Of beards and chins

We had our annual holiday party with our little group of friends at our house on Sunday afternoon.  We told Alice that morning that we were having a Christmas Party and we started  naming the people who were coming.  She remembered most of them from our "Brunch with Simon" party two months ago.  Her favorite person is Dale, who is great with kids.  Dale and his fiance Kristen helped babysit Alice when we were at the hospital having Simon.  Alice said that Dale could play with her trains.

Luckily, at the actual party, Dale and Kristen showed up first, and Dale visited with Alice while she finished her snack.  Alice was a little shy as more people arrived, but she gradually warmed up.

People brought presents for the white elephant gift exchange, and Alice kept asking, fairly nicely and not-to-whiny if it was time to open the presents yet.  At first I interpreted this as the typical Christmas greed that infests children at this time of year and was a little disappointed.  But after the meal, when it was finally time, Alice opened her presents and she didn't really seem to care about them (Kristen and Dale got her a stuffed lion and a stuffed eagle).  She doesn't really have a good sense of ownership yet, other than that most things are hers when she's choosing which possessive pronoun to use. In reality, she shares quite easily and readily.  So it occurred to me that she was excited about opening presents for the very act of opening the presents and seeing what was inside.  She didn't really want the stuff inside.  She's excited whenever we get a box from amazon, and that's even without the fun wrapping paper.

Plus, the Christmas books at the library were pretty picked over by the time I got there the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so one of the books having a big impression on her right now is a stupid book about a cat named Splat that wants a big present for Christmas.  So if anyone asks Alice what she wants for Christmas, she just says, "a BIIIIIG present!"

Throughout the evening, she mingled quite well with the guests, enabling Zac and I to actually visit with the guests as well.  She mostly stayed with Dale, but also enjoyed reading books with Robin, coloring with Greg, and dealing cards with Meg, who received a mini black jack table as her white elephant gift.  All of the men at the party except for Zac and Nathan had beards or goatees.  At one point, I saw Alice taking a black crayon and trying to color in Greg's beard.  There was another moment I missed, but that was much commented upon, where Alice apparently reached up and tweaked Rob's beard quite randomly.  It was funny, I suppose, because it was Rob, who feels about children the way I feel about dogs: I don't really understand why other people feel the need to have them, and I don't really like them jumping on me.

The next morning, we were talking to Alice about the party and asking if she had fun.  She talked about playing with Dale, and we helped her remember Meg and Greg's names (since they're a relatively recent addition to our friend circle).  At the end of our review, Alice declared,  "I don't like beards. I like chins."