The Mother (Grunch) Who Stole Christmas

Last night I took R2 and C2 out to do a little "light seeing."  They have really enjoyed going to see the nearby house that has about eight blow-up Christmas scenes on the roof and several significant life-size moving decorations on the driveway, not to mention all the lights--the residents of said house are single-handedly undoing all the green efforts here in our eco-conscious town.  But I digress.  Anyway, I thought I'd take them to see some other lights, just for a little variety.  To their credit, my two little light-seers oohed and aahed at any house with lights, no matter how flimsy the effort.  Especially C2.  He would belt out, "Chrissamiss wights!  Hoooo-ray!"  (btw, I don't know where he learned the word "Christmas."  He's been saying it since early November.)  But after a while, R2 wanted to know where the "big lights" were.  So I took them to a well-known spot.  This house has every inch of their front yard covered with plastic nativities, blow-up things, flashing lights, glowing palm trees, skiing polar bears, and more than I can even remember.  C2 begged to get out.  "Absolutely not!  It's too cold!" was my insensitive reply.  "Mom." says R2.  "We need to get up close."  Needless to say, we were all out of the car about 1 minute later.  Freezing.

C2 was beside himself!  He had to touch everything.  He put his little hand around the tinsel garland and was running up and down sliding it through his palm, laughing.  His still insensitive mother grabbed him and told him he had to let go because the garland might break.  Total resistance.  "Touch!  TOUCH!  TOUCH!!" he yelled at the top of his little lungs.  We compromised, and soon he moved on.  He was mesmerized by the blow-up "Grunch" (R2's word) coming out of the chimney with a Christmas tree.  Then he discovered the large, plastic candy canes lining the yard.  Next thing I know, he's licking one.  Argh!  I toted him away, kicking and screaming and put them both back in the car.  He was furious.  I was freezing.  R2 was the peace-maker.

Lucky for him.