The morning that Luke wakes up to find that there are wrapped presents under the tree he stops in his tracks and takes inventory.
He will first make sure that everyone has a gift. More times than not, someone will not yet have a present under the tree and he lets us know. I remind him that not all presents are wrapped and not to worry, all will have presents on Christmas.
Then he proceeds to count up gifts. He will let me me know how many everyone else has and then tells me how many he has under the tree.
This year there was a kink in his way of doing things. There is a mystery present not labeled under the tree.
And as you can imagine, this present is causing problems.
At first, Luke really wanted that present to be his. You see, all the other presents are wrapped in coordinating paper and bags, but this one stands out in a class all by itself.
I was not really sure Luke even cared what was in the bag, he just wanted the bag!
Then he started firing out questions left and right. With each question I responded with an "I don't really know." or "I'm not sure."
A few days later, after looking almost every day under the tree at the presents Luke came up and asked why some presents have a candy cane on them and some do not. I explained that each child in our family would receive one candy cane.
When I answered his question, I was answering honestly and did not realize I was causing more problems about the mystery gift.
Luke returned to the tree and located the presents for all his cousins and noted that each of them had a candy cane. He then went through his presents and found one of his that had a candy cane.
"Well, I guess that Grinch present is not mine because I already have a candy cane. So can you pllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaase just tell me who it is for?!?!?!"
It was at that moment I realized he really did not care who it belonged to, he just wanted to know!
"No, I just can't."
Parents can be so mean sometimes.
I am getting far more enjoyment out of this mystery gift than I imagined.
