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Christmas in Memphis: Alex's Christmas.
Dec. 29th, 2006 12:51 pmFor all practical purposes, this was Alex's first Christmas - the first one where she was old enough to understand a little of what was going on. And she loved it. She loved our Christmas tree. First thing every morning, she'd ask for "Christmas tree lights." We decorated it with unbreakable ornaments so that Alex could touch them freely, and she quickly learned to observe our rule that ornaments stay on the tree. She'd walk around and around the tree checking in with each of her favorites: "Hi doggy. Hi star. Teddy bear, okay?"
She quickly learned to identify Santa Claus (sounded more like "Sticker Claus," though) and snowmen when she saw them on cards or decorations. I'm quite sure she has no idea what either one actually is, but she enjoys them both all the same. She loves looking at Christmas cards. Michael's father had a basket of them set down low, and Alex spent a lot of time taking them out and studying each one.
We spread her Christmas over several days, which worked beautifully. She got to play with and appreciate all of her toys individually, and never got so overwhelmed that she was just ripping things open without looking at them - which I often saw in my nieces and nephew, when they were younger, and was determined to avoid.
( Her haul, with commentary: )This is a massive amount of stuff, obviously, and at times I worry that it's too much. We don't want Christmas to be a huge material extravaganza - and honestly, we don't have a lot of space to put toys. Add in the stuff she'll probably get for her birthday in just four months, and seems a bit overwhelming.
But most of the things she got are enduring toys that will see her out of babyhood and into the preschool years and beyond. Small animal figures, blocks, a doll, furniture, a train set that can be expanded as she gets older... these are toys with multiple uses, and their play value will grow as she gets older and is capable of more complex imaginative play. She didn't have a lot of things like that already, so it's not really that inappropriate to give her a lot of them now. Right?
I guess part of it is that I'm coming at this from the perspective of having been the fourth child in my family. By the time I came along, we already had enough toys to outfit a medium-sized nursery school. Blocks, legos, dolls, stuffed animals, a toy kitchen, push- and pull-toys, riding toys, pretty much the entire Fisher Price Little People empire, a whole cabinet overflowing with art supplies and coloring books... in that environment, yeah, I didn't need a lot of new toys. Alex's environment is different. She's an only child, so we're starting from scratch.
She quickly learned to identify Santa Claus (sounded more like "Sticker Claus," though) and snowmen when she saw them on cards or decorations. I'm quite sure she has no idea what either one actually is, but she enjoys them both all the same. She loves looking at Christmas cards. Michael's father had a basket of them set down low, and Alex spent a lot of time taking them out and studying each one.
We spread her Christmas over several days, which worked beautifully. She got to play with and appreciate all of her toys individually, and never got so overwhelmed that she was just ripping things open without looking at them - which I often saw in my nieces and nephew, when they were younger, and was determined to avoid.
( Her haul, with commentary: )This is a massive amount of stuff, obviously, and at times I worry that it's too much. We don't want Christmas to be a huge material extravaganza - and honestly, we don't have a lot of space to put toys. Add in the stuff she'll probably get for her birthday in just four months, and seems a bit overwhelming.
But most of the things she got are enduring toys that will see her out of babyhood and into the preschool years and beyond. Small animal figures, blocks, a doll, furniture, a train set that can be expanded as she gets older... these are toys with multiple uses, and their play value will grow as she gets older and is capable of more complex imaginative play. She didn't have a lot of things like that already, so it's not really that inappropriate to give her a lot of them now. Right?
I guess part of it is that I'm coming at this from the perspective of having been the fourth child in my family. By the time I came along, we already had enough toys to outfit a medium-sized nursery school. Blocks, legos, dolls, stuffed animals, a toy kitchen, push- and pull-toys, riding toys, pretty much the entire Fisher Price Little People empire, a whole cabinet overflowing with art supplies and coloring books... in that environment, yeah, I didn't need a lot of new toys. Alex's environment is different. She's an only child, so we're starting from scratch.
