It’s the Christmas season, obviously, and the boys are beyond excited.  They are up at least an hour earlier than normal, they run around like chickens without heads and the most popular question (it accounts for at least 50% of their questions) is “How many days until Christmas?”  They ask, of course, despite the three different advent calendars as well as the countdown decoration sitting on the window in the family room.  And, I love every moment of it. I feel that this is the time of the year that I should be writing the most about them and the things they do.  However, to be honest, I am right there with them.  I am not sure who is actually more excited…them or me.  And with the excitement, my mind is cluttered with thoughts of decorating and shopping and ways to poke a stick at the kids own excitement (more on that in another post).  The end result is that by the time I get a chance to write about all of their excitement, I can’t unravel my mind enough to remember the details.  I find this to be a shame and even a small stress point, but the important thing is that I am enjoying the holiday with them.

So, below are the small scraps that I can remember and hopefully, I’ll be able to write more soon.

During the entire time we were decorating, Benjamin was loudly singing appropriate Christmas carols, often butchering them in the process.  For example, as I lay on my back, half under a pine tree with sap dripping on me as I struggled to get the thing straight in the strand, Benjamin was boldly singing, at the the top of his lungs, “Oh Christmas Tree.”  I wish I had recorded him doing this.  Sometime he would stop to analyze the songs he was sing…”Daddy, what does ‘Thy branches’ mean?”

Andrea took Ben to see the Nutcracker ballet the other night and, apparently, he completely understood the meaning of the show.  While wrestling with Matt, there apparently was a small accident to which Ben said, “Ah, my nuts are being cracked!”  He then started humming his favorite song from the show, “dum dada dum dum dum dum dum.” (The Nutcracker March)

Matthew got in on the action as well, sometimes literally just running in circles around me as I decorated different things out side.  While putting up lights on a tree in the backyard and then on my car (yes, I put Christmas lights along the roof rack of my car), Squeeky continued to escalate his high pitched noises and funny little dance until finally he exploded in excitement, “this is going to be the best Christmas ever!”

While both of them have been very, very good under the intense glare of Santa Clause, there have been a few times when Benjamin has done something bad, resulting in Matthew telling him that he won’t get anything from Santa.  Of course, this doesn’t make Ben very happy.