This was one of those years.
It was a different sort of day for us. We are moving out of our current apartment in a week. Most everything is packed or being packed and I didn't decorate for the season. I love the smell of the fresh decor and the baking that didn't happen this year. We didn't need all that for this Christmas to be the BEST Christmas ever.
This year, Jacob is two years old. This is a seriously amazing and splendid age. His mind is exploding with knowledge. His unquenchable curiosity is delightful and inspiring. His obsessions are both slightly annoying and incredibly endearing. With one of his many obsessions, he followed in his oldest cousins footsteps and fell in love with a spotted blue dog and her friends. Blue has become a fixture in our home and Blue's Clues is a show that the world stops to see around here. He adores Blue, and Joe, and Steve, and Periwinkle, and the list goes on. He sings the songs and finds *clues* everywhere. He has abstracted the *clue* so much that any hand, foot or pawprint is now a clue. He finds them in the snow, while we are driving, at the mall. You name it, he will find a clue.
So for Christmas this year, we did a Blue blue Christmas. The big gifts of the year were a Thinking Chair (Pottery Barn anywhere chair with a red slipcover embroidered with the word Think; a homemade Handy Dandy Notebook, created by DH and I; and three homemade paw prints.
We placed the paw prints strategically leading up to where the gifts were located at the fireplace. At the fireplace sat his chair with his notebook on it.
He woke up and wanted nothing but to snuggle in and stay in bed. It was no fair for us adults who were chomping at the bit to share with him the fun things we had prepared for that morning. There was a clue placed at the end of the bed for him to find. When he finally woke up enough to stop nursing and get out of bed, his face lit up and he reached for it. "A clue! A clue!" He yelled, grabbing a hold of it and sitting down gleefully. He was happy as a clam and wanted nothing to do with moving. He was so excited to have his clue that he needed nothing else. His joy was delightful to watch, although we anxiously waited for him to find the next "clue." He did eventually find the second clue and he was beside himself with joy. He sat there holding both clues just out of sight from the other gifts, gleefully singing the Blue's Clues song. We sat there for what seemed like an eternity watching him so joyful over finding his very own clues. We finally placed the third and final clue on me so that he would see it and he raced over to my lap, picking up his third clue. He sat down in front of me and we were able to capture a silhouette of a face of pure astonishment as he caught sight of his very own chair. He ran over to it, grabbing his notebook and sitting down. "Sink! Sink! Sink!" He yelled out, his version of "Think"
It was priceless. We then spent the next few hours coaxing him to open the other things he had received, there were only 4 gifts for him and one each for Dadi and I, but it still took all morning to open the gifts. The other gifts all paled in comparison to his beloved Blue toys.
We started preparing some bagels, a treat from Panera, for our breakfast when the power went out. We then spent the next 4 hours without power, but that was no problem, we had each other.
We all took a great nap together, and when we woke up again the power was back on.
It was the perfect day and a Christmas I will never forget.
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