Christmas Prep

- Yesterday I finished setting up our lawn decorations; arranging the lights on the bushes, the porch, positioning the reindeer, snowman, and dog. Jack came out at the end to help out. He helped moved lights around. I plugged everything in and turned it on from the porch as Jack stood on the sidewalk. "It looks TERRIBLE," he said. What? I said, stunned. "It looks AWFUL, terrible." I walked out to stand next to him, he broke into a big smile. "I'm just kidding," he said.

- Today we pulled out all the other stuff. Kate locked onto the musical dog who plays Jingle Bells and his ears wiggle. She played it over and over, then put him on the floor so she could dance while he played music. I think we need to get her her own CD player for Christmas.

- Set up all the stockings. Four red ones for us. Jack replaced his with the green Jets stocking that I think we got as a gift at some point. "THIS is my stocking," he said.

- Pulled out the Christmas plates, cups, placemats, hand towels, and the Santa Claus soap dispenser. The kids oohed and aahed properly, it was nice.

- Around 4 p.m., kids said they wanted to watch a Christmas show on TV. I said, well, we have do something first. They looked at me suspiciously. I explained, well, our kitchen isn't very Christmas-y, we need to make some things. Jack, go get red and green and brown and white paper, so we can draw some things: Santa, reindeer, trees, snowmen. Jack ran off, fully into the idea. Kate (sad): "I can't draw those things!" I said, I'll help you.

She drew the pieces of a snowman, then made its face. Her classic line eyes, then a triangle nose. "But I don't have room for the mouth!" she wailed. I showed her how to move the nose up a little, and then she drew happy smile mouth. We cut it out and hung it up. She was happy. Then we did Santa. Same deal. She drew her happy face. I added the beard and hat. I told her to draw his body. She said, "I can't." I showed her how it was just an extra, lager circle. She made it. Then I said, now arms and legs. She said, "This is how I make them," and did her stick figure arms and legs for Santa. Perfect, I said.

Jack drew a Santa on his sleigh with a pack on the back and a reindeer pulling it. Cut out white paper for the beard, mustache, and trim on his hat and gloves. Cut out brown paper for the sleigh, decorated his reindeer, gave him a Rudolph red nose. Kind of impressive. Granted, he also covered it in about half a roll of Scotch tape, because that's his style. We hung everything up in the windows and admired them.

And now our kitchen is Christmas-y.