A Covid-19 Christmas

Well, my wife and I carried the Land Rover down stairs last night and covered it with a blanket. We wanted to capture Troy’s reaction to it when he first saw it. We’re glad we did, because he casually looked at it, grabbed a couple of books, set them on top of this new Troy-height “table”, opened them, and started reading. He made no attempt to look under the blanket, just accepted that his crazy parents decided to do some redecorating while he was asleep.

We decided to eat breakfast before opening presents, because we figured Troy would be uncorralable (not sure that’s actually a word) after he saw his gifts. My wife made a nice spread in honor of my birthday, even throwing in some bacon as a treat! After everyone was satisfied, we dug into the gifts.

The first was a reveal of the mysterious “table” in the middle of the floor. Troy was sitting nonchalantly on the couch, watching his mama slowly pull back the cover. But the moment he saw the car, he got a huge smile on his face, jumped to his feet, slid off the couch, and ran over to touch it. He loved pushing all of the buttons and handles. He let us put him inside, but then the moment it started to move, he wanted nothing to do with it. He jumped over the door, scared and panicked. We tried again several times, but he wouldn’t get back inside. Instead, he would get behind it and push it back and forth across the room. My wife said that he looked like he was weight training for football.

Troy’s Grammy and we both got Troy a stuffed dragon, and he loves both of them. Ours was a Build-a-Bear “Toothless” doll from the movie How to Train Your Dragon. The moment he pulled it out of the box, he recognized it from the movie. He threw it down, straddled it, and sat on it just like Hiccup. It’s a big doll, but not big enough to hold him, so it looked funny and ludicrous. But he was in heaven, imagining that he was soaring through the clouds of Berk!

But my brother won the day when Troy opened his gift to find a box full of dinosaur figurines and a book that audibly tells him the name of each one. His screams of “Dino, Dino, Dino!” could be heard all across the neighborhood...and probably several towns over as well. After that no other toy mattered anymore. Not the giant dump truck that my mom got him, not the wooden trucks my other brother got him, not the hand puppets my stepmom got him. It was all about the dinosaurs at that point. He eventually did play with everything as the day wore on, but he always came back to the dinosaurs. He even took the velociraptor with him when he took his nap. He woke up with a little red claw mark pressed into his soft cheek from hugging it the entire time.

All in all, it was a very nice Christmas. It was fun to see Troy enjoy being spoiled with gifts, the complete joy and excitement when each new thing was pulled from its wrapping. Not knowing which one to play with first. Overwhelmed by the new things to explore and manipulate. That was the greatest gift we could ask for, and we didn’t need a lot of things for ourselves. It’s not Troy’s first Christmas, or even his second. He had one in the womb, and one as a 10-month old before this. But it’s the first that he is cognizantly aware of, so it made it extra special. And hey, I threw in a nap for myself too. We had a truly blessed day.