Christmas Stress

Marshall has been really worried about this whole Santa thing. It's because he's worried that the bad guys can come down the chimney. See, in his mind, if Santa can come down, then the bad guys can too. If Santa gets in our house, he might let bad guys, dragons, or "Raintalk" in. Raintalk is some scary shadow that creeps in his room at night when it's dark and Mommy and Daddy have gone out of his room. It tells him it's gonna get him (in a scary, scratchy voice). He told me about this last night. He was talking non-stop about all his worries. My poor little boy. I feel so bad for him. Sometimes I wish he could just be a typical 4 yr old boy that gets super excited for Santa to come and doesn't even worry about anything else. He hasn't slept through the night since those 4 nights in a row we had. He ends up in our bed after each of us has been in there a couple of times. It gets exhausting. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the stress for him to believe in Santa. Brian said he will talk to Marshall today. Sometimes Brian has a way of explaining things to Marshall that really help. I hope so. If he's already having this much stress, I'm not looking forward to Christmas morning. He got really anrgy on Christmas Morning 2 yrs ago. Last year he wasn't angry because we didn't disrupt his morning routine too much. Yeah, because we were snowed in at my Dad's house (over an hour north of us) and our presents were all at our house. That was kind of crazy. So, two years ago, he was totally angry and would scream and hit anyone who suggested he open a present. Any time Nathan got excited that it was Christmas Day and tried to tell Marshall about it, Marshall would get more angry. Soooo, I'm praying that he will be able to have a good Christmas. We'll let him open gifts at his own pace. Anything to keep the peace.