I Can't Believe it's Nearly CHRISTMAS!!!

While all the adults of my acquaintance heave a collective groan about the onslaught of the Festive Season, there is one small person I know who is so excited about Christmas that he can hardly bear it.



Christmas is now a daily conversation topic, usually along the lines of I can't believe its nearly *Christmas* (imagine that last word said in high-pitched excitement) or I really wish it was Christmas tomorrow, which gives me a mini-nervous attack as I picture all the things I still have to do before the Big Day.



He decided, as is his wont, that he urgently needed a new tick-off calendar, despite my telling him that I had an advent calendar ready for December. There was no way he could wait until December, so off I went to print a calendar for him (thinking that was what he wanted) only to find that he had grabbed a ruler and was halfway through making his own. However he ditched the hand-drawn attempt when he saw that mine had a Christmas Sticker system.



(At around this point both boys insisted that they needed to have a look at the advent calendars. Cherub was so pleased with his that he would have carried it round all day had I not insisted that it needed to go away until December 1st. Don't want the crappy chocolate treats melting.)

And then there's the letter to Santa. Whereas Climber would write lovely sweet letters which often included telling Santa (quite unprompted) that he loved him, the Cherub is far more inclined to cut straight to business. In fact, immediately he realised there were only 40 odd days to go he scurried off and put a letter into an envelope before I even knew what was happening. Dear Santa, it said, can I hav a crytal sweeper please. So then we had to have a chat about not asking Santa for very expensive stuff (The Crystal Sweeper is a Lego set that costs around $100). To which he replied but I really really want a crystal sweeper and so I had to say it was okay to ask us, his parents, for a big present but that Santa has to provide presents for all the kids in the world and it's selfish to ask for expensive stuff. (Aren't you glad I'm not your mother?) Once he'd ascertained that there was a good chance that a Crystal Sweeper would soon supplement our already healthy stocks of Lego, he was happy to ask Santa for a more modest item. Once more he wrote and sealed the letter before I knew what was going on, but he'd addressed his envelope all wrong, giving me the perfect excuse to open it up. Which is when I had to speak to him about injecting a little bit more charm and courtesy into his original billet because heaven knows I don't want Santa thinking I haven't brought my child up right.