It's Not Christmas Until There's a Cat Under the Tree

Proud of My Baby

Yesterday, Fin was doing her homework which was to draw a picture from one of the books we read last week. She has had trouble drawing things that look like actual objects. She wanted to draw Babar's car. Look what a great job she did! She started with the wheels and moved from there. She even did the air vents and a hood ornament. Obviously signs of great brilliance. :)

Lighting the Candles and Decorating, Part Deux

Holiday season is in full swing in our house. I was holding off until closer to Christmas. I didn't want to torture Fin with tales of a special day that seems forever in the distance to a 4-year-old.

Friday we celebrated Chanukah at Nancy and Mr. Pat's house. There were homemade potato latkes and fried chicken. A traditional, Southern Chanukah dinner. Fin received tons and tons of presents from them and from our friends, the E family, in Florida. Nancy had been saving up presents during the long wait for Fin's arrival and a chair full of packages was the result. Fin had a blast. Except, when Nancy lit the menorah, Fin said, "Is it my birf-day?"

First latke, smeared with sour cream.


Mr. Pat can spin that dreidel!


Asking Nancy to babysit her new "puppy" from the E family.


Makin' latkes with Nancy.


Saturday, we decorated her "Jimmie Tree" in her room. She had a blast.


How do you put the hook on?


The finished project.


Then, this afternoon, we went shopping for our tree. She found one she wanted.


It was $60 and too tall for me to decorate.


We ended up with it's runty little brother, but it is still pretty. I decorated as much as I could while she was napping. I wasn't sure our relationship would survive a second tree-decorating. She is making some paper ornaments. We should have pics tomorrow.

This afternoon, she was using plastic boxes as pretend presents. She wanted me to play Santa, so I obliged. Then, she ran in her room and came back with some items in one of boxes as a present for "Santa". It was an alphabet book she made in school of the letter "A" and a penny. Aaawwwwwwww!

Yes, Virginia, They DO Exist

Tomorrow night I will post some holiday pics; but, tonight, a short tale.

I was in Barnes and Noble in a nearby "suburb city" shopping and I decided to visit the gift wrap table to save a little time and throw a couple of bucks at the high school crew team. A couple of the items were for Chanukah presents, so they gamely dug up the Chanukah paper and blew the dust from it. As two teenagers mangled the wrap jobs (no one thought to teach them how to wrap a present first?), the perfectly polite adult chaperone said, "Can I ask you a question about Chanukah?" I told her I would answer with whatever knowledge I had, but I am not an expert. Darn! I couldn't remember when... or who was invading... or anything! "So," she said, "Do you open the Chanukah presents on Christmas?"

Rarely am I stunned into silence. I stared at her hoping she was kidding. Could she really have asked a question with so little thought behind it? Did she think Chanukah was a holiday decorating scheme or something? I explained to her that Chankuah gifts were opened on Chanukah. I wasn't setting foot on the Jesus path, I thought her brain might implode.

As I walked out of the store, what kept ringing through my head was, "Yes, Virginia, there IS such a thing as a stupid question."

Decking the Halls... Slowly

Fin has been bugging me for a tree, which I don't plan to do until this weekend, but we did start doing the small, artificial one in her room. She is excited with the lights and garland, but I needed to wait for a night I have more patience to do the ornaments.

We did, however, hook up Larry. An unexpected trip to KMart introduced me to Larry, a moving, light-up lobster in a Santa hat. Is this how you spell t-a-c-k-y? But, I fell in absolute love and he was on sale. Nancy was with me as I came to the realization that the condo has no exterior plugs and I am not going to leave the door cracked when it's 40. I talked myself out of it. Then Nancy says in her carefree, I-don't-have-to-pay-for-Fin's-college way, "Put it on the hearth." That was the only thing my wavering self-control had to hear. Larry is now living on our hearth.


Fin brought in her baby named "Lobster" so he could see the big lobster, and she put him so he could sit on Larry's (aka Santa Lobster) lap. Wonder what Lobster wanted for Christmas?


And, finally, what do all kids get in their advent calendars on the first night of Chanukah? A dreidel, of course!