L'il Blankie

One of my husband's home teaching families gave us a fleece blanket with cut tassels when my daughter was born (for the record, she received 14 blankets). She will not part with it. Perhaps it is because in those darkest hours of her infancy, when she was crying her little heart out the only thing that was there to comfort her was mom and the l'il blankie swaddling her so tight it left little red wrinkles on her pink skin. If anything, I thought she would hate the sight of her blanket. Now, when we stoped swaddling her, she started rolling the tassels, her little fingers moving with the deftness of and similar motility as the Hawaiian hula-ers. The blanket has been everywhere with us, the airplane, used as a cushion in the shopping cart, used even as a coat in the winter. It stinks to high heaven. It is hard to wrangle it out of her hands to wash it. When she was two she called it her bie. It will be a sad day when we loose the blanket. It's had a few near misses and by the Grace of God it is still with us.

Speaking of my daughter, we recently had the "Santa Claus" talk. We're not big for secrets so when she started asking, I told her the truth. I explained why we do it, why we pass it along. She also promised not to tell the other unwitting children. Was she sad? A little. I think it's a bit a of paradime shift. Was it sad for me? It's taking away a part of the magic of Christmas, which is hard as a parent. But as least now, we'll get the credit for all the hard work we put into Christmas :)