a special supplement to maddie's diary
activities
- singing rudolph
- decorating trees
- opening advent calendars
- christmas stories, shows
This is the first Christmas where Maddie will really grasp what's going on. Last year she knew Santa, and was very excited when she saw him, but barely understood that this wasn't an everyday thing. This year, she's basking in the non-stop specialness of the season.
Advent Calendars
It started with the five, count 'em five advent calendars. We had two from previous years, but we received one from Grandma with ornaments, and bought one with candy. She has a fifth at the other grandparents' house. She looks forward to opening them each evening.
Shows
The first one out of the gate was Rudolph. She has since seen-- and enjoyed-- Charlie Brown, Pooh, and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, but Rudolph struck a nerve, due to the...
Songs
She adores the Rudolph song. She has learned every bit of it, and sings it endlessly. She also is intrigued by Jingle Bells and The Christmas Song.
Trees
Last week we got a little tree for her room (and the advent calendar ornaments). She loves it, and sits and stares at it. She helped decorate the main tree, which we set on a table, by patiently loading hundreds of ornaments on the 5 branches she could reach.
Decorations
We drove to Pimmit Hills last week. It is an, ahem, less-affluent area where the one-story houses are drenched in holiday decor. It was dreamland for Maddie.
The Christmas Gift
Hand in hand with her train obsession has been a desire to upgrade her current train set (extremely cool for $15, but not interactive enough for her) to a Thomas set (see picture).
Her initial realization that it was obtainable came when she saw a web page I'd printed out, showing the various Thomas cars and the prices. She understands dollar signs, and after some thinking, said, "Daddy, my train set is old. It is for babies. We should bought this."
She's getting it for Christmas. I doubt that I've ever felt more confident that a gift would be enthusiastically received.
The Verdict
The presents have been opened. On coming down the stairs to see the train set, she did a couple of high kicks then fell down in bliss. The she got up and did it all again. She loves her train set and wants to play with it all the time. A month later, when we called her from a weekend trip to California, her daily updates consisted primarily of "Gordon got derailed but the railway repair picked him up and he said 'cheeky engine' but he is getting a new coat of paint but..."
Maddie got many other toys, including Candyland, which has plagued us in recent days. Predictably, the playing pieces, which are red, green, blue, and yellow, have been dubbed James, Henry, Thomas, and Stepney-- the similarly-colored trains in the Thomas stories. She constantly asks to play, but loses focus after about 4 minutes. The only way to get her to take her turn promptly is to ask her "where's Stepney going next?"
