We put our Christmas tree up Saturday night. Up to now, it hasn't really been penetrating that it's less than two weeks until Christmas, probably because we're not doing the family celebration until New Year's, which means I'm not feeling any pressure to finish my shopping. K, however, isn't suffering from that problem at all, and it became clear she was going to explode from pent-up holiday excitement if we didn't get the tree up.
After the tree was up, we HAD to wrap presents. Only the only presents were for K and I clearly wasn't going to let her wrap them herself, so she brought me some of her books to wrap instead. So I did, and I admit they looked nice under the tree. And the next day, when K simply HAD to open them, it wasn't a problem.
As for her actual presents, I think I'm pretty much done shopping, except for a trip to the bookstore to get a few books. K has been asking for a castle for the past two months, so that's what she's getting. The alert might remember that she got a large castle last year, but she wants a castle for her appalling little Disney princess dolls that have removable rubber clothes and teeny tiny shoes that come with their own mini black hole so they can get lost that much more quickly. She wants it badly enough to have kicked all of the dolls out of her dollhouse to install her princesses in instead. And while my first instinct was that she doesn't need another castle, my second was that there's no rule that she can't have her own little empire if she wants, and why should I waste my money on things I think she should have instead of buying her what she really wants? However, I wasn't about to get the crappy $50 plastic castle that got universally bad reviews on the web for falling apart almost instantly, which was the one she kept saying she wanted. But I lucked onto a great sale and managed to get a cute little Melissa and Doug princess castle for $25, and when it was hinted to K that she might get a pink castle for Christmas, she pretty much instantly forgot about the crappy plastic one. She had also asked for some horses to go with her castle, and I found a cute little wooden horse and carriage that I think will fit the bill. In addition, because I feel a bit guilty about not getting her the crappy plastic castle she actually asked for, she's getting another horrible little Disney princess doll set.
On the non-castle side, I found a cute little school playset on extreme clearance this fall, and some puzzles and a make-your-own princess doll. We'll get her a couple books, and I think I might get her the stuffed unicorn that she plays with every single time we go to the bookstore. That should be plenty for her princess-obsessed holiday.
As for Alec, he's not getting much, but he's getting more than his sister did for her first Christmas, which is to say that he's getting something from us. With K, I didn't see the point of buying her things and wrapping them when it would mean absolutely nothing to her and we already got her things all the time. With Alec, I'm getting him a few things mostly because I think his sister will expect it. So I got him one of those classic baby toys with the little animals that pop up when you press their buttons, and will probably get him a carseat toy. When I bought him a jumperoo for him earlier this fall, I justified the on-sale but still not cheap expense to myself by saying it would be most of his Christmas present. And goodness knows we've gotten our money out of it, so Merry Christmas, Son. I hope you appreciate getting your present way early.
It's definitely feeling more like Christmas around here. I've spent the past couple days acquiring all of the Muppet Christmas specials so we can have a big Muppet Christmas marathon starting with John Denver and working our way through to the latest not-great-but-considerably-less-mediocre-than-most-recent-Muppet-offerings special.
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