Snapshots Of Our Christmas

We’re not sure if Kai still believes in Santa. At nine years of age, I think he’s past the point when most kids stop believing. And when my wife told him in the days before Christmas that he needed to be good or Santa would not come, he responded, “well, if you believe in Santa…”

Still, on Christmas Eve he wanted to track Santa on the Google Santa Tracker. And make Christmas cookies for Santa.

And when it was time for bed, it was his idea to put the milk and cookies out for Santa.

He also asked that we not turn on the security system overnight so that Santa would not have any problems getting into our house.

He had a hard time falling asleep that night; he was too excited. And then he woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me to sleep in his room. At 6AM he woke me up again saying that he had been awake for two hours and could not sleep.

When I finally told him that he could get out of bed, he was excited to check his stocking and to see if Santa brought him something.

After that, he was remarkably patient as we had breakfast before opening the presents under the tree.

That was a lot of fun, of course. The excitement of opening presents perhaps made more so with the flurry of activity from the dogs staying with us.

Though one of the dogs took cover under the tree when the frenzy got to be too much.

After the presents were opened, we took a break to walk the dogs.

And then it was time to play with his presents.

He did several experiments with the chemistry set he got.

We played almost every game he got.

And he polished off a Star Wars sticker book in the afternoon.

He did so many things that I wonder what is left for him to do the rest of winter break. I think I’ll go nuts if I hear him moan about being bored in a few days.

But for now, all is good. Hope you had a merry Christmas, too.