Wow! A few months have passed since my last letter, and predictably some things have changed but mostly life is the same.
This was the first year you enthusiastically wanted to decorate a Christmas tree. Daddy & I postponed the tree purchase until a week before Christmas, when we drove down to the tree place and you & I walked around in search of the perfect small tree for our small living room. You did great, picking out a four foot tree that slid in perfectly between our TV and the front door. Daddy and I had agonized a bit over how to put the tree by the window and where we'd have to move the TV and re-wire the cable, but alas, the worrying was in vain.
You love putting ornaments on the tree, but not as much as you like wrapping presents. You like finding things to wrap, even if you've played with that thing for days already. This morning you wrapped a travel toothbrush we got last weekend, that you used this morning to brush your teeth. You also wanted to wrap a present you got last weekend from Papa and Deb-Deb for Mommy Rabbit.
We haven't pushed the idea of Santa, and I'm on the fence whether we ought to create and propagate the idea that there's this guy who makes toys and delivers them by chimney every year based on whether you've been good or bad. There are parts of the Santa tale I like, and some I don't, especially the part that feeds holiday compulsory spending and the rampant consumerism that is plaguing our country's economy right about now.
That's a little heavy for four and a half years old though, mostly I don't want you to plunge unconsciously into the "what am I getting for Christmas" attitude I see so much. That you make a list and get what's on it because that's what you're being fed by media as what should happen for Christmas.
But to walk out of the darkness of the politics of spending and into the light of the season, the light that is family, friends, helping others, and rejoicing in what we have. Among all of the financial turmoil, we have a home, we have each other, we have enough money for right now, and although life isn't perfect and Christmas has been usurped by large corporations selling products, I still go Christmas shopping and look for small things, small, thoughtful, inexpensive gifts for others around me. If anything, it's a good time to acknowledge those who matter to me.
Today I'm grateful that a trip to Target with you doesn't involve a crying fit around the toy section on what you want, what you say you have to have, and Conejito is still your favorite toy of them all.
love always,
one hundred thousand,
Mommy
