I sit here in the pre-dawn, waiting the awakening of a five year old boy who is in love with Santa Claus and on fire for Jesus. He has lately become quite the expert on the old fellow from the North Pole, correcting me on all manner of Saint Nick's Christmas behavior. He has gathered information from who knows where, but he is armed with it and prepared to utilize it against any of our claims to the contrary. Details concerning elves, how they are not really watching anybody leading up to Christmas, that they're busy making toys all the way until the last moment before the big night. Also that Santa can't possibly be everywhere to put kids on the "naughty or nice" list. He just does an overview report for the year. I affirmed that I checked Santa's website and verified that our boy is in the "nice" column. He has lots of details that I can only imagine are shared and agreed upon at school. They somehow all seem favorable to kids and can be used to bring into question any parental assertion regarding the more technical aspects of the yearly religious mystery. Christmas is really becoming his area of expertise. He is no longer in much need of parental input. He has formed his own relationship with the event.
He will be awake any moment now, I hope. We were up late - at least for him and myself - leaving a Christmas dinner sometime around 9:30. I went home and went straight to sleep, knowing that I would have to wake up early and wrap gifts, something that I am shamefully bad at. It seems so easy, but my success at it is patchy at best. I would take a picture of a bad example and post it here, but I have already hidden them under other presents underneath the tree.
Ok, I should wrap this post up. He will be walking into the living room any second now, astonished and amazed at the miracle of the morning.
.
