A Red Present

Last year Moolah didn't really understand how Christmas worked. So, when she came home from her daytime family a few weeks ago with the information that Santa Claus would bring her presents, I thought it was a good way to open the conversation.

"What do you want Santa to bring you."

"Presents."

"What kind of presents?"

"A red one."

"What kind of red present?"

(Confused) "A red one."

"Yes, but what do you want to be in the red present?"

(Maybe if I talk slower and louder she'll understand me): "A RED one."

"OK. When you open up your red present, what do you think will be inside."

(Pause to consider, then gleefully) "Cookies!!"

Check. Red present with cookies. There was a little glitch because the next day she told me that Santa was going to bring Zoey a red present and that she would get an orange one. Still cookies (but only when pressed). I searched for orange paper, which is very hard to come by in December (maybe it's hard to come by at other times of the year, I don't know, I haven't ever needed it before). Then, last week, exactly one day after I found orange packaging, it was back to red. "I thought it was going to be orange." "No! Red like his suit!" We agreed that Ace would maybe get an orange present.

The big guy came through. There was a red box of cookies, snowmen and Christmas trees. There were also a few other red presents for her, and some orange ones for Ace. There were even some presents for Mama and Daddy. Mama's favorite was the new emerald "nose earring" that Moolah picked out.