The Christmas season is upon us. Particularly at our house, where I may be unemployed, but this just gives me the opportunity to be awesome at Christmas. I win, Christmas! This year is especially fun, as Ann gets it. Specifically, she recognizes the personal impact it will have. Every time we see a picture of Santa with his sleigh, she tells me "Those are MY presents!". When we see him in person, she yells "Santa! Where my presents?" and then she accosts him for candy canes.
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| I appreciate the candy cane, but no touching please. |
Of course, Christmas is also an extremely religious time, and it seeps into the lives of even the most secular of us. Ann is into it like a dirty shirt (an expression I don't actually understand). The Christmas story includes her favourite things: babies, mommies and occasionally baby goats and baby sheep. She was given a playmobile nativity as a gift (Oh Playmobile- is there anything you can't do?) and now talks fairly non-stop about her Baby Jesus and Jesus's mommy, the Virgin Mary, which she pronounces to the best of her ability. Or sometimes she gets words with hard 'G' sounds confused and calls her the Vagina Mary, which I don't think the Catholics would appreciate. Surprisingly, given her obsession with the nuclear family, she's unsure about who Joseph is. Thanks to the sexually ambiguous nature of playmobile, he is actually Mary most of the time. I think this is because Playmobile Joseph and I both have blondish hair. This means that most of the time Mary is the Daddy, unless she's another Mommy (how progressive of you, Playmobile!).
The other day we made a gingerbread house. Confusing hard 'G' words again, 'Gingerbread House' became 'Virgin Mary's House', so the nativity had to accompany it. To be honest, I think we're just lucky it wasn't 'Vagina Mary's House'. Which probably exists, but in the Gingerb-Red Light District.
She is taken with all Nativities that she sees now, and apparently all are fair game for augmentation. It's like gnomes are adding to the nativities at nighttime:
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| The Angel (Gabriel?) needed a monkey with cymbals to help announce the joyous news. And Benny the cow came with the wise men. Now the gifts include Gold, Frankincense, fertilizer, and Myrrh. |
And then the next night:
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| Joseph has been replaced by Dora's Abuela, who is in turn accompanied by Dora's Dad. Issa the Iguana faithfully watches over the Baby Jesus, and I don't know why the creepy farmer is in the far left corner. He looks slightly malicious, but those could be interpreted as two thumb-ups he's giving. |
We actually even went to church this season, with some family that we were visiting. Ann was pretty excited, as I'd previously prepped her that we'd be singing music. Partway through service, the church choir- formally decked out in matching robes- took to the stage (do we call it a stage? I don't know) and started a beautiful and moving rendition of 'Gloria in excelsius deo'. Everyone listened attentively, and people seemed quite solemn and moved. It was quite lovely. Even Ann stood up on my aunt's lap, to get a better view of the choir I presumed. Then she started pointing. And yelling. "Wheels on the Bus! Wheels on the Bus!". And that's when I nearly died, either from embarrassment or muffled laughter, I can't remember. She was devastated when they didn't stop to sing 'Wheels on the Bus' and when it wasn't their next song- even given her suggestion- she had to be removed to the nursery.
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| Merry Christmas Everyone! |
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