It's coming

It's been probably close to a month since E sprang from the living room where he was watching a Glade holiday scent commercial and exclaimed " CHRISTMAS! It's coming!"

Since then we've watched every Christmas movie or special we own, have DVRed or is free "On demand" about a billion times and have had to go through every Christmas isle in any store we go to so E can get his fill of bells, and reindeer, and ho ho, and snowman, and snow, and trains and ornaments and "crackers" (nutcrackers). He's excitedly looked forward to his "Christmas chocolate" from his advent calendar everyday. We probably only had a week of meltdowns before he finally got the concept that he only got one each day no matter how many times he said "more please".

Our tree still just has lights (which E plugs in nearly every day) on it since E refuses to allow an ornament to stay on it. I think they call to him... "I'm so pretty and so festive and am shaped like a ball. Please take me off the tree and throw me around."

He's gotten me caught up in the holiday excitement and I've had a really good time making holiday treats with him. For the first time ever we made treats to take to the neighbors. You've never seen a kid so excited to give away cookies. The cute old couple next door invited us in and E had a blast looking at their ginormous decorated tree. Now every time we pass their house he insists on going in. I don't know for how much longer he is going to buy my excuses of "their not home right now" or "I think they are asleep".

We've also tried to find every inexpensive preschooler appropriate Christmas activity we can attend. For weeks, and potentially months, I'd been planning on taking the family on the Christmas train that was in town last Saturday. I called and asked if I needed to buy tickets over the phone and then assured me there were still tons of tickets for the noon and 3 o'clock trains. We pulled off a minor miracle to get to the train station well before noon so we could buy our tickets and get on the train. Thing was when we got there, there was no train and the station was locked. Silly me. I had just assumed we would board a train at the train station. Not so. Of course we had a screaming E when we got back into the car without riding the "Chrismas Twain".

We bought some time at the Winter Wonderland at Bass Pro Shop and a quick trip to Target where we divided and conquered to get presents for each other. At around 2 we were finally on our way to the Train museum (apparently the actual location for the train). I called to get directions and just before hanging up I confirmed that they still had tickets. "Nope, we're all sold out". AHHHHHHH. We still had a yelling 2 year old and no "Chrismas Twain" to take him to. As a last ditch effort we took him to this huge Christmas store that we heard had a tiny train for kids to ride. We take him in, somehow managing to maneuver him through all the shiny breakable ornaments to the back of the store where the train was. We finally found a Christmas train but we also found an "Out of Order" Sign. AHHHHH! Just our luck. Surprisingly E accepted that the train was broken. Despite the train debacle we had a good afternoon as a family (although I'm not ready to make it a tradition).

The final sign that Christmas is indeed coming was the snow that began to fall this morning and has begun to make a nice little blanket in the yard. I think this is a Christmas miracle brought about by the enthusiasm of my little elf. I think he might have been a little disappointed if things didn't play out like in the aforementioned Christmas specials that are now ingrained in his mind. I would have never guessed we'd have a White Christmas in the middle of OK.

I'm looking forward to tonight when we have the "Chrismas Fire" E has requested. I hope to be able to relay the real Christmas story to my little dude. Merry Christmas to you all!