A Very Thomas Christmas

Ethan was VERY into Christmas this year — the lights, the carols, the presents. He has also gotten into the Advent spirit, and has been very diligent about reminding us to light the candles on our Advent wreath and reading our Advent calendar every day. It’s been a lot of fun to watch him get so excited about the season.

We had our first Christmas celebration the Sunday before Christmas (on Christmas Eve eve) in Burlington. The weather ended up cooperating, and we got far less rain on Saturday, and less snow on Sunday than they had predicted. Other than the strong winds, it was pretty good weather for traveling. In the car on the way to Aunt Terrie’s house I told Ethan there would probably be lots of Christmas cookies — forgetting that Uncle Kevin is diabetic — and asked him how many he thought would be a good number to have. We agreed on four cookies.

Ethan was very excited by the time we got to Aunt Terrie’s house, and immediately ran into the kitchen to check out the cookies. He was disappointed that there weren’t any, but Aunt Terrie was able to find one for him from a batch Nina had made. Unfortunately, he wanted all four of the agreed-on cookies. So I had to explain that when Grandma Fiegel arrived, she would probably have cookies, since that’s what she usually makes us for Christmas.

Of course, the moment Grandma walked in the door, Ethan was asking about the cookies. But he did a good job of waiting until it was time to open presents. We went from youngest to oldest for the gifts, so Ethan got to go second. He had opened several presents before he got to Grandma’s presents, and was very excited about all of his great Thomas gifts. But when he opened the bag from Grandma, he exclaimed in a very loud voice, “Boy, Grandma must REALLY love me.”

On Christmas Eve, as he was getting ready for bed, Ethan told John, “If Santa doesn’t come tonight, I’ll be okay with that.” Then he paused and added, “But maybe Grandma and Grandpa Weiss and Aunt Deb will bring me some presents.” Fortunately, Santa did arrive, and brought with a train table to go with all the train track Ethan had gotten. (How does Santa get such big things down the chimney?) And, of course, Grandma and Grandpa Weiss and Aunt Deb brought more presents too.

It was a very nice Christmas, and lots of fun to watch Ethan as he’s starting to really “get into” everything related to the holiday.