Almost Christmas

Tuesday evening Maren had her first ever Christmas recital, with her preschool. Her class is only eight kids, but there are other classes taught by the same teacher, and they all had their recital together. This is a 5-minute video of two of the songs - Maren is in the front row, in the purple hoodie.

We were surprised to discover that all the kids were dressed up, and Maren was the only girl not wearing a Christmas dress. We didn’t really think it was a formal affair like that, and almost let Maren go in her dirty pajamas, which she had been wearing all day (it was pajama day at preschool in the morning, and it only occurred to me maybe half an hour before we left for the recital that other kids might be wearing regular clothes). Fortunately she doesn’t notice or care about that kind of thing at the moment, and I hope it mostly stays that way. I don’t want her to be ostracized as a weird kid, but I would love it if she continues to not be influenced too much by social pressures. Time will tell.

Also, her drawing skills have just exploded. Not sure why this suddenly happened, but it is lots of fun. This is grass, a tree, a girl with very long hair, and a sun:



We are gearing up for Christmas. I finished grading and submitting grades on Friday midday, and my break started at that point. Jeff had finished a bit sooner. So now we are free from work responsibilities for a little while, just enjoying some family time. There are cookies baked (probably too many), gifts purchased, grocery shopping done. Maren is so excited that sometimes she can hardly contain it. I hope Christmas Day is not too much of a let down for her, because I am not sure anything can live up to her expectations. At the same time, she will probably be happy and excited no matter what, so it might be just fine.

Last night in the bath Maren suddenly said “for goodness sake!,” and I realized that she was referencing the song Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Then she said “but Santa’s not real, so that’s why I’m goodness saking him.” I could not stop laughing 😊

Santa trike

Maren’s first ever drawing of something that looks like the thing she is drawing:

It’s a snowman with long arms and legs. The red things are Christmas cookies. After this picture was taken she proceeded to put chocolate chips in some of them by adding dots. What’s amazing about this is that she has essentially never before attempted to draw anything other than scribbles. I’m not sure why suddenly today she was able to try and succeed at drawing something, but this went up on the fridge immediately and I love it ❤️

She is super into Christmas, especially Santa Claus, even though she is aware that Santa is not real and is just a story about Christmas magic. This is her on her “sleigh,“ dressed as Santa Claus, with Rudolph attached to her hat.

She has also been a big help decorating the Christmas tree. She put up every single ornament, and they are packed quite densely in a couple of areas.

The end of semester here is busy, and I have a term paper to grade that isn’t due until Thursday at 5 PM, so my holidays don’t really start until it’s almost Christmas. But the amount of excitement around Christmas that a three-year-old can produce makes everything seem more magical. 

Backyard fun

Not a lot of time to post today, but here are some photos from playing in the backyard this afternoon: