Being Santa

Twas the afternoon of Christmas and warm in the house, the toddler is napping, quiet as a mouse.

Now I can reflect on the fun of being Santa. I really enjoyed planning the gifts for Caroline, making decisions on how to give them (to wrap or not), and setting out her gifts last night. I have quite a list of toys I want for Caroline, but I put several items on hold until her second birthday when she can more enjoy them. I decided to wait on the play kitchen and basketball goal until she is bigger, and I'm happy with the choices I made for her. She was truly excited about each gift!

I decided to forego wrapping to save the preparation time and clean-up time. Caroline is too little to enjoy unwrapping anyway. Christmas Eve, after Caroline was asleep, I enjoyed a glass of wine and the sugar cookie we left out for Santa as I put out Caroline's gifts, stuffed her stocking, and set up her train set.

When she awoke this morning, I had John get ready with the camera to catch her expression as she walked into the living room. She went directly to her train set and played with it for a moment until she spotted her vacuum cleaner. She turned it on (she's played with one before) and vacuumed a bit, and then she went back to the train set. I showed her the aquadoodle, but since it was not opened, she didn't care much about it. She did play with it later in the morning, though. Then I pulled out her stocking and coaxed her to see what was inside. She pulled out a book, Once Upon a Potty and read it, then played with her Jack in the Box and cars and ball a bit before returning, again, to the train set which, at this point, looked as if it had been hit by Hurricane Caroline.

Next, we moved on to wrapped gifts. Caroline had a necklace from a friend of her grandparents and a stuffed dog and The Lady and the Tramp video from Aunt Carlye and Uncle Marc. She opened her gift from mommy and daddy (wrapped since it was not from Santa, you see) -- a Tupperware shape-sorter ball. She dumped out the shapes and arranged them on the aquadoodle box.

The wrapping and packaging are put away now, and we'll spend the rest of the day playing with our new toys and spending time with GramPatty, Tom, Grandma B, Ann, and Chris.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!