No, the holidays can’t be here again already! A year seems like forever to the little ones, but it goes by quick as a wink in grandparent time.
Was it truly 12 months ago you caught that rascally Jackson attempting to munch his way through the popcorn chain on the tree? Could it really be nearly 365 days since helpful young Sarah tried to feed the dreidel to her baby brother, or that enterprising Alisha made a bed in the Kwanzaa basket for her new poodle puppy?
Get ready for lots more misadventures as you try to top last year’s fun with your favorite kids on the planet. Gift-wise think Furby, Twister Dance, Team Umizoomi, Web Shooting Spider-Man, LeapPad2 and iAnything.
If you want to pull out all the stops for your tween-aged grandchildren, just make a call to some of your good friends like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift and arrange a special concert in your living room. Oh, wait…sorry…that gift is only available in your grandkids’ fantasies.
Even if the kidlets can’t spend the afternoon swooning over Justin and Taylor, they would love to hang an extra holidays stocking on your fireplace in case Santa decides to make an appearance at your house. When it’s time to attach the personalized legwear to the mantel, grab the step-stool and your smallest hammer and confirm the whereabouts of the first aid kit. Uh-huh, you’ll be the daredevil holding the nails with one hand as you guide the youngsters’ hammer strokes with the other. Don’t think of it as a recipe for disaster. Think of it as the holiday way to start building their confidence with tools.
Later, as you nurse that tender thumb, fill the stockings with sidewalk chalk, Matchbox toys, kazoos, crayons, sparkly barrettes, candy canes and bottles of bubble blow.
You never know what types of special gifts your grandkids might have in store for you. You haven’t lived until you receive a “picture” made of shiny new pennies glued to white cardboard or an iTunes gift card that you-know-who will probably end up using!
If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get five-by-seven photos of Abigail and Addison, those exuberant red-headed twins, in matching frames they fashioned out of popsicle sticks. (Abby’s the one with that extras sprinkling of freckles across her nose.)
Whatever you do, have a happy holidays with your grandkids this holiday season. My gift to you: a repeat of the variation I debuted last year of a classic holiday tune that you can all sing together.
The Twelve Days of Christmas for Grandparents
On the first day of Christmas, my grandkids gave to me…
a million cartoons on DVD
On the second day of Christmas, my grandkids gave to me…
two dirty socks and
a million cartoons on DVD
And so on for days three
through twelve…
three french fries
four appalling words
five bathtub rings
six laughing lizards
seven Play-Doh pizzas
eight stinky stinkbugs
nine pink piñatas
ten gargling goldfish
eleven giant gumballs
twelve dizzy ducklings
Diana J. Ewing is the author of The Baby Boomers’ Guide to Grandparenting
