Holiday Cheer - Pillow Pet Style

It's nearly New Year's Eve and I haven't managed to go through all the Christmas photos. On Christmas Day, we celebrated with our three children, eight grandchildren and some family friends. On Thanksgiving Day, I went through the Black Friday ads with a few of the children. Along with an assortment of Barbies and remote control toys, pillow pets were high on the list of coveted toys. My plan was to get some for the youngest grandchildren. I knew Oriana wanted the unicorn even before she said it. I wanted a bumble bee and a lady bug for the youngest, Caliyana and Dulcea, and Leticia suggested a dog or monkey for Esteban Junior.

After spending a little more money than we had planned on spending, I was going to throw out the pillow pet idea. When I told Candace, however, she mentioned her boys seeing the ad on TV and voicing that they wanted pillow pets too. She said she had been surprised because the desire showed her a side of her boys she hadn't seen for a while. Jurrien had his eye on the panda bear, while Keith wanted the dog. I decided that each child should have a pillow pet to go with his or her other presents.  It sounded like some of the children would want the same one, but I wanted them all to be different, so I assigned a pet to each child. I had been excited when I saw a frog at Walgreens, and I picked it up, although I now had nine pets and only needed eight. I decided that I would sit the frog out and offer an "exchange program," in case a grandchild wasn't happy with his pet.

For the most part, Leticia, Candace, John and I did a good job pairing the kids to the pets. As soon as Evita heard that she could exchange, however, she tossed her penguin aside, grabbed the frog, tore off his tag and carried him around all night. Junior then exchanged his ape for the penguin, and everyone was happy. It was touching to see grandchildren from 5 years old to 11 carrying around their pets all evening, hugging them and using them as pillows later on. One of the grandchildren decided that it was a good thing that I ended up with the ape, because it suited me. I'm not sure that's the case, but he has his own place in the living room, now, and each time I see him, I smile, thinking about another wonderful Christmas and new memories.