Eli loved his winter break and didn't want it to end. Every morning this week when I've taken him to school, he asks if he can stay home with me instead. I keep asking him, "What happened? You used to love going to school." I guess he just had so much fun on his break that he didn't want it to end. He also really loves Christmas and was not happy that I took down the Christmas decorations yesterday. He wanted me to keep them up all year long.
Christmas for Eli was a little different this year because he knows that his dad and mom are Santa. I didn't think he would be so young when he stopped believing in Santa, but life throws things at me all the time that I don't expect. He came to me one day not long after Christmas last year and asked very seriously, "Mom, I want you to be honest with me. Is Santa real? Tell me the honest truth." In that moment, I just couldn't lie to him. I couldn't even really sugar coat it, though my brain was frantically searching for ways to do so. I just had the feeling that if I wanted him to trust me later with other things, then I needed to tell him the truth. Specifically, I had the thought that if he comes to me years from now and asks me if Jesus Christ is real, I want him to know that when I say yes, he can trust that I'm telling him the truth. Of course, after I told him, he cried. I felt like I had destroyed his innocence, so I felt awful. Fortunately, he's fine with it now. We tell him that we still believe in the spirit of Christmas even if Santa isn't real, and we still do certain things because it's fun to pretend sometimes. We also tell him he has to pretend for his friends and cousins because their parents might not like us otherwise. :-)
Speaking of cousins, part of the reason Eli had such a fun winter break was because he had lots of cousin time. We spent a fair amount of Eli's break with Josh's family since we were all together for the holiday. We had lots of fun celebrating Christmas and New Year's--playing with toys and games, playing kickball, riding roller coasters at Wild Waves, etc. We also enjoyed celebrating Josh's parents' 40th wedding anniversary by playing the not-so-newlywed game!
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| Christmas Eve |
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| I told Josh to get the stocking items this year, and he obviously did a better job than I do because Eli LOVED opening his stocking. He was so excited to play with a 59 cent foam airplane that we wondered why we bought him anything else. |
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| Josh and Eli with Grandma Rosie and Aunt Megan (pictured here on a rare occasion without one of her twins in her arms) |
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| As you can tell by this picture and the one above, Eli likes to make different faces for pictures. |
