My son will someday learn that Christmas is about getting new toys to play with. But for now, he seems to think it's the time of the year that we break out the really cool toys that he's never seen before.
Except, they're not really toys, they're Christmas decorations.
As I mentioned before, my wife made a lot of handmade, soft ornaments to serve as the low-hangers on the tree.
My son loves this, but as is the case with his regular toys, he never cleans up after himself.
He's happy to walk up to the tree and pull the ornaments off. He'll play with one for a few minutes and then discard it, moving on to the next.
Every night, in addition to the regular post-child's play mess, we basically redecorate the house.
All the Christmas tins go back to their designated spot. The various decorative items in the house go back to their spots on the fireplace. Then we put the ornaments back on the tree.
He definitely has that Christmas twinkle in his eye when he looks at the lit Christmas tree, but I have a feeling it's more because he sees all the things he can grab, rather than the sense of the magic of Christmas.
He'll grab branches and pull them to their breaking point. He'll run by the tree, brushing against it, disregarding the frailty of it.
When I was putting the lights on the tree, I thought it would be funny to wrap my son in lights.
My wife watched in horror for a second as I did this, before reminding me that that's probably not a good idea.
"You don't want to give him the idea that those are toys."
"Good point," I responded, forgetting, for a mere moment, to think like a 17-month-old.
One of my son's favorite activities is sweeping. He sees us sweeping the floor after dinner, gathering up all the discarded food he throws over the side of his high-chair.
He'll often grab the adult-sized broom and walk through the house pushing it along the floor. It vaguely reminds me of the sport of curling. I hope he chooses a different sport to excel in, but at least curling is an Olympic event. I suppose it's better to win a gold medal in curling than nothing at all.
But as he's sweeping, he is completely oblivious to the long end of the broom. He'll move about and turn and shift and the handle will hit anything in its way.
He's knocked over a few things. He's tried to sweep the tree away, and has almost knocked off some of the higher-hanging ornaments.
He has a lot of fun sweeping his toys around the house. Don't tell him, but we got him a small, kid-size broom. It's only a matter of time before he's contributing around here.
We've tried to child-proof Christmas as best we can. None of the valuables are out this year. The breakable decorations that we're particularly fond of are on top of the mantle. He's taken to pulling the tree skirt from under the tree and using it as his own personal shawl.
We didn't even break out the traditional manger scene with the fancy ceramic figures given to us as a wedding gift. Instead, we opted for the Playmobil nativity set. We didn't realize all the small pieces it has, so it's taken up a home on top of the TV.
It's not the most stable spot for it. The little guys are not very secure up there. If you walk by the TV too hard, they tend to fall off. Again, because of the small pieces and our son's observant and opportunistic nature, we yell to the other spouse, "One of the Bible people fell off the TV."
My son sees them up there. He's slowly learning that if he shakes the TV, even a little, they're likely to fall to his clutches.
I know he enjoys it and he doesn't know any better. But it does get old, putting the house back together every night. Some nights we skip it and then the days pile up.
After a few days, our home resembles more like a Christmas burglary occurred than the Christmas miracle I always thought it to be.
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