A visit from my Grandson

Emotions have been running high. My four year old grandson came for a long anticipated visit.  This meant the holidays were coming whether I liked it or not.  How do you explain to an innocent child that Gramma was not in the mood to decorate or bake cookies or watch Christmas movies.  My village has always been a real joy to set up, taking days. Appropriately, I have the Christmas in the City Village, which is my favorite place to be during the holidays.  I love the Radio City Show and remember taking my family when the boys were teenagers to see it.  Three teenage boys and Santa are not a great mix.  I think Tony might haven fallen asleep at some point.  I am a very lucky mom, my boys did many things they were not so fond of to spend time with the family, something I am forever grateful for.
I had the boxes for my village piled in the dining room, along with decorations, but other than the "official" tree, I could not seem to get into the spirit.  I needed to do this, I only had two days to spend with my grandson and a lot of Christmas spirit to spread during that time.  Decorating went into high gear.  With the help of my husband we put the village up in a night.  Our decorating styles are very different, his being very exact, neat, and precise.  I, well, I like to think of my style as more realistic.  After all, the snow in New York is never neatly piled up along the sidewalks or roads, it is messy.  Luckily, being rushed lends itself to messy.  The greens went up with lights on the stairway and mantle.  The halls got decked as the song would say.  I even put a small tree in his room with some lights around his bed.
The effort was all worth it as his eyes lit up while looking at the village.  Some may call me crazy, but I actually let him play with it.  What little boy sees cars and isn't tempted to play with them.  As he pushed the around the fake streets of my village he turned to me, picked up some fake snow, sprinkled it all over and said "Look gramma, it's snowing!".  At that moment I missed Tony just a bit more.  The twinkle my grandson had in his eyes reminded me so much of the mischievous look Tony always got.  The weekend was filled with these bittersweet moments.

We had a tree to cut down and decorate, cookies to bake, a visit to see Santa, family visits, games to play and the best, it snowed!  I had never been so happy to see snow as I was Friday evening.  At the first sign of snow all I heard was "Can we go sledding?".  After explaining that the ground needed to be all white first he accepted it and off we went for a trip on the Santa Express Train In Thomaston.  What a great evening.  We had just watched Polar Express.  When we arrived, the train was decorated with lights, we were greeted by Santas Elves and once aboard the vintage train, Santa Elf and Mrs Clause greeted everyone and explained we were on our way to pick Up Santa.  When we reached Santa's Train workshop, everyone peered out the windows through the snowflakes and saw Santa heading our way.  He boarded the train and sat with each child, sang Christmas songs and gave each child a gift before heading back to his workshop.  It was a wonderful experience and the perfect end to our day.
The next morning the ground was blanketed with fresh fallen snow.  After breakfast, we bundled up and headed out to play.  Both Ashton and I wore Tony's winter hats which helped me get through the emotions.  Last year, Tony happened to be home from school for a visit while we had Ashton and when it snowed, he came out and filmed Ashton playing.  The filming this time was left up to me and surprisingly I did okay.  I am not know for my video camera abilities.  I have a habit of treating it like a camera turning it to get the best angles.
It was the perfect weekend.  I want to think that Tony brought me the snow.  I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes these thoughts helps me get through the void in my heart.  It somehow makes him part of the events that are happening in my life.  The next few weeks will be like walking on eggshells.  I will get through them and as always, am thankful for my family and friends but mostly my memories.