Simple Christmas

Christmas has come and passed.

The month before Christmas was full of planning and preparation.  Are the photos going to be developed in time to get them in the mail?  Will the package arrive on the other side of the country in time for grandparents and great grandparents?  Did we buy enough food to hole up the few days before and after Christmas, to avoid all the last minute shoppers and Boxing day chaos?  Some things went well, all our outgoing presents were shipped in time!  Some things, didn't go so well, the parcel is still out there somewhere missing.

This was the Christmas between breast-fed cave baby who doesn't care at all and food-fed cave toddler who only cares about the crackers and juice box in his stocking.

I noticed a few things this Christmas, our first with a real cave toddler.

• Cave toddlers actually don't care about any new toys, until you feed them breakfast.
• Even when they are excited for new toys, that excitement wanes once they get a glimpse of the old forbidden cupboard of cooking utensils. 
• A cup full of new pencils is the only way to get a cave toddler to sit still for the Skype camera.
• Special Christmas breakfast is good, but cave toddler would have liked being fed porridge by his cave papa just as much.
• The Christmas tree is interesting, but watching the stand mixer is just as fascinating. 

I feel like I could go on and on, but there is one overarching theme I picked up this year: cave babies are simple.  He didn't care if one present was ordered late and not there in time for the official Christmas morning. While he doesn't really appreciate the work and planning we put into his Christmas, he makes it a little easier by being completely content with a snack and watching cartoons curled up on the couch with cave momma and cave papa. 

Christmas won't always be so simple, but it's nice while it lasts.