Christmas is Coming

We had one excited little girl on our hands Saturday when we told her we were going to get a Christmas tree. Dear Husband put her down for her nap, telling her that after her nap we would go get a Christmas tree. She laid in her bed and talked and sang and carried on for a couple hours and never did sleep. Dear Husband finally went to get her up, and upon his entrance to her bedroom, she excitedly exclaimed, "I sleep, and now we can go get a Christmas tree!" Well...I guess it was the thought that counted and not the actual zzzzzzz's, huh?

So we headed up to the local Ace Hardware store (something got lost in the translation of getting a Christmas tree when we left Oregon) to pick a tree out of the parking lot. It's just not quite the same as going to a tree farm and getting a beautiful tree cut right under your nose. Dear Husband scoffs each year at the fact that many of the trees for sale in this region have been spray painted for color. The first year we moved here, we sought out a tree farm and, not finding any trees from the local area we liked, picked one of their pre-cuts. We discovered when we got the tree back home that it had actually been shipped from the same location where we previously lived in Oregon. Go figure. The tree also lost its needles rather early that year, probably because it was less than fresh by the time it traveled 2,000 miles to get to us. The price we had to pay and the lifspan of the tree just didn't make it worthwhile. Since then, we have settled for a tree from the Ace Hardware parking lot. So Dear Daughter will grow up thinking that Christmas trees come from the local hardware store. *sigh*

Nonetheless, Dear Daughter was giddy with excitement running around the trees and hiding and squealing, sticking her head out the fence and waving at the cars passing by on on the city street bordering the hardware parking lot.

When we got the tree home she jumped around the living room and squealed and couldn't wait to hang the shiny Christmas balls on the tree. She's been fixated on Christmas balls because she saw them on the Grinch Who Stole Christmas video, which she has been watching since before Halloween. We did not actually have any of the old standard shiny ball ornaments, so Saturday morning we had to go to the local Stuff-Mart and purchase some. There was no convincing Dear Daughter that we could have a tree without the Christmas ball ornaments.

Dear Daughter seems to be mixed up about Christmas and thinks that it is akin to her birthday, complete with balloons. I think this is due, in part, to the fact that G. Uncle Ron and G. Aunt Pat are coming to visit, and Dear Daughter remembers them clearly from her birthday a few months ago. When they came, we had a birthday party for her, complete with balloons. I've been telling her that Christmas is actually Jesus' birthday. She responds by asking the usual question whenever we talk about Jesus, "Where is Jesus at?" It's precious.

At any rate, the decorating was fun for Dear Daughter and the adults who live in the home as well.


Indicentally, Dear Daughter seems to not be napping more than she is napping these days. She does a nice job of laying in her bed and singing and talking to her stuffed animals and never complains about the quiet time, but about 75% of the time for the past couple weeks, she has not napped. I think it was my Dear Mother-in-Law who stated something about Dear Daughter being a live wire like her mother, never letting much grass grow beneath her feet. Indeed, Dear Daughter greets me most days with, "Where are we going to go today?" and sometimes asks, "Can we go some places?" As I lay in bed with her one night talking with the lights out, I mentioned that we would need to get her a poster to hang in the new open space by her bed (the one that used to be covered partially by a crib rail). The next day at nap time we were lying together snuggling again, and Dear Daughter started to talk about needing some pictures or posters and pointed her chubby little finger at the space on the wall. I said, "Yes, we will have to go to Hobby Lobby or Michael's or something, won't we?" She says, in her charming little inquisitive voice, "What's Michael's?" I explained it was like Hobby Lobby, where she loves to go and look at the chickens that Grandma H is collecting in her kitchen. I left her for her nap, which was another non-nap time with Dear Daughter talking and singing for a couple hours. When I went to get her up, she excitedly says to me, "Let's go to Michael's!" I hadn't meant we would go that very day as soon as naptime was over.

Alas, I realized my time alone with Dear Daughter is growing quite short, as is my ability to just pack her up and take her somewhere fairly quickly and easily. With a newborn due any time, life will change dramatically again. And so I find myself indulging Dear Daughter quite a lot lately, trying to make every moment and memory last and have as many special memories with her as possible before I get distracted. In short, we went to Michael's. Nevermind the fact that I had just finished scrubbing and waxing the kitchen floor (with help from Dear Husband) and the entire house was in a disarray with kitchen furniture scattered about, windows open to dry the floor quickly (thanks to a balmy 65 degree day), and I in my attractive cleaning attire looking quite bedraggled. Ah well, "the rest can wait," I figured. And off we went to get pictures to hang above Dear Daughter's bed.

Life is precious and time too short.