The Christmas Magic

When I was growing up, Christmas morning was always magical, and I say that without even a touch of sarcasm.  My parents created so many traditions that made the holiday special, and they created such a sense of joyous anticipation that I always -- even as a teenager who should have been, like, so over that sort of thing -- woke up at 5 in the morning and had to be cajoled back to bed until a more sensible hour.  I would stay in my room, breathless and unable to sleep, positively vibrating with excitement over what was to come and watching the clock crawl along toward 6:30, when I could finally rouse everyone to go downstairs and see what awaited us. 

Since Felicity's still so little, I wasn't sure if she would have much enthusiasm for Christmas yet, although as I've relentlessly detailed here we did our best to make Advent and Christmas Eve special.  By the end of all that, I could tell she was pretty interested in the prospect of Santa bringing her a new baby doll, and had a toddler-sized sense of the much-ballyhooed birth of baby Jesus (when she saw the Little People Jesus for our nativity scene, she said, "Baby Jesus!  Asleep in the hay!").

And sure enough, the build-up paid off.  This is a lengthy video, but all you need to watch is the first minute or so to get a feel for her excitement.  It makes me tear up a little, because passing on the thrill of Christmas mornings is one of the things I've looked forward to the most about being a parent. 

(Transcription: "Do you want to go into the living room and see what Santa brought you?"  "A COOKIE!" [She was clearly still hung up on the cookie from the night before.] Then, as she runs into the living room, "LOOK AT THE BABY!  And a teddy bear."  Later on, she says, "Santa Claus ate up all the cookies!"  She talked about that AT LENGTH throughout the day, so I think that was her main takeaway -- Santa brings baby dolls and eats up cookies that are rightfully hers.)

This was the array of loot that greeted us all Christmas morning:

She handled the explosion of new stuff really well; she took some time to check out and play with each toy before moving on to the next one, and she didn't seem overwhelmed as I had feared she might be.  Nor did she fixate on one thing and refuse to acknowledge anything else.  It was actually very fun, although she did start to fall apart as her blood sugar dropped (I'd brought her milk and a cereal bar when I went to get her out of bed so she wouldn't be facing the Santa haul on an empty stomach).  So after a breakfast interlude we tackled the wrapped gifts.

New Baby, as she is so aptly called, was close at hand for all of the festivities.

When Felicity pulled this Little People traveler out of the airplane, she said, "It's Daddy!"  Haaaaaa.  (Incidentally, I got her the pink plane because it has a female pilot. Girl power!  Or...whatever.)

Felicity helped Joe and I open our own presents, and she was very patient as we went around and opened everything individually.  When she got bored seeing our books and shirts and hand-held vacuum (we are BIG on romance around here, y'all), she would play with some of her new toys or sit at her table and draw on the chalkboard or marvel over New Baby some more.  She was totally unimpressed by the clothes she got from us, I should note.  When she'd tear the wrapping paper and see that it was a sweater or some jeans, she'd cast it aside, ready to move on.  (She did like the dress that she found in her stocking, though -- she held it up and said, "A new clothe!")

All told, it was such a fun morning.  Years from now, I may not remember what all was under the tree (though I did get some fantastic gifts, so that's not to say they were unremarkable) or what we had for breakfast (or that I spent MANY HOURS in the kitchen that evening making dinner, ahem (all Pioneer Woman recipes and ALL worth it)), but I will remember how that day felt:  cozy and sweet and, yes, magical. 

(And now Felicity has lots more toys to play with, which makes our jobs easier during this looooong vacation week, with many hours to fill.)

"The Christmas magic was here at last, it has come at last, as it always has, and always will." -- Lauren Thompson, The Christmas Magic (my new favorite Christmas book of all time)

Comments

[Cara]

So, I'm curious, what is your toy management plan? My family did fairly well with my request to 'not go overboard' with stuff for my one year old, but I'm still not sure what to do with it all. And I'm guessing even my little house is big compared to a NY apartment. I have the rotating toy box already, and a few unloved toys are headed to Goodwill. But, I still think she has too much... Am I an evil mother to already be considering a purge?

[Allison]

Maggie was equally unthrilled with the clothing she received. She opened the box, pulled out the offending article of clothing, put it back neatly and put the lid back on the box. LOL.

[ris]

Meredith, you and Felicity have the loveliest color of hair ever. I'm just green with jealousy over here, about your hair AND her toys haul. Looks like you guys had a very merry Christmas!

[Lawyerish]

Cara - Before Christmas, I put a bunch of Felicity's less-loved toys in a large canvas bin in her closet. That freed up enough space for the new stuff. We have a storage bench in the living room that we use to contain some of the clutter, and in her room we have two bookshelves with bins in the bottom. Everything pretty much fits in those, but as she gets older and wants a play kitchen and that sort of thing, we're kind of screwed as I don't know where those will go!