Trick or Treating, and Other funny Emma-Concocted Christmas Anecdotes

Yesterday Santa drove through the streets of Eagle Mountain in a fire truck and waved at all the children and threw little candy canes to them. When we heard the sirens letting us know that Santa was on his way to our area, I told Emma to get ready so that she could get a treat from Santa Claus. After I said this, she got a quizzical expression on her face, and then ran to her closet and told me to get her Pirate Dress down so that, "I can go trick-or-treat to Santa and get a treat!"

Also- she is now certain that Santa has traded in his traditional air-borne sleigh for a fire-truck, and every time she has heard a siren since then she tells me that it is Santa on his way to the North Pole. Funny girl!

We have started the Mouse tradition with Emma this year, and it has been a lot of fun for all of us. For anyone who is unfamiliar with this particular Jones tradition, I will give a quick explanation of what this adorable tradition entails. When I was growing up we had a little advent calendar that had fabric pockets for the first 24 days of December, and there was a little mouse that moved from pocket to pocket, thus designating how close to Christmas we were. At the top of this calendar is a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Claus enjoying an evening by their cozy fireplace. Every day, the Mouse would watch us from his little pocket to see if we were being naughty or nice, and then he would report to Santa in the picture about our behavior. If we had been good (and I cannot ever remember the mouse sending a bad report) then Mrs. Claus would give the Mouse a treat for us. Checking the pockets for our Mouse treats was a fabulous way to start the day. The moral of the story is- my mom is a genius! When I got married, my mom made me a little calendar, but mine is a little different. It has a cute little sailboat with a Christmas tree in it. Our nautical mouse rides that boat to the North Pole every night to let Santa know what Emma and Sara have been up to. Most mornings Emma wakes up to a lovely left-over treat from Halloween (she is still young enought for us to get away with that!).

On Friday, Emma was enjoying her breakfast, but she wanted some more chocolate milk. I wanted her to finish her ceral first. She tricked me though! She got her Kitty-Bear (a leopard print teddy bear- not as risque as it sounds though- he is cute) and put him in a chair and said, "Kitty-Bear is hungry- he needs some chocolate milk." I though this was awfully cute so I gave him some chocolate milk. Apparently Emma was right about him being hungry, because just as I was putting the milk away, Emma alterted me to the fact that the Kitty-Bear had finished his cup and was ready for some more, "because he's so hungry." I told the Kitty-Bear that he had to eat some cereal before he could have some more chocolate milk. When KB had finished both his and Emma's cereal and milk, Emma said, "Oh- good job, Kitty-Bear! Mommy, the Kitty-Bear gets a treat from the mouse for being so good!" I think he liked his caramel eyeball almost as much as Emma liked hers. (For the record- that only worked the first time. I am not always such a push-over.)