O Chri-muh Tree

I usually put up the Christmas decorations the Friday after Thanksgiving and the plan is to do the same this year. Every year I forget to check beforehand to make sure I have enough strands of silver star garland and end up going to the store halfway through the trimming process to buy more. Tonight, I remembered this suddenly as we were driving home from swimming lessons. Since we drive right by the craft store, I pulled over and Nico and I had a little side quest. I told him that we were stopping to get something for the Christmas tree, and Nico dutifully repeated "Chri-muh tree?" We found the star garlands and I gave one to Nico to carry. "Star!" he announced, carrying it proudly through the aisles in his little fist. "Star!"

When we got to the checkout, he laid it up on the counter when I asked him to, but as soon as the clerk picked it up and he couldn't see it, he wailed "Star? Star?!" I guess he took his garland-carrying duty pretty seriously. We told him he could carry the bag once it was paid for, and the girl hurried to bag up the garlands and hand them to me. I passed the bag to Nico, who eyeballed it skeptically and then dropped it, asking "Star?" I finally took one garland out of the bag for him and he carried it to the car, then into the house once we got home. And as we were walking out of the store, Nico piped up "Bye, Chri-muh tree! Bye, Chri-muh tree store!"

Something tells me the holidays are going to be pretty rad this year.