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Sunday, January 2, 2011

Christmas 2010




Another Christmas has come and gone in a whirlwind of excitement and noise. Noise being the key word there because Santa was kind enough to deliver a drumset to this house. For months whenever anyone asked my boys what they wanted for Christmas, they both would say drums. Or dums. No matter how hard we tried to shift their yearnings subliminally with advertisements and sometimes downright begging, it was still at the top of their list. It was actually the only thing on Hudson's list, Connor's was rather lengthy and included a real space shuttle and an actual star. Since his list tended to veer toward the completely unattainable we decided to get the drums because we wanted Santa to get the credit for coming through in as big of a way as possible.

We also decided to get Connor a Wii, as we are undoubtedly the last family in America to get one. He always likes to play it at my dad's house and since he is about to turn five we thought he would be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Plus Matt is determined to beat me in Wii tennis but frankly that is just not going to happen. So Christmas morning Matt got up super early to turn on the tv and wii and make a fire and before 6:00 Connor hopped out of bed and raced in ready to greet his gifts. He encountered his first problem, his sleeping lump of a baby brother. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and trying to acquaint myself with the fact that it was 5:45 in the morning, when I came out and saw Connor literally laying on his brother and prying his eye lids open. The Mush did not so much enjoy that. While Connor was filled with the magic of Christmas, Hudson was filled with the two helpings of Santa's milk and cookies he had stolen the night before and was in no mood for early morning shenanigans. After a lot of cajoling we finally managed to get them both downstairs.

They were so excited, they didn't see the drums at first. When Hudson finally noticed, it was like a spotlight shown down from heaven illuminating the tiny set while a chorus of angels broke out into hallelujahs. To sum up, he was excited. There was a minor setback when we discovered that even in it's lowest short boy setting, the stool was still to high for our vertically challenged son to mount on his own, but we didn't let that put a damper on the excitement of our sons owning their very own drumset. Oh no, not when there was so much joyful noise to be made!Granted, he also could not reach the bass pedal, but who cares? We will just hit that with our sticks too! Also in the wee hours of the chilly Christmas morn, we discovered that our two year old had some pretty intense showmanship on the drums. He had an elaborate routine of counting off the beat while hitting his sticks together. A very loud high pitched voice shouting, " A one, do, free!" He would then proceed to play the crap out of those drums only pausing to stick them behind his back and twist them around. That move was strictly to make him look cool. Listen. I don't know where he learned all that but I am going to really have to monitor his netflix queue more closely.

After about five minutes I started to hate Santa. I mean, really, do we hate ourselves? And honestly that question has been posed to me on several occasions by well meaning friends who wondered why we would ever allow our family to live with a drumset! It really isn't like me. I am much more the, "here is a stocking full of books and a new sweater vest" kind of mom because all of those things are peaceful and quiet and I am a nerd that loves books. But I also want to be the mom whose kids know that she wants them to be as weird and creative as they want to be and if my Mush wants to express himself on a drumset, than who am I to hold him back? Oh. That was even hard to type. By the way, they also did get stockings full of books. We haven't completely lost our minds here people.

At approximately 6:14 a.m. once the fury of unwrapping and drumming had settled down to a dull roar, Matt and I collapsed on the couch in exhaustion to watch the boys play. Connor kept spontaneously announcing that this was the best Christmas he had ever had and that he was so glad it was Jesus' birthday. That really made us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The mention of Jesus also reminded Hudson that life isn't just drums and ketchup and he ran into our breakfast nook. I was just gathering the energy from deep within to follow him when he galloped back into the living room yelling, "Yeehaw! Yeehaw!" I asked Matt why he was running and holding his crotch at the same time (those are questions I feel like Matt should always have the answer for) and upon closer inspection we discovered that he had ever so carefully plucked the donkey out of our nativity scene and was pretending to ride that tiny mule around our living room. As Matt reached for him in order to save the donkey from his inevitable fate, Hudson froze mid gallop, arms outstretched and shhh'd us as loud as he could. We all also froze, because frankly he is unpredictable and unpredictable people are dangerous (I learned that on the Real Housewives FYI). He stood there for about twenty seconds with that donkey clutched in his hand and then said, "Shh, baby seeping." "My baby seep." We followed him back over to the nativity and saw that he had placed a kitchen towel over the baby Jesus. Isn't that sweet (assuming he was tucking him in and not trying to smother him)? Ignoring the fact that touching my nativity is an offense punishable by death, it was absolutely precious. Ahh, a small glimpse into the real meaning of Christmas.
It almost made the drumming bearable. Almost.

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