A Child's Christmas in Wonderland

The latest nighttime prayer:

"Day doo, Gah, (Thank you, God) for Mama, cats, fire, Linny (the Guinea, from Wonder Pets), Papa, Tampah & Tamma (Grandpa and Grandma), candy canes, my game, and AMEN!" (The cats and fire bit came from the "Bolt" book we read just before bedtime, in which Bolt the Wonder Dog makes a cat friend and makes a fire rescue.) I get such a kick out of his little prayers every night. You never know what or who he will pray for!

We were kickin' it old school this evening. One of the little gifts my mom gave us for Christmas was one of those PacMan joysticks you can hook up to a TV.


So now this "video game-free" house owns a video game. It might not be a Wii or a Playstation, but we certainly are having fun with it. It reminds me of the Commodore 64 box my brother and I shared growing up. (Did anyone else out there own one? Or maybe a Vic-somethingorother?) We weren't cool enough to own an Atari, but we at least had the Commodore 64 to hook up to our TV and play a few games on, including Frogger. I just remember Frogger as these moving squares that represented cars and trucks on the road, and Frogger (a green moving blob) had to jump across them without getting hit. It's pretty hilarious (and amazing) to think how far graphics have come in the last 25 years or so.

In fact, it really was sort of an old school Christmas for my boy, at least toy-wise. He got his first set of Legos (not the big toddler chunky ones, but real Legos), Lincoln Logs, PacMan, some Little Golden Books, candy canes (of course, since that is the only thing he specifically asked for), a LiteBrite, some Dr. Seuss items, and a small Indian teepee (for play with the cowboys and Indians he already owns). He got a few more items than that, but those are all the old school gifts I can think of. My husband and I each received a small assortment of gifts from my mom and my brother and sister-in-law as well, my favorite items being the Anthropologie giftcard (of course) and a dishtowel with a sepia-toned photo of a Vespa scooter on it. My mom is pretty good at finding some pretty cool and quirky little items.

Our Christmas Day was nice and quiet. We had to wake up my son to start the present-opening festivities -- I thought for sure last year would be the last time he was somewhat clueless about Christmas, but nope, we squeaked by one more year of sleeping in a little! After the presents, we ate breakfast with my mom. I made blueberry upside-down pancakes, and they were so good. Then we trooped over to the movie theater to catch a movie at 10:15am -- I can honestly say I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw such an early movie! It paid off, though, because the movie theaters weren't busy yet, and we got out right at noon, just in time for lunch. We took the boy to see "The Tale of Despereaux".


So cute. I had read the book (yes, I sometimes read children's books for fun), and I had the opportunity to meet the author the summer before and get a few signed copies of her books, so it made me all the more excited to see this movie. I highly recommend it, especially because it had some really great life lessons about telling the truth, the importance of forgiveness, actions and consequences, and being yourself.

Then we had the afternoon to laze around and nap, followed by dinner at my cousin's house. We are very blessed to have my cousin and his wife live so close to us (same neighborhood, about 5 or 6 blocks south of us). They have five kids (9,7,5,3, and 1), so holidays are always a blast.

That's my Christmas in a nutshell. Nice and laidback and very enjoyable. How was yours?