December 24, 2004 - Friday
Yesterday, I had a plan. Struck by Harry's apparent reflection about the Christmas Trolls, I decided we'd get his mother some poinsettias for our house, as I kind of promised in the car. I took the boys to the store on our way home from school and got two more large poinsettias. I wasn't surprised that Harry asked for one of his own, but I'd just said that know was the time for getting things for mommy, reinforcing the idea that Christmas is about giving and sharing. Happily, he let it go pretty quickly and later proudly carried one of the poinsettias in the house and gave it to his mother. Jeremy did the same. What Harry didn't know was that after I dropped them off at school this morning, I'd gone to the store to get a small poinsettia for him.

I remember from childhood when Christmas Eve was both a happy time and a time to take seriously. I don't know what I really believed, but I did know the rules about Santa knowing when I was awake and never wanted to take any chances. Harry was the same tonight, effectively shooing us out of the room after just one story so he could be asleep before Santa came.

Much later, just before I went to bed, I snuck into Harry's room and put his small poinsettia on his window sill...


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