Nice!

Jack and I went out Christmas shopping today. Christmas decorations shopping, really. Jack has kind of a love-fear relationship with Santa. He was afraid of Santa last year, when we tried to get his picture taken, an incident that was probably partially our fault. He just wasn't ready. Now we've talked up Santa, and our neighbor -- who had a huge inflatable pumpkin at Halloween, a huge inflatable turkey at Thanksgiving, and now a huge inflatable Frosty the Snowman, Christmas tree, and Santa Claus on his lawn -- has this big Santa that Jack is fascinated by.

So we went to Party City and bought a stuffed Santa for Jack, a Santa hat, and a series of window decorations -- Santa Claus, Frosty, reindeer pulling a sleigh. Jack approved and was very attentive as the clerk put them in the bag.

On the way home we went over to Aunt Cathy's, and I brought Jack inside, but he was very out of sorts, and kept saying things like "On floor" and "Santa," and it was all fairly confusing. But gradually we figured out he wanted to go back out to the car, where the bag of stuff was indeed, on the floor, and I got everything out and he clutched it all to his chest and under his chin and we went back inside. And showed things individually to Cathy, and Jack of course wanted to wear the hat, and hold the stuffed Santa. At some point I held up the window decoration Frosty, and Jack looked at it and smiled like it was the greatest thing in the world.

Jack, as he saw it: "Oh! NICE!!!!"