Tis the season

This weekend, our house will be magically transformed from a normal family dwelling, into a festive shrine with flashing lights and plastic facsimiles of trees, branches, berries and holly. There will be small figures of bears singing carols and wearing their warmest scarves and coats while longing for hot cocoa. There will be strategically placed candles surrounded by beds of garland. There will be Nativity scenes, carousels, Christmas villages, toy soldiers and Santas, and there will be a 1 year old tornado marveling at the abundance of new objects to throw and kick and smack with toy dinosaurs.