mood: 
thankful
music: silence
Christmas went well. Santa found the house on time and nobody was sick, so I consider that a success.
In previous years, Dawn and I had opened our presents on Christmas eve, in part because that's what our parents tended to do. However, with Lando now being old enough to know what Christmas is about (in a purely secular sense, which is about all that a 3-year-old would understand anyway -- PRESENTS!), we decided to open our presents on Christmas morning. (I think that my parents used to open presents on Christmas morning, until Ross and I were older, and then we began opening presents on Christmas eve, right after we returned from the Christmas eve church service.)
Lando got lots of good stuff. LOTS of good stuff.
As I think I mentioned earlier, we got him a drumset. He really likes the drumset, and unlike the bagpipes we gave him, he has no problem getting it to make noise! It's got a bass drum, a tom, a snare, and a cymbal. He even has a little rhythm that he can keep (at least part of the time).
However, his favorite toy by far was the marble race. This is a series of tubes, ramps, loops, etc. You place the marbles at the top, the roll down to the bottom, then you do it again. And again. And again. If you're 45 years old, after about 15 minutes of this, you're bored. If you're 3 years old, you apparently never get bored with it.
He also got a very cool castle, which I believe makes his 4th. However, you apparently can never have too many castles or too many knights, because he's spent plenty of time playing with it as well!
He got plenty of other gifts as well, but I'm having trouble remember which things were for Christmas and which were for his birthday, so I won't bother trying to list them all.
Dawn and I got a few things as well.
Dawn's largest present (physically) was the bodhran that Santa got her. If you're not familiar with what a bodhran is, it's a Celtic frame drum that looks like a very large tambourine that you play with a stick called a tipper.
Here's an example. Turn up the sound and watch all 3 minutes of this video:
Nice, huh? The kid is 10 years old!
The only problem is Dawn has trouble practicing, because whenever she tries, it draws Lando's attention, and he either demands that she stop (we don't know why) or joins in with his own drums, which as you can imagine is a bit of a distraction! I think I'm going to have to start taking Lando to the mall or something so that Dawn can have the house to herself for a bit.
Of course, one other obstacle to her practicing is that the tutorial DVD that I ordered for her got backordered, so it won't be here for awhile! :-(
My presents consisted primarily of several books, plus the CD "Letting Go of God" by Julia Sweeney (formerly with Saturday Night Live).
I've listened to the CD 3 times, as it is quite funny, very poignant, and insightful. It's a one woman show she does about her journey from Catholicism through mysticism to (eventually) atheism. Ironically, her spiritual journey was precipitated by a visit by a couple of Mormon missionaries, followed by her decision to join her church's Bible study group. I suspect that even a good-natured Christian would enjoy it, even though they disagreed with her conclusions. (The humorless, fire-and-brimstone variety of Christian would definitely not enjoy it.)
I also quickly devoured one of the books, "Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally", by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. This is one of those books that I have the urge to buy a dozen of and give them to all my friends. I plan on talking about it more later. At length. Be prepared.
Comments