex to know about the other holidays celebrated during this season.). And I need to wrap Alex's presents in paper he's never seen before and write a letter to him from Santa in different handwriting than my own.

There's nothing like having a child catch the holiday spirit.  This is one bug I don't mind spreading around my household.