#14: The magic (and sometimes misery) of a 5 year old at Christmas
Also a story where I compare my children to velociraptors
I’ve been reminded this past month that being 5 years old at Christmas is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because their mental acuity has finally progressed beyond “what is that tree in our house who is that weird fat guy dressed in red what are these boxes with colorful paper on them can I have some graham crackers” to something more like “Ok when Santa comes I would like this present and that present and this thing and that thing and GIVE ME COOKIES I WANT COOKIES THE SUUUUUUUGAR AHHHHHH”. I guess a more eloquent way of saying this is that 5 years old is when kids seem to really *get* Christmas. They get that there will be presents and Santa and treats and a lot of joy. It’s truly a wonderful and magical time to be around kids.
But it’s also a curse because at 5 years old their brain circuitry is still so fresh that the soldering iron that glued it all together is still hot to the touch. Every memory, every sensation is either “the greatest thing ever” or “the worst thing ever”. This definitely does not describe every kid but it certainly describes our 5 year old. This Christmas has been a live wire of emotions. When I started to write this post about 2 weeks ago, my view on Christmas was that we were gonna cancel that shit and send all the cool presents back to Papa Amazon because some normally sweet little kid had turned into a madwoman.
Generally speaking, little kids crave structure and Christmas is a notoriously structure free time (what with Santa and school parties and cookies, etc, etc). We’ve tried our best as parents to strike a balance between finding a coherent, predictable schedule (bed and nap time rarely if ever waver) and keeping things fast and loose (I mean, we did live out of a Subaru for 4 months earlier this year) to help reinforce that life comes at you fast. Our kids have been in 4 different schools, a myriad of day camps, have had a random assortment of baby sitters, so on and so forth. And the reality is I think the kids we have now, the beneficiaries of all this change, are pretty much exactly the same kids we would have if we sat in our house day in and day out watching CocoMelon on repeat. This really fascinating TED article on the role parents play in shaping their kids seems to confirm this.
But just as you finish reading an article telling you that there ain’t a whole lot you can do as a parent to shape the human beings you’re raising, and you contemplate pulling the ejection handle on Christmas to jump straight to New Years because your kids are being universal assholes, they decide to surprise you, restoring your faith both in your parenting and in, well, humanity (hey, I need all the help with humanity I can get these days).
Last week Megan taught Lil, our 5 year old, how to “wrap” presents. I use the word wrap very loosely because this ain’t no Martha Stewart professional wrapping job. It looks more like she took an enormous wad of wrapping paper, dropped a present in the middle, and bundled it up with a thousand yards of scotch tape. It would be pretty adorable if the story ended here with a few janky looking presents under the tree. But every morning for the past week when I’ve come downstairs, Lil is dutifully wrapping me a present to put under the tree. After the second or third day, I quietly asked Megan how many Christmas presents she bought me.
“Well only one”
“Sooooo what’s she wrapping then?”
“She’s wrapping all the gifts to grandma, grandpa, her cousins, Auntie….and she’s found a few random things around the house to wrap and give you”
“Say what?”
“Yes, there’s like 5 things under the tree for you. But only one is really a Christmas gift. The rest are random things from around the house that she wants to “give” you”
At first I chuckled, then I wondered if something I actually needed was hiding under the tree in a rat’s nest of wrapping paper. But after a few minutes, a real fondness for this story hit me. All the tantrums and attitude and crankiness melt away with this one moment of cuteness. She was so proud to wrap all the presents for her family. And while I’m not prepared to name her the most benevolent person of 2021, it is a really heartwarming sight to see her thinking about someone other than herself. To think about doing something meaningful for a family, or giving dad presents (and “presents”). Maybe she’s being thoughtful because it’s who she inherently is. Or maybe her mom and I molded her this way? I guess i’ll never know. But it’s fun as hell to watch.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year friends!
Your weekly fun parenting anecdote
(I’m experimenting with adding a little postscript story to the end of the newsletters. Lemme know what you think)
One of the worst parts to having a Kindergartner is that they go to school to actually learn things. Which really sucks when you’re accustomed to communicating with the other parent via spelling out words you don’t want the kids to understand. For example, we were discussing something this week when Megan said to me “I think that movie is too S-C-A-R-Y for the girls to watch” to which our 5 year old immediately responded with “wait, what move is too scary?”. Girl now knows how to spell shit? This is like when the velociraptors in Jurassic Park learned how to open doors.