Holiday Recap

As anticipated, our weekend was eventful.

On Friday evening, we had our Hanukkah celebration. Kai was really revved up for it, perhaps a bit too much. He was very happy to see all of our guests. But he also had a hard time waiting to open his presents.

I recall that last year he was amazingly patient. This year, not so much.

From the time the first guests arrived, he was asking to open the presents. We explained that we would have dinner first, light the menorah, and he and his cousins would play their musical instruments. He did not like that plan, and whined quite a bit, but was happy when it was finally time to open presents.

Kai has gotten Ugly Dolls for Hanukkah, Christmas, and birthdays for a few years now, so it is something he looks forward to getting. During much of the year, he ignores his collection, but from a few weeks before the holiday, he starts going online and checking out what dolls he might get. He was expecting to receive some for Hanukkah, and was not disappointed.

He also wanted to get some Basher books, from the series of science books with cute illustrations that makes science more fun for kids. Kai already had the books on the Periodic Table and Biology, and added to his collection with The Human Body, and Algebra & Geometry.

There were other nice presents and it was a fun evening. We all had a nice time.

After our guests left, though, Kai’s mood turned angry. In the latter portion of the evening, Kai had gone off to watch a Pokémon video by himself while my wife and I played with Kai’s cousins. Whether it was the influence of the Pokémon video, jealousy because we gave his cousins attention instead of him, or just the after-effects of such a major social event, we are not sure. But he was angry the rest of the night until he fell asleep.

But all was better the next day. Well, with Kai. Mom was sick, though. Not good timing on that.

But in the evening, we were ready for Christmas. Kai put out three cookies for Santa, not just the one he originally saved.

The next morning, Kai awoke and checked out his stockings and the tree. There’s nothing like the excitement of the first look at the presents under the tree.

In the past couple of years, it took all morning for him to open his Christmas presents as he would start to play with some and not finishing opening all of them. This year, though, he mostly went through each one, opening them quickly.

I don’t know if it was because we did not have snow this year, and temperatures were in the 50s, but it somehow did not feel quite the same. Up until last Christmas, my son’s excitement for Christmas had increased every year. This year, he seemed just a touch less enthused than before. Had his Christmas glee peaked at age 6 and is already waning at age 7?

Still, we had a fun day. He got a lot of great gifts, especially from generous relatives, which we are very grateful.

And we took advantage of the warm weather for a walk at our local nature preserve. And we came back and played with many of the things he got.

Hard to believe that Christmas is already over. But the fun will carry over the rest of the week.