Christmas with a Three Year Old

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Children, People

I want to talk about Christmas, in particular, experiencing Christmas with a three year old. Why? Because experiencing anything with a three year old, let alone Christmas, can be extremely hazardous.

So what am I actually talking about? Have you ever laid the ground work for Christmas, by preparing a three year old for the event? As a parent, you discuss what Christmas means, why we celebrate it, what’s going to happen, but also the fact that other people will be receiving presents; not just them. It’s more difficult than a Rebel character surviving Rogue One.

I say this because this is UMC2’s first Christmas, where he’s old enough to help us prepare for it. This of course had led to some interesting conversations, that can be broken down into three sections.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

1.) Lists

UMC2 has been hilarious leading up to Christmas. My wife and I have sat down with him, and tried to list things that his family members like to do, over a few separate occasions. For myself, he said I liked eating and sleeping; which is very true.

The next step was to look at that list, and to think of some gifts that person would like. An example would be UMC1; he likes books and turtles, so a turtle book would be a clever idea for gift.

In theory, this worked on paper, however not so much in reality. When we were discussing these lists, UMC2 wanted to create one about himself, because he was concerned, everybody had forgotten about him.

We promised him that wasn’t the case, and we already had a list for him. That was a really dumb thing to say, because he wanted to see the list and for us to read it out. UMC2’s reasoning was that he wanted to make sure that his gifts would actually be things that he actually liked.

We tried in vain to explain to him, that if we told him what the gifts would be, then they would not be a surprise for him anymore; so on Christmas Day, there would be no surprises for him, because he would know the contents of all of my gifts. UMC2 was completely fine with that, and proceeded once again to campaign to see the list.

2.) Shopping

After we had made our lists, UMC2 and I went Christmas shopping on a budget, which is always interesting. I invited UMC2 to help with me this, because I wanted him to understand what was happening, and to be involved. You may have already guessed where this is headed.

UMC2 was amazing at some gift suggestions for other people, he really was. Only one of his suggestions was Spider-Man related, which to be honest, was a miracle in itself, because he loves Spider-Man and the Flash.

As we had finished the shopping, I told UMC2 that we would be going home. This puzzled UMC2, because he was under the impression, that I was also going to be buying him some Christmas presents, under his supervision.

We had already purchased his gifts, but they were safely hidden away, but UMC2 did not know this. He started explaining that while we were out Christmas shopping, I could purchase some gifts for him.

I responded by explaining, that if I took him to a store to buy something for him, it would not be a surprise. UMC2’s solution to this problem was that he would close his eyes, so he wouldn’t be able to see the gift.

3.) Negotiating

For the last part, this only happened in the last week of Christmas. UMC2 came up to me and asked if he could please open some of his gifts, that were under the Christmas tree. I asked him if there was a special reason why this needed to happen.

UMC2 replied that he knew the contents of several gifts, that were for different people. He goes on to say that he hadn’t told anybody what their gifts were; so because of this fact, was it possible for him to be rewarded for this, by opening some of his own gifts.

I told him that he’s made some really good choices, but that was not going to happen. UMC2 tried to renegotiate by saying, that he hadn’t broken or ripped anybody’s gifts, so was it still possible for him to be rewarded for this, by opening some of his own gifts.

I smiled, because I thought that was quite clever. Anyway, UMC2 did not get to open any gifts early, but not though the lack of trying. On Christmas Day, he was amazing. He handed out gifts to everybody, before opening his own gifts. I thought for a three year old, that had tried several different ways to learn the contents of his gifts, he showed a lot of patience.

A side note to Christmas morning; both UMC1 and UMC2 had slept in. It was at 7.45am, when I started playing AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, when they both rolled out of bed, because we had family coming over at 8.00am. They soon got over being woken up, at the realisation that it was Christmas!

Sorry if this blog was a strange one, but I’m trying to spend as much time with my family as I can over the holidays, so I can go back to playing cricket, building Lego, and flying X-wings round the house, with my boys.

Anyway, I hope everybody had a great Christmas, look after yourselves, and I’ll see you in 2022.