Yule Sam

We got maybe 6-8" of snow last night, and some snow earlier on this week. Of course we will try to get Sam outside to enjoy the snow. Susan made an effort to do this earlier this week. He resisted and resisted and finally went out. After a brief time throwing snow balls in the creek he asked to come back in. It reminded me of my childhood--my Mom would always drag us out sledding, and we would whine and complain and seize the first opportunity to come back inside. Sam's a real chip off the old block. :-)

This week we got the tree up.

Sam was eager to help with the decorating. We also put up the nativity scene, which Sam was very interested in. It stuck with him--we were at the grocery store later and he spotted a display with an elf in a sled and Sam excitedly said, "Daddy! It's a nativity!" No, it doesn't have Jesus, so it's not a nativity. Soon we saw another display of presents and trees. "Daddy, a nativity!" Nope, no Jesus in this one either! Little by little he's catching on.

Susan was explaining to him that Christmas is Jesus' birthday, and (do all kids do this?) he eagerly asked if Jesus would be there. I'm glad I wasn't the one to explain. Jesus is sort of here with us but not really because he'll come back later and make everything right. Long story short--we'll celebrate his birthday without him being there in person. Who wouldn't find that confusing?

Sam's tired today. We had small group at our house, and he was keyed up enough that didn't fall asleep til long after his bedtime.

He wasn't being naughty--he really just couldn't sleep. At one point I was taking a turn trying to get him down. I told him to close his eyes and think about how we could throw snowballs in the creek the next day. Seemed like a good idea.

When Sam was still awake a little later, Susan went in to try again. Sam said "Dad told me to think about something to go to sleep." Susan asked if he'd tried it. He replied in disgust, "No, it made me wake up!"

Fun moment of the week: Susan needed to do some Christmas shopping, so we all went to the mall, and I watched Sam. I took Sam to a candle store--want to get something to replace the "no one's lived here for a year" smell. Anyway, they have racks of tea candles with a range of scents, and Sam had a whale of a time smelling all of them, eagerly picking his favorite. I bought three of these little guys and Sam had been carrying them around happily ever since. I even let him choose one of them and--maybe not a surprise--he chose a scent called "chocolate cupcake".

A final photo: Sam playing with buttons from Aunt Amy's button box. They became loot for the pirates to hoard and fight over. Thank goodness for little distractions!