Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

A variation on the Christmas standard, as sung by me on the way home from the Christmas Eve service last night with three tired, over-excited children:

Oh, you'd better stop fussing
You'd better quit complaining
You'd better cease your fighting
I'm telling you why:
The number of presents you receive tomorrow is inversely proportionate
To the amount of screaming that happens from this point forward

You'd better stop whining
You'd better settle down
You'd better get quiet
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus is getting increasingly grumpy
And might be disinclined to give you everything you asked for tomorrow morning if the fussing doesn't stop

Santa Picture

Yesterday, Linda got the kids dressed for pictures with Santa, and I snapped a few shots of them on their way out the door.

And here's the big payoff:

Decking The Halls

Much to the kids' delight, we pulled our box of holiday decorations down from the attic over the weekend. The house is now sufficiently decked out in angels, candles, advent calendars, and stockings.

But no tree yet. I usually like to hold off until just a week or so before Christmas before putting up a tree. For the kids, this is much too long to wait. After fielding the question "When are we going to get a tree?" for the 53rd time, I started to insist that we were not getting a tree this year, but would instead just hang the ornaments on the vacuum cleaner. The kids thought this was funny at first, but as I persisted with this story, they started to wonder if I might be serious.

That night, after the kids went to bed, I followed through on my threat. The kids woke up the next morning to vacuum cleaner perched up on the tree stand, wrapped with lights, and topped with a star. Seeing their astonished reactions was most amusing, as is listening to them explain the Christmas vacuum when their friends come over the house to play.

The kids most likely suspect that we'll replace the vacuum with an actual Christmas tree at some point, but I like keeping them guessing.

The Purple Bird

One of Phoebe and Ben's favorite toys is a purple bird puppet. They play with the puppet by chasing each other around the house with it while squawking at the top of their lungs.

For this reason, I hate the purple bird.

But a few days ago, a strange thing happened. The purple bird disappeared. Of course, I have no idea where it might have gone. All I know is that the wallpaper on our computer has been changed to an image of the purple bird, and this link has appeared on the desktop.

It's fun to watch them as they discover new Purple Bird posts, and maybe this is wishful thinking, but Phoebe might even appear to have some added motivation to learn more reading words so she can read the messages from Purple Bird.

I like this game a lot better than the one that involves the running and the squawking.