And oh boy was there. Most of Grandma Alice's normal Christmas decorations are way too fragile for a pint-sized helper. But Grandma Alice got Nicholas some very special Nicholas-sized decorations to work on.
Nicholas' first surprise was a 4-ft tree set up for him in the basement. Grandma and an uncle or two set up the tree and got the lights on before bringing Nicholas down. And his face just lit up when he saw it!
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| From 2011 November |
He then went right to work, putting on every single ornament that had been laid out.
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| From 2011 November |
He then asked about the box of candy canes that were there. And all it took was someone saying they could be hung on the tree too and he was on a mission.
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| From 2011 November |
He did all of this by himself (okay, except the bow on top):
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| From 2011 November |
Just as the adults had decided that this looked good and maybe we should just skip the garland, Nicholas saw it. And there was no going back. His first attempt to do it himself was, while hilarious, not very productive. So Aunt Melinda helped him and they got it wrapped around the tree nicely.
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| From 2011 November |
The tree looked just as pretty when we left this morning, although not the same. Nicholas has rearranged the ornaments and candy canes (especially the candy canes) at least a half dozen times in the past 3 days. But he does it carefully and methodically and enjoys it, so why not? Given this, however, this year we might want to just skip any breakable ornaments on our tree so he is free to re-decorate at will.
After decorating the tree there were still more fun Christmas surprises in store for our very lucky little boy.
A real gingerbread house!
Grandma Alice bought a gingerbread kit and Aunt Melinda took on the bulk of the work of helping Nicholas decorate it.
I cut out the fondant for the windows and doors to the right size and we pointed to the general area where they should go (which was also designated by lines on the gingerbread), but Nicholas put them on. He also picked the pieces of candy he wanted and put them on after Melinda dotted frosting on the backs.
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| From 2011 November |
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| From 2011 November |
Nicholas did discover pretty early on that the "glue" was yummy frosting and so was intentionally wiping it off the candy pieces and liking his fingers. Sneaky.
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| From 2011 November |
We had to re-glue some of them.
The grownups put the house together and Melinda and I did the piping for the roof lines, but Nicholas did the bulk of the gumdrops.
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| From 2011 November |
Putting them on the roofline was my idea, but he carefully placed them all neatly in the line. (Watch the video below to see the excitement.)
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| From 2011 November |
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| From 2011 November |
It is so fun watching him do projects, now that he is old enough to really get them and enjoy them. And he is such a careful and mellow 2-year-old that it is feasible to let him.
Nicholas loves looking at the gingerbread house, but he has also asked to eat it a couple times. Technically it is edible, but I'm not so sure I'd want to eat it. Maybe we'll make some gingerbread cookies to eat closer to Christmas instead.
We'll be back again in 2 weeks for the extended family Christmas party, so Nicholas can see "his" tree and gingerbread house again soon. We also left the other Christmas-themed goodies that Grandma bought there, to be rediscovered on our next visit. I don't think I need to pack any toys. :)
And, best of all, as we read our knock-off Corduroy's Christmas Surprise last night (I couldn't find the real book in his bag even though I was certain it was packed, so I made him one), he stopped when we got to the part about decorating the tree and exclaimed, "Corduroy decorated a tree like I decorated a tree!" And, if possible, even more excitedly proclaimed when we reached the next page, "Dolly made a gingerbread house like I made a gingerbread house! That was so much fun!"
The next month is going to be one new exciting thing after another for him. He's working on a bunch of Christmas songs, trying really hard to learn the exclamations in Rudolph and figuring out what each of the songs on our Christmas CDs "is about." Currently he likes Frosty because it is about a snowman and we built a snowman, Rudolph because he loves the exclamations (especially "ho ho ho" and "yippee"), and "The Little Drummer Boy," because "it is about a little boy like I am a little boy."
2 is simultaneously such an awful age and such a wonderful age. I guess this wonder and joy and excitement is there to balance out the stubbornness and boundary testing. As I have said before, God knew what He was doing when he made little kids cute.
You HAVE to eat the house - what else do you do with it? It's like self-decorating a pizza and then eating it. :)
ReplyDeleteLove his tree! He is SO proud, and that's what matters!