I didn’t buy anything new today. I spent most of the day at a holiday party for my mother’s side of the family, the last gasp of Christmas. Had a great time except for the antics of my 3-year-old. From the time we walked in and saw the presents under the tree, all he did was talk about which present he wanted to be his and ask when we were going to open them. So that was about three hours of whining. When we finally did open presents, he and his older brother were incredibly awful: openly crestfallen over what they received, asking for more presents and mopey when it was over. That is, my 7-year-old was mopey; my 3-year-old sobbed. I was embarrassed, especially for my older son. My little guy hadn’t had a nap and his behavior was probably fairly typical for his age. But I had to have a chat about gifts with my older son when we got home.

The whole thing made me wonder if they are spoiled in general or if I had played up Christmas too much. I think it’s the latter. Next year, less Santa talk…