1m2aSandbox

Hey everyone - have a wonderful holiday
weekend, and see you next year!

I feel like such a cliché, but
I’m absolutely astonished at the fact that another year has
gone past. I find myself leaping from event to event –
birthday, Easter, swim lessons, school time, Halloween, school
fundraiser, Thanksgiving, and so on – much more than I ever
did as an adult responsible solely for myself.

Yes, it's time for the required Cute Kid Christmas Morning video.

Cora received a Thomas train that plays "Jingle Bells", and she now carries it around like her own personal karaoke machine, pressing "play" and singing along every time, most times into a microphone. Here I captured the debut performance - Cora, still sleepy and in her Christmas pjs, as she sings along with gusto and enthusiasm.

Press "play" and enjoy.

Sorry to have left you in suspense over
the long weekend, but what kind of writer would I be without
employing a little good old fashioned cliff-hanger? Plus, of
course, there was the whole Christmas thing.


But since I know you were all worried, rest easy: baby Jesus made
it through the pageant unmolested – er, attended to. Was it
incident-free?


Ish.

Last night a friend of mine had a brief
conversation with Cora that went like this:


“Cora, are you going to be in the Christmas pageant?”


“Yep.”


“What are you going to be?”


“An angel.”


“What do the angels do?”

Cora’s big into playing with baby
dolls right now, and in fact Santa’s bringing her a cradle to
set next to her bed so her dolly can sleep near her. She takes care
of her and dresses her and rocks her, and in fact has legally
changed dolly’s name to Baby Jesus. When I say legally, I
mean she stood in the middle of the room and said, “Listen
up, guys, dolly’s name is Baby Jesus now, ok? I mean it, ok,
guys?” (And yes, she really does talk like a wise guy.) So
Baby Jesus now goes with her to the park, gets put night-night, and
so on. Cora’s quite protective of the doll.


As I mentioned yesterday, Cora’s going to be in the Christmas
pageant this year, as an angel. (Stick with me – I promise
I’m tying all this together soon). She’s quite excited
and can’t wait to do it for an audience on Thursday, and in
fact was talking to her grandfather about the big night yesterday
at lunch.


“Yep, so Papa, I’m going to dance and sing, and maybe
I’ll get to hold the baby Jesus afterwards.”

It’s Christmas pageant time, and
Maddie is once again preparing for her role as an angel in our
church’s Christmas eve service. You may recall that last year
Maddie approached the event with great trepidation, only to find
the spotlight so enchanting she broke into an impromptu dance solo
in the middle of the nativity scene, complete with curtsey at the
end. Got it on video, dontcha know.


This year, Maddie is calm and confident and ready to reprise her
role. And this year, it’ll be a family act.