Visiting Santa and other miscellany

We bought our Christmas tree on Saturday. We let it settle and drop its branches for a day, and then decorated it on Sunday. On Sunday night we turned on the Christmas tree lights and then lit the menorah and sang the Chanukah blessing. It made me think that we will be just fine raising a multicultural kid.

Also this weekend, Torsten put out the holiday lights on the bushes by our driveway, and made a bunch of pizzas that are now in the freezer, waiting to be eaten post-baby. And he hung all the art in the nursery. The yellow lamp we ordered is now all set up, and the only thing that's missing is the blinds. Those should be arriving in a couple of weeks, and then I will be able to post pictures of the finished room, awaiting Piglet.

This weekend we also attended a holiday party. It was the first time in awhile that I had encountered a room full of friendly strangers. It occurs to me that I don't have many occasions to interact with people I don't know--no office, no commute, nothing but errands and other such things where people mostly don't talk to each other, you know? So it was at this holiday party that for the first time I got a bunch of comments from strangers about being pregnant. Things like "Oh, you look like you're getting close!" and "Wow, look at that belly!"

And you know what? I liked it. But I'm not changing my policy about not making similar comments to other people, because you just never know, ever, if someone really is pregnant, and if so, if they're happy about it, or if they want to talk about it. So I keep my mouth shut. But I like it when other people comment about my pregnancy, so there we are.

I'm 34 weeks along today. According to my midwife, this is the magic number: now that I'm this far along, if I go into labor, they won't try to stop it. It still would not be optimal to have the baby now--he would likely have some respiratory and eating issues, and would have to stay in the hospital for a few days at the very least, possibly longer--but we are at the point now where if he were born, he shouldn't have any major health issues, and therefore the harms of medically stopping labor outweigh the benefits.

Still, I want him to go to 40 weeks. At least. Every last day he can spend in utero helps him develop that much more.

Simultaneously, I am dying to meet him. Six weeks until my due date is just not very many weeks. We are feeling relatively prepared--nursery done, childbirth class nearly completed, lots of food in the freezer, minds wrapped around the idea that there is going to be a baby--and I feel so, so bonded to him already. But I have absolutely no mental image of what he will look like when he's born. I still swear that he looks like Torsten--and I hope that's true--but I can't visualize what that would actually look like on a baby. I have truly no mental picture whatsoever, not of his coloring or anything else. I wonder if this means that when he is born he will look like a stranger.

It's weird to think that in approximately six weeks, I won't be pregnant anymore. Just like that. I mean, not that it's a fast or easy process getting from not pregnant to pregnant and back again, but still, one day I will be pregnant and the next day I won't.

I've been wanting to start an annual photo similar to Erin's pumpkin patch series, of our family in some sort of context to see how it changes every year. I'm thinking us in front of the Christmas tree would be a pretty good location for that. Hopefully we can get it together to take the first one soon. And don't worry, of course I'll post it.

Speaking of holiday photos, I feel like my reader and Twitter stream are full of people talking about their experience taking their kid to see Santa. A lot of them are in the situation where the kid is too young to understand or enjoy the experience, so they really do it for the parents. Which is great for them--I love that they enjoy it and get meaning out of it, and I'm sure they will always treasure the photos, and I imagine that it's something that many people look forward to doing with their kids for years before they even have kids.

But I personally have no attachment to the idea of a Santa photo--other than that I would probably laugh really hard at a photo of Piglet freaking out on Santa's lap, and that's because I am a bad, mean person--so I'm thinking we'll hold off on that particular tradition until he is old enough to actually want to go see Santa himself. Unless it turns out that Torsten is attached to the idea of a Santa photo from a young age, in which case, I am happy to brave the crowd to get the picture. But I will insist that we not dress the baby up in red velour with white fur trim.

What about you? Do you or would you take your kids to see Santa, even if they were too young to really get it?