2 More Days!

“2 more days…there’s just 2 more days until Christmas dad!!” That was the first thing Ben said to me when he woke up yesterday morning. Of course, technically, at that time he had 3 days, but Ben’s thinking was he  only had to go to sleep and wake up twice more, and the third time would be Christmas morning (it was fun watching him do the calculations in his head.) Either way, this kid is seriously excited for Christmas!

All week long, Ben has constantly been asking how many more days? He is more than ready to give out his presents, light up all the candles on the advent wreath, and just start celebrating. This is an awesome age to watch him really get into the holiday spirit. The cool part is, Ben seems most excited about giving.

This past weekend, we went out to pick out some gifts for Ben’s Sunday school teachers. He was very thoughtful as we looked through the stores, trying to find just the right little thing for each one. Back home with the gifts picked out, Ben was just as excited to wrap them himself, and then insisted on making his own special cards for them. When Sunday morning came around, Ben proudly marched into church carrying his gift bags, and couldn’t have been smiling any bigger as he handed them out. It was very cute.

The whole giving theme continued later in the week when I came home from doing some Christmas shopping one afternoon. I was barely in the front door when I could hear Ben calling for me to come down stairs. He was down there playing trucks on the floor with Nana, but he was excited to show me something.  So I hurried down and he greeted me with a huge smile and pointed under the Christmas tree. That afternoon, Nana had helped him wrap up his presents for me, and he wanted to show me that he had already put them under the tree. Ben was so excited for me to see that my presents were under tree, I can’t imagine how he will be watching me open them! He just grinned at me and said “I hope you like them! No opening until Christmas!”

That giving spirit has been with Ben first thing each morning when we wake up and open his advent calendars. He has three in all, two here at Daddy’s house. One of them has a little bible verse under each door, and the other one has a little piece of chocolate for each day. At Mommy’s house, he has a big calendar where he pulls Christmas ornaments out of a little pocket each day and velcros them onto a tree on the calendar. Each morning he has been excited to wake up and find which box we have to open up next. But, as soon as he gets the chocolate out, he takes it and pushes it against the corner of his dresser until it breaks into two pieces… one for Ben, one for Daddy. Even with that little piece of chocolate, he is thinking about sharing and giving.

I think Ben’s true feelings about the holiday came through this week while he was wrapping Daddy’s presents with Nana.  While carefully folding and taping the wrapping paper, Ben just kind of paused and said “Nana, I just LOVE Christmas. I love all the lights and decorations, and celebrating and giving gifts. I just love it.” Nana said it was really sweet because Ben sounded so thoughtful about it, and he kind of just stopped and said it out of the blue. And that’s pretty much what this past month has been in a nutshell, just watching Ben loving every  minute of getting ready for Christmas. His Christmas spirit definitely rubs off on everyone around him.

So, we hope everyone else can pause and really enjoy the next couple of days. I know Ben helps me to do that, and I can’t wait to watch him experience it all….just 2 more days!!!

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