When Brad and I got married, several of my parents' friends got together and gave us the Willow Tree nativity set. I would never have thought to buy it for myself, but I LOVE it and am so glad we have it. Looking back, it's one of my favorite wedding gifts. I don't think Claire ever noticed it last year (I display it up higher than her head, and she was quite small last year), but she has been enamored this year. Maybe it wasn't a wise decision on my part, but I let her play with them fairly extensively when I unpacked them. I had the best time watching her play with the animals (she was less interested in the people and there are a LOT of animals in the set). My favorite moment was when I realized that she was attempting to give the sheep rides on the camel's back. She tried to drag the camel and riders around for a good half hour.
This is probably only half of the animals in the set and pictured here are 3 sheep, an ox, and a camel. The sheep are climbing aboard.
Oh yeah, Mums the stuffed sheep and Mr. Squeaky also got to take turns on the camel ride.
Here's a relatively thorough shot of the nativity, after Claire helped me set it up. Please note that a wise man and a shepherd are in the Mary-Joseph-Jesus'spot. We're working on it, y'all.
We had a blast setting up the tree with Claire. She was basically bouncing up and down until we got the tree out of the box and was actually fairly helpful in branch fluffing. And when the lights came on, it was magical. I wish you could have seen it. She was a little bit impatient with me while I was trying to untangle the ornament hooks; I was clearly not fast enough. In my defense, I was trying to untangle hooks and mentally censor which ornaments were Claire-friendly for this year and which needed to be saved for future years. That's a lot of fine-motor skill and mental acumen all at one time! We let Claire hang most of the ornaments (with a little help), which meant that we ended up with some interesting ornament placement. I haven't fixed it, though; she was so intentional in her placement and did it with such enthusiasm that I couldn't bring myself to change anything. Since the original tree decorating, she has added other "ormaments," like fabric scraps she found, craft pom poms, and play necklaces and bracelets. Everyday she asks to see "our beautiful tree," so I'd say that she's quite pleased with her work.
Waiting so very impatiently for us to unbox the tree.
Just staring at it, waiting for us to get our act together and get the show on the road.
Finally!
The magical moment. She gasped and squealed.
Kat captured this great action shot. Bear was so very determined and focused on this important task.
Carefully placing and arranging.
Yes, we were watching "Christmas with the Kranks."
She condescended to let Kat help her.
Here's a fairly accurate sample of what our tree looks like. It's so...special.
A few years ago, my mom gave me this Hallmark ornament of the Fisher Price rotary dial phone that all kids my age played with in the mid-80's. Claire has admired it for the past two Christmases. Back in April, when she and I were in Alabama to help my mom and aunt sort through my Granddaddy's belongings, I asked if I could bring one of these (non-rotary but similar style) phones home with me for Claire to play with. She has thoroughly enjoyed playing with it, and when she saw the Fisher Price ornament, she ran to get "her" phone. She plunked it down under the tree and told me it was "JUST LIKE THE RED PHONE, MOMMY!"
Because her love of Christmas trees is so strong, I decided that I really wanted to get her a small one of her very own. We have an At Home store in town with gazillions of tree options, so we headed there to find one. She was so excited when we walked in and there were Christmas trees of all shapes, sizes, and colors set up everywhere. We snapped a picture in front of the pink Eloise tree (spoiler: we didn't buy that one) and then let her roam among the trees for a while (under supervision, of course). We ended up getting her a pre-lit tree that's just a smidgen taller than her and pretty thin, along with some shatter-proof ornaments and a gold star for the top (because I was NOT going to have that discussion 3984726 times). We set it up, helped her decorate it, and she said, "My Christmas tree is PERFECT, Mommy!" She admires it everyday, which makes me feel we got our money's worth.
The Eloise tree!
Proudly introducing her perfect Christmas tree.
The Durham Museum of Life and Science (that I have mentioned on occasion) has an annual Santa Train. There's a train you can ride any given day that rides you around the wooded museum property, and at Christmas, they transform it into the Santa Train that takes you to the North Pole. I knew I wanted to do that with Claire; she LOVES trains, and I could only imagine that the train at Christmas time would thrill her little heart. I was mostly right. She was extremely wary of Santa when he came by our train bench. That's fine; I don't need her to be super cozy with unfamiliar men, especially since we don't really do Santa. She doesn't get the whole Santa concept, as we've never discussed it or promoted it at home (we're not anti-Santa; we've just chosen not to teach her Santa lore. We teach Jesus stories and figure she'll pick up Santa stuff along the way). She did enjoy the hot chocolate and marshmallows, the light structures, the train, the "North Pole," and the general merriment. She keeps saying she wants to go back to "the surprise," so I'd say it was a success!
The picture I got on our way to the museum. She was very excited about the surprise.
Crummy nighttime shot of the "North Pole."
Crummy nighttime shot of Brad and Claire being an ice skating penguin and polar bear. It was nearly impossible to get them both looking at me at the same time. Ahem, Brad.
Checking out the light trees.
Crummy nighttime shot of Claire with the light trees. At least I tried.
And, in true Claire fashion, she's made a few hilarious comments about Christmas-y things over the past few weeks:
We've watched quite a bit of "A Very Monkey Christmas," known around here as "Christmas George." It's the Curious George Christmas movie, and it really is rather cute. She asks to watch it multiple times a day, although she doesn't get to. During the opening credits, there's a part where George pulls on a ribbon that opens a bow, revealing the words "Curious George." When George picks up the ribbon, before he starts pulling, Claire always says, "Mommy! Are you ready? George is going to pull the Curious!!" I don't remember telling her that those words say "Curious George," but somehow she figured it out. Proud.
She has also started this hilarious little habit of saying that we're doing such-and-such so WE CAN BE CHRISTMAS! No idea where she got it, but she says it regularly. Example: "Mommy put up the rug (she means the banister garland) so WE CAN BE CHRISTMAS!" or "Let's turn on the lights of our beautiful tree so WE CAN BE CHRISTMAS!" It's so funny; I feel like she looks and sounds like a cartoon character when she does that.
The first line of "Jingle Bells" is "Crashing through the snow..."
When she sees any unfamiliar boxes or bags (which is often this time of year) she says, "What's IN the bag?" which isn't a funny question, but her inflection on the word "in" sounds hilarious. Read it out loud; I think you'll see what I mean.
We've had a blast with Claire this Christmas. Christmas is always fun around here, but she's given us such a funny time this year, and we have loved it. I hope it stays this way for a long time.
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