Welcome to Our Christmas Curio Shop

The good thing about having a son with a type-A personality is he takes over pesky tasks like decorating for Christmas. The bad thing is (see above.)

The day after Thanksgiving, I carted down the Topsy popcorn tins full of fake greenery and apples and mistletoe; and Santas and snowmen and angels and ornaments obscurely related to Christmas.

Oh, look: it's the Christmas football field drawn with pen on notebook paper, "laminated" with scotch tape, and hanging by an S-shaped paperclip. That one obviously was crafted by my brother Luke. God deprived him of any art skills whatsoever. Now we know that God's plan was to steer Luke away art school and toward medical school. At the time, we thought God simply wanted us to have the ugliest Christmas ornaments in the universe. My scotch tape laminated notebook paper angel with giant frog eyes, on the otherhand, was magnificent.

Then there are the Scrooge character figurines. Mrs. Cratchet holds a styrofoam plum pudding with a big bite chomped out of it. That was the year Johnny took a bite out of all the fake apples, too. Which makes sense. I mean, as a one year old, he must have thought, "Who puts fake apples on the dining room table? Oh, good god, the tiny plum pudding is a phony, too."

This year, as soon as the tins hit the dining room floor, Johnny tore off the newspaper wrapping and arranged every single decoration in straight lines on the living room hope chest. When you walk in, our house looks like a Christmas curio shop.

Actually, he didn't put all decorations there. He put two little nutcrackers on top of our alarm clock--which will make pushing the snooze button 70 times in the morning a challenge.

Richie and J.J. meanwhile had the Santas and Scrooge and the Nativity donkey and angel candle talk to each other.

With Richie, the conversation went like this like this:

Santa: My mommy said I could have candy.

Scrooge: Well, my mommy said I could have Sprite.

Santa: Well, my mommy said I could have candy and Sprite.

Scrooge: hmph.

Santa: hmph.

J.J.'s went like this:

Angel candle: Roar.

Mary's Donkey: Roar.

Did you ever notice that when kids play with figurines, they have them hop up and down the whole time they're talking. They also conk heads in the middle of the conversation. That's what it must look like to kids when they see us big people talking.

I left the decorations where they were. Honestly, it's the only clear surface in our house.

I realized this year that I'd never bought a Christmas decoration. We have ones that are special because they were gifts, but I wanted to buy something to pass down to whichever child eventually becomes my favorite (kidding! It will be whoever's childhood memories of Justin and me are the most flattering.)

So I bought a Tomie Paola wooden nativity set. That's why J.J. was able to have a growl off between the angel candle and donkey. I'm not sure who won. The angel probably eventually flew away. Now she's sitting next to football player Santa on our curio shop display table.

They're probably growling at each other over a glass of highly coveted and often forbidden Sprite. Merrrrry Chrrrristmas.