A guest post by Brad, dad to Rowan, 2 years
Recently Katie found a collection of children’s Christmas books from my childhood. It is a ‘long’ time ago but I think my favourite was The Santa Claus Book. It has a big smiling happy Santa face on the front and back covers and tells the familiar tale of Santa going about his business of delivering presents to all the children on his long list.
Santa’s list is pictured in the book and my Mum made sure we weren’t left out by writing my name and my brother’s name amongst the others. (You can see our names in this photo if you look carefully.)
Part way through his journey, Santa discovers a lost puppy chewing on his list. Santa tucks the puppy into his sack and does the rounds to find a home for him. Santa finds a stocking with a note about a lost puppy belonging to a little boy called Mike. Just when he is ready to return the puppy, Santa discovers that he is no longer in his sack. Santa looks and looks and finds the puppy, asleep in a dolls’ house. Santa tucks the puppy into Mike’s stocking and puts him next to Mike as he sleeps. When he wakes, he has his puppy back for Christmas.
The story brings back some great memories for me of happy family times in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We have shared this story with Rowan and reading it to him also reminds me of the how important it is to feel loved, safe and secure as a child (and beyond), just like Mike’s puppy.
The last time I saw those books, they were dog-eared from repeated reading in the classroom where I taught Kindergarten. My kids just loved them, too.
I so appreciate these trips down Memory Lane with WeHeartBooks!