Sorry this has taken so long.  It took me three days, three 24 hour periods to get all of the stuff uploaded to Flickr and YouTube.  Anyway, this is part I in a three part post on Christmas 2013.  It seems like such a long time ago, but the reality is it was not even three weeks ago.  As has been the tradition over the past few years we start the festivities at Colby/Myles's house.

Isaac, of course, made out like a bandit.  Well, frankly, everyone did:



The boys were very good, eating and playing and just hanging out for quite some time before going present crazy, but there was an equilibrium point at which the inevitable had to happen.  They went a little bonkers chanting and marching, wanting presents.  It was not, I repeat NOT, because I started marching around shouting "PRESENTS PRESENTS!".  Okay, so it was.  It was just too exciting to wait.

Here they are with their GG just prior to presentmania:



Isaac got a set of costumes from Nanni and Poppa Dom and they were a HUGE hit. It was a Melissa and Doug set with chef, fireman, and pirate outfits.  each was more adorable than the next.  Here is the little pirate doing his pirate thing:



The festivities continued and Uncle Dom got an awesome present--indoor snowballs.  Here we are pelting each other amidst a sea of gifts:

After that it was off to Uncle John's for Christmas Eve dinner and yummy stuffies. Isaac was intent on finding out who there was a Sculimbrene so he asked everyone. He also got an awesome HUGE floor puzzle.  Then the night started to wind down and we got him to calm down a little, just in time for Bianca's Uncle John to read him and Colby "The Night Before Christmas"


Overall, it was a fantastic day and a great lead up to Christmas itself.

All kids have imaginary friends, but leave it Isaac to create such an unusual person as an imaginary friend.

It started off with Isaac saying the name (FEEEEN BEEEEN BUNTALOPPPPPE).  Then slowly it morphed into him telling us all these weird things about Feen Been Buntalope.  First, he told me that Feen Been Buntalope was very tall, "taller even you".  Then he told me that Feen Been Buntalope was not just tall but an actual giant.  The then told Bianca and I at dinner one day that Feen Been Buntalope was very funny and that he tells jokes that "make you go HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!".  After that we had a debate as to how to say the last name exactly.  Was it Buntalow or Buntalope?  We asked Isaac and he told us "Feen Been Buntalope is a Sculimbrene."

Its not like Isaac talks to Feen Been Buntalope, which would be so funny, but merely that he reference him doing things all of the time.  Feen Been Buntalope typically stays home while the rest of us go to work and school.  He also doesn't eat dinner (which Isaac sometimes uses as a way to try to weasel out of dinner himself).  He is ALWAYS a good guy as Isaac tells us, "even though he is very tall."

It will be fun to listen for all of the things Isaac says Feen Been Buntalope does, especially because Feen Been seems like a good guy, while Travel Tiger gets into ALL sorts of trouble.  

Peter Pan is one of my favorite stories of all time.  The idea of flying, fighting pirates, and being a kid forever, well they have innate appeal to just about everyone.  Okay, not Bianca, she was waiting impatiently for the day she could become an adult and saddle herself with lots of responsibility.  But for the rest of us Neverland is pretty close to paradise.

So when the weather got nasty over Christmas break, down into the snowy single digits, we decided to make a fire and watch a movie.  Thumbing through a bunch of choices I saw that Peter Pan was available on iTunes.  I wasn't sure if Isaac was ready for the movie, but I put it on and he was instantly engaged.

Peter Pan is a really great story and the Disney version is especially awesome, as it was the last movie all of the uber-animators from Disney worked on (the so-called Nine Old Men).  Peter Pan's intro scene in the nursery is particularly beautiful and I am convinced that kids like quality as that was the thing that locked I-man in.

From there he enjoyed the Lost Boys, the mermaids, the pirates, and especially the clock-bellied crocodile.  We have re-enacted the scene where Michael and John sword fight on their bed and we have talked quite a bit about Captain Hook as the ultimate bad guy.  As cool as it was to watch the movie as a kid, it is even better to watch it WITH your kid.  Isaac has taken to saying, like John, "Aye, Aye Captain" to requests and we have had lots of simulations of flying recently.

But like all great movies, Peter Pan works on multiple levels.  Isaac is engaged by the animation and the imagination capturing idea of Neverland and kids fighting pirates, while I am impressed by the animation and J.M. Barrie's ability to sneak in Nietzsche's Eternal Return of the Same into a children's story, as the narrator starts the tale by saying: "All of this has happened before and it will all happen again."  There are other hints, such as the father's remembrance of the pirate ship and the mother's knowing smile when Wendy tells her of Peter Pan.  There is a lot going on in Peter Pan and I am glad Disney did not brush over it.   

My fondness for childhood classics only grows when we share them with I-man, as does my fondness for anything I share with Isaac.