Big Adventures for Tiny Humans, No. 8
Christmas morning finally arrives. Louisa waits patiently in her room to be collected. She knows we want her and Otto to come downstairs and see what Santa may have left at the same time. She’s patient. She doesn’t even peek out of her room. Finally the toddler is waking - we tiptoe down the hallway to collect them both.
Slowly, then quickly, down the stairs. Pause. Some confusion. What is this?!
Luckily, Santa left a letter:
Dear Louisa and Otto,
I thought this might be a good year to give you your very own couch! Grown-ups can get so fussy about playing and jumping on the furniture, so this one is made especially for you. We call it a Nugget. I should let you know that it’s not just any couch. Of course you can use it for normal couch things like sitting on to read books, snuggling up to watch a movie, lounging by the fire. BUT it’s also good for jumping and climbing, building into forts, propping up into slides and really anything else your imaginations can dream up - go ahead lift up the cushions, move it around a little! I’m sure you fun-loving kids will come up with all sorts of creative uses for this little guy, just remember to be safe. The best part is - and this direction comes directly from the elves who make Nuggets - your parents can’t tell you to get off and stop jumping on this couch!
Have fun and happy adventuring! I’ll just be up at the North Pole with Mrs. Claus and the elves dreaming up next year’s surprise!
What are these? She indicates the packages wrapped in brown paper and stamped with Santa’s face and someone’s name. Looks like those are gifts from Santa too! A family game, a preschool game, a toddler game, a solar system floor puzzle, shoes for the ever-running toddler. Surprises, all of them.
I should note - we don’t write letters to Santa in our house. This wasn’t planned; we just never introduced the concept of asking for particular gifts and sending those requests up to the North Pole. What Santa brings, for the individual or the family, has just always been a surprise. This was the first year, at age four, that she inquired about the concept of asking for gifts. While I did explain that some children send letters to Santa detailing to him exactly what they hope to find on Christmas morning, in our house, we allow Santa to surprise us. There’s no hiding it - it’s in books and movies and certainly a lunch table topic at preschool - and yet we opt for the excitement, the suspense, of knowing a surprise is coming. There aren’t many true surprises in life, so I feel this pull to cultivate a love for surprise in my kids.
Nearly two months later, the Nugget gets daily use. It’s a place to curl up under a blanket, but more often than not it’s a place to bounce and balance and dance and slide and hide and wrestle and snuggle. It changes shape and purpose. It provokes creativity. It wears out energy. Sometimes it prompts arguments and yelling, but even then it’s a place to land and start again.
