We visited nanna's and grandad's house and he was distraught and a little shocked to find that the tree, along with all the Christmas decorations and lights, had vanished. Whereas everyone else was pretty glad to see the back of the singing hound dog and the singing reindeer, George's little chin trembled with sadness for the loss of what had become his best friends over the past two or three weeks. That evening, through the monitor, we even heard him call out "Christmas tree" in his sleep (that's "did-da-chee" in George speak).
After seeing his reaction at his grandparents house and hearing his outburst of somniloquy, we decided it might be a good idea to let him see us take the tree down rather than it come as a bit of a shock. Everything seemed to be going quite well as we removed the decorations from the tree and waved goodbye to them as we put them back in their boxes – until we turned the pretty, colourful lights off. That's when George realised the same thing was happening to his tree as happened to nanna's.
He cried on and off for the next half hour. Mummy attempted to distract him with books and toys, but every time he turned round to see another section of the tree had gone, the corners of his mouth dropped and he pointed and shouted "did-da-chee" as the tears started again. It was almost enough to make us put it back up again.
Anyway, a couple of hours later and all's fine – it's as if the Christmas tree had never even been there in the first place.
One of the things that made us laugh over New Year was George's encounter with a party blower. After watching everyone else and seeing the blowers unfurl noisily, he put one to his lips. We weren't expecting much noise at all, but George delighted everyone by not blowing and hollering a pitch-perfect "ooooo!"
Sounds dramatic! I guess it's surprising the attachments that children can make of which we're unaware. It's great that it was only a temporary upset 'though
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