First Christmas

Today was Troy’s first Christmas. Although technically I contend that it was his second. He was present and alive for the last one, just inside my wife at the time. But if you’re a believer, like I am, that he was already a living, viable human being, then he was there. Besides, he already had a stocking and gifts last year, so I’m counting it.

This year was a low-key affair comparatively speaking. We only had my mother, father, and stepmother over. And the main focus seemed to be on Troy, which also just felt right. I struggled this year to think up gift ideas for him. I mean on the one hand, we have not held back in buying him whatever he needs. On the other hand, he’s a ten-month old baby who is more interested in boxes and bags than actual gifts. So, I decided to tap into the latter as my idea for him.

I decided to build him a castle out of cardboard boxes. After all, every prince needs a castle, and I figured he’d enjoy that way more than some more clothes. I know how much I loved building forts out of boxes or pillows when I was younger, so I figured he’d enjoy it as well. However, as with most of my ideas, I might have aimed a tad high and ambitious on this one. I picked a design that was quite detailed and leaned more toward an authentic look. While it made the castle look amazing, it was also a lot of work. Of course, Troy is worth every hour I spent on it, but I didn’t anticipate the number of hours I would spend on it. In the end, I had to enlist the aid of both my mother and stepmother to help get it over the line. And even then, my mother and I were up to three o’clock in the morning to finally get it all done.

After 20+ hours of love poured into its construction, Troy wasn’t initially all that interested in the castle after he saw it. I had to work with him on crawling inside, and I put some of his new toys inside to entice him to want to be in there. Eventually, he was going in there and through there on his own. With time, I hope he enjoys it more and more.