Getting Christmas

I thought maybe that Tom’s third festive season would be the one where he started “getting” Christmas, but the whole thing seemed to be passing him by. I suppose the whole world is still a bit too novel to him for any particular time of year to stand out.

Last night he went to bed with no visions of sugarplums dancing in his head. In the morning he rushed into our bedroom as usual, without even spotting the stocking presents carefully placed by his bed.

Ok, he loved his brand new toy toolbox, and made the proper appreciative “wow!” noises when the new slide appeared in the garden, but it seemed as far as he was concerned this was just an exceptionally good Sunday morning, not a special morning.

Then, sitting at the dinner table, something seemed to click. He looked at the huge spread, the surrounding extended family all decked in paper hats, took a bite of a bacon-wrapped sausage and exclaimed to us all loudly “merry Christmas”!