Waiting for Santa

22 December, 2010

This week we are holidaying in Ocean Grove, courtesy of my beautiful aunty and uncle and their gorgeous holiday house. We have been looking forward to this holiday for about six months, but especially since Christian's health took a nose-dive. You know how you wait for something wonderful, and get all excited as it gets closer and closer, and then all of a sudden you're there, and you cross your fingers that it will live up to the hype? This holiday is surpassing any expectations that I had - this is by far and away the best week-before-Christmas ever...but since we are without internet for the week, you will be reading this some time after the fact!!

So what have we been doing this week? Since we arrived on Monday, we have walked down to the shops for coffee, walked to the playground, walked to the beach...in fact we've walked nearly everywhere! The kids have chatted to numerous locals, all absolutely lovely and up for lengthy conversations about the imminent arrival of Santa Claus. The kids have been flogged by some rather long walks near bedtime, which has meant some very peaceful nights for Mummy and Daddy (and Maisie, our little sidekick!) Mais has been very busy cutting about 100 new teeth, so the dribble has been flowing thick and fast. Her commando crawl is now so deft that nothing is safe, and she chases the kids around the house, giggling manically and collecting bits of fluff and other debris on her tummy. I haven't had to vacuum in a week.

The building hysteria about Christmas has provided some very funny moments. May I present to you, Phoebalicious' version of the old classic 'Jingle Bells': "Da-wingle bells, da-wingle bells, dwingle all da way, on da farm, they had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o!" We also love the new and mangulated lyrics to 'Santa Claus is Coming To Town', sung loudly and with a shout at the end of each line: "You better not SHOUT! You better not CRY! You better not SHOUT! I'm telling you why, Santa Claus is comin', tt HE  SEES YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPIN'!!! HE SEES YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPIN'!! OH!" And repeat ad naueum. (By the way, the "tt" is not a typo - she literally skips the words "to town" in favour of mkaing the sounds of "tt" - it's quicker to get to the chorus that way!)

Phoebe in particular has been very concerned about Santa coming down the chimney and being burned by the fire. We have reassured her numerous times that there will be no fire in the Coonara on Christmas Eve, but to no avail...she is determined that Santa comes throught the 'fire' and will be sooty and messy. Jack is more worried about coming out and seeing Santa, and stopping him from delivering - and yet I think at the merest hint of a sleigh bell jingling my boy would be out the door in a flash! Let's just say we have used the old chestnut about Santa watching quite a few times this week. Heaven help us next week when we have to go back to old threats and promises!