We returned home from our whirlwind Christmas trip to Pennsylvania via Amtrak on Christmas night. The train was my idea; I suppose I harbor romantic notions about rail travel, plus I’m still traumatized by our drive home from Pennsylvania Christmas two years ago during an ice storm. Mr. P had never taken an intercity train in the US and was curious about how it compared to Europe. His assessment? Slowww. As the train idled in yet another Connecticut city we never heard of, I could tell he wanted to be speeding along the highway in our car, so I went to the cafe and bought him a beer (can’t do that in a car!)
Overall, the train was an okay experience; the major downfall is we were unable to carry Little Boy’s presents down to PA for the ceremonious Christmas morning unwrapping. What to do? We didn’t want to open them when we returned Christmas night at 10pm, so Little Boy returned home from preschool last Friday to find all the presents under the tree. He didn’t question where the presents came from, or why he was opening them now instead of Christmas morning, or why the wrapping paper is the same as the roll he saw me with the previous night. Apparently inquisitive minds buckle under the prospect of unwrapping presents.
The red Power Ranger
A kiddie bow and arrow
We did a similar thing last year, when we had an early Christmas before we left for France. But last year he didn’t really understand Christmas; this year, he tracked it with an advent calendar and has an improved sense of the holiday in general. The incongruity didn’t seem to hit him until the day after Christmas, when he tearfully wondered why Santa didn’t come to our home on Christmas. “He knew we weren’t here!” I explained, reticent to point out all the mysterious presents he had opened before Christmas.
A co-worker of mine said that a lot of kids happily ignore the illogical aspects of the Santa myth, but Little Boy is not one of those kids. He wants answers.
More profound than his need to thoroughly understand Santa’s modus operandi is his glumness at no longer being in Pennsylvania. The trip was too whirlwind for him; on the drive to preschool on Wednesday, he asked constantly for his grandparents, his uncle, his cousins… the drop-off was very emotional and he made me promise to pick him up early. Since 4/5ths of the office is on vacation, this was easy for me. But when I arrived in his classroom that afternoon, he looked up from his “work” (frolicking in a pop-up tent shaped like a bus with no fewer than 5 girls — nearly all of the boys are out this week) and said, “I don’t want you to pick me up early!”
Overall, Little Boy is satisfied with his glut of presents and the whole Christmas thing. But he doesn’t understand why it can’t be Christmas every day. And, as I pack away the artificial Christmas tree, snack guiltily on my replenished office chocolate stash, and begin to implement a Toy Management Plan for Little Boy’s room… I don’t understand why it can’t be once every two years.
