A Good First-Day-of-Christmas Begins and Ends in The Nursery

Christmas morning began with a mission, undertaken by Ian.  He got up - probably before Daniel was even awake, and went downstairs to the tree, coming back a few minutes later with presents in his arms for himself and Daniel.  When he got back to Daniel's bedroom, he gave Daniel a few presents to open, and started in on his own.  He also brought both of their Christmas stockings to open.  The sound that gave away the project was a jingling that carried up and down the stairs and Ian came back, coming from the two huge, elaborate, teddy-bear-encrusted Christmas stockings which belong to the boys.  The jingling came from the big bell at the bottom-toe of each of the stockings.

At the very end of the day, when the boys apparently concluded that Christmas was over (unaware of the multiple-day duration of the feast), they undertook a spontaneous raid of the Christmas tree, climbing up and around it and removing all candy canes.  I didn't understand the effort at the time, but when I checked on Daniel later on that night, I understood.  Beside him on the bed was a great pile of candy canes, strewn around him the way that the giant or the robber might sleep with his gold around him in a fairy tale.

The bookends of the first day of Christmas turned out to be ritual transfer of "the goods" from the general pool of resources downstairs to the private savoring and consumption, if not hoarding, of Daniel's clandestine  personal space.

(January 7, 2013)