Being the time of year that it is, with Christmas tree and ornaments put up in many a family room, including mine, it is no surprise that those households with toddlers have to keep an eye on their activities, all the time.
My son was fascinated when we put up the tree. He helped with the tree decorating, carefully placing his own special ornaments on the tree, just at his eye level. Every morning he looks at the tree, carefully inspects his ornaments to make sure they are in the same place he left them the night before, then goes about his day.
The tree held only ornaments, no brightly wrapped packages, until a couple of days ago when I decided it was time to begin putting gifts under it, of which there was only one. A square flat package arrived a couple of weeks ago from my very organized aunt in England which contained a brightly wrapped gift for my son. Since this was the only wrapped gift there was at the time, I placed it, with much fanfare, under the tree. My son watched entirely fixated as I told him the gift was just for him from his aunt and that he had to wait until Christmas to open it.
The day after I put the gift under the tree, my son woke up and ran into the family room to make sure his ornaments and his gift were just where he left them. Of course they were, the gift looking a little forlorn by itself under the 10-foot tall tree. My son knelt next to the small package, pointed at it looked at me, and said “mine.” To which I replied yes, but you have to wait before you open it. He nodded then went about his busy day of play.
It wasn't much later that I went into another room for less than five minutes and came back to find my son looking at a book. Not an unusual occurrence in my household, but the book looked different from any of his other books, it looked like it could have come from England. Don't ask me what characteristics books from England have that books here don't have because I wouldn't be able to tell you, it's sufficient to say they're just different and leave it at that.
As my son busily pointed out the elephant and the giraffe in the pages, I took a closer look and I knew I had never seen the book before, then I looked at the Christmas tree.
There, in a trail that wound itself from the bottom of the tree to the place my son sat were little bits of colored paper with a Santa face smiling from the floor here and there. Tell tale signs of a little boy overcome by the need to find out what was in the ever so attractive gift just for him.
He saw me looking at the trail, and gave me his best and sweetest smile, before pointing out more of the animals in the book. I had to laugh, it took me right back to my childhood and the feeling of overwhelming anticipation to open my Christmas gifts weeks before the momentous day arrived. I became quite adept at carefully opening up the wrapping paper on one end of the gift finding out what was inside, then carefully putting it all back together so well that no one ever knew that I had discovered what was inside.
I was so good that my brother, who never did get the hang of the unwrapping and rewrapping, used to try and either bribe or torture me depending on his mood, to find out what his gifts were too. This could only be characterized as one of the wonders of sibling life during the season of peace and joy.
Having a child around during the holiday season serves to remind you of the way you once were and how magical that time of year was when you were a child, something that is worth repeating and remembering every holiday season whether you sneak a look at a gift or not.
