Christmas Can Take A LONG Time
Christmas... Kids run downstairs and rip everything open in 12-24 seconds... Right? Well, not at my house...
We decided not to put anything under the tree till after my son went to bed Christmas eve this year. So when he came down Christmas morning he was blown away by what Santa had left behind, suddenly there were presents where there were none the night before. He was SO excited, he was just beyond himself. He ran over and grabbed a cardboard teddy bear head off a gift bag right away, and honestly, I think he would have been happy if that was all he had gotten.
After 10 minutes or more of playing with and showing us the teddy bear head, we suggested he take another look under the tree. He really wasn't that interested now that he had his teddy bear head, but he decided to try another present... The 2 badly disguised hockey sticks were next to be opened.
After 20 minutes of playing hockey in the kitchen he agreed to open something else.... of course he picked the biggest one sitting there. Well, that got opened and put together, which took a little bit of time considering it was a Home Depot work bench, but he loves working with dad and tools, so that was all good. Then it was another 45 minutes of him playing with the hammer, drill, screwdriver, bolts etc that were much better than his old ones and much closer to dad's. He just thought he was king shit! Still his favorite new toy... shit, it's his favorite new or old toy of all time!
So now we're over an hour into opening presents and have one cardboard teddy bear head, 2 hockey sticks and a tool bench with a full assortment of power tools... only really 2 real gifts opened. After a few more suggestions he decided to appease us and open something else. It turns out to be a couple of books..... Well, all the books had to read to him several times before he would agree to get down off our laps, (we wanted to get tea, coffee and breakfast at this point!) and then he was back to the work bench, then hockey, then the workbench again, just not interested in the other presents at all.
By noon we were averaging about 1 present every 30 minutes. Clothes would take about 2 seconds, and were then cast aside, while anything cool could be upwards of almost an hour before he headed back to the workbench once again.
I know a lot of parents would have been frustrated by all of this, but we LOVED it... any suggesting we were doing to get him to open more gifts was very subtle, and only done after he had finished playing with what he had opened and was starting to do the rounds on his old toys. It wasn't that he was forgetting there were more presents... It was simply that he was happy with what he had already opened/ received, and wasn't interested in anymore stuff. Just let me enjoy these... (We could all learn a HUGE lesson here in the age of more, more, more, me, me, me)
In the end it took till noon on boxing day before it was all opened... He had a great time, it was a very relaxed Christmas and he also had 2 days of opening his gifts... good time had by all! My best Christmas EVER!
We decided not to put anything under the tree till after my son went to bed Christmas eve this year. So when he came down Christmas morning he was blown away by what Santa had left behind, suddenly there were presents where there were none the night before. He was SO excited, he was just beyond himself. He ran over and grabbed a cardboard teddy bear head off a gift bag right away, and honestly, I think he would have been happy if that was all he had gotten.
After 10 minutes or more of playing with and showing us the teddy bear head, we suggested he take another look under the tree. He really wasn't that interested now that he had his teddy bear head, but he decided to try another present... The 2 badly disguised hockey sticks were next to be opened.
After 20 minutes of playing hockey in the kitchen he agreed to open something else.... of course he picked the biggest one sitting there. Well, that got opened and put together, which took a little bit of time considering it was a Home Depot work bench, but he loves working with dad and tools, so that was all good. Then it was another 45 minutes of him playing with the hammer, drill, screwdriver, bolts etc that were much better than his old ones and much closer to dad's. He just thought he was king shit! Still his favorite new toy... shit, it's his favorite new or old toy of all time!
So now we're over an hour into opening presents and have one cardboard teddy bear head, 2 hockey sticks and a tool bench with a full assortment of power tools... only really 2 real gifts opened. After a few more suggestions he decided to appease us and open something else. It turns out to be a couple of books..... Well, all the books had to read to him several times before he would agree to get down off our laps, (we wanted to get tea, coffee and breakfast at this point!) and then he was back to the work bench, then hockey, then the workbench again, just not interested in the other presents at all.
By noon we were averaging about 1 present every 30 minutes. Clothes would take about 2 seconds, and were then cast aside, while anything cool could be upwards of almost an hour before he headed back to the workbench once again.
I know a lot of parents would have been frustrated by all of this, but we LOVED it... any suggesting we were doing to get him to open more gifts was very subtle, and only done after he had finished playing with what he had opened and was starting to do the rounds on his old toys. It wasn't that he was forgetting there were more presents... It was simply that he was happy with what he had already opened/ received, and wasn't interested in anymore stuff. Just let me enjoy these... (We could all learn a HUGE lesson here in the age of more, more, more, me, me, me)
In the end it took till noon on boxing day before it was all opened... He had a great time, it was a very relaxed Christmas and he also had 2 days of opening his gifts... good time had by all! My best Christmas EVER!
Gratuitous Hot Chick
posted by Geeper at 6:11 p.m.
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