merry christmas

I woke up this morning to two wide blue eyes staring at me from five inches away.  The eyes moved to two inches away and a blonde head of downy fluff rubbed into my forehead.  A thumb sucked and squeaked in a rosebud mouth.

Little Friend wormed her way into our bed somewhere between the hours of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning because of a diaper that gave way like a cracked dam to the flood of urine somehow produced by her little nugget of a bladder.  Little Friend couldn’t exactly be put back into a soaked bed in soaked pajamas, so we opted for clean pajamas and a little nest between us in bed.

“Merry Christmas” I say through sleep-slitted eyes.

“Can we go downstairs now?” comes the quick reply.

“Sure.  Why do you want to do downstairs?”  I’m fishing to see if she’s remembered the avalanche of presents presaged for this morning.

“I want to see if Baby Jesus came.”

And just like that, I’m exploding with gratitude for these two little blue eyes and head of duck fluff that has, in the innocence of her three years, reminded me just what this day is all about.

Of course, not all parts of the Christmas story have sorted themselves out in Little Friend’s head.  On Christmas Eve, Little Friend’s narrative went something like this: “When Jesus comes, he will come into my tummy, and then he will grow and grow and grow, and then I will cough him out, and we will sing Happy Birthday Jesus, and he will be three-years-old.  Just like me.  Then he will ask me if I want to come to heaven with him, and I will say ‘Yes.'”

Here’s wishing that a simple and merry Christmas spirit finds you and yours this Christmas day!