It's Christmas Eve. The tree is decorated and the presents are all wrapped, and I'm not looking forward to tomorrow morning.

It's not because Hunter's ear infection prevented us from going down the hill to spend Christmas with Shawn's mother, although that's a part of it.

It's not because I haven't gotten any holiday baking done, or because I just got the last batch of cards out today, although being out of town for a week (fun though it was) followed by over a week of family illness really did eat up the month, making Christmas seem rushed, approaching at far too great a speed.

No, the real reason is because I don't want to give Hunter all his presents at once.

See, it seems like this big, huge deal for kids at Christmas because they get to figuratively gorge themselves on presents. I'm not even talking about trying to avoid fostering a case of the gimmes. Heck, Hunter has no idea what's going on, other than the tree is pretty and shiny and covered in bees (beaded garlands) and bahs (balls.)

But I don't want him to be overwhelmed by presents. I don't want to rush through the magical moments of exploration, of discovering what the present is and what it can do. I so love watching Hunter explore his world, and I don't want to shortchange that in a flurry of "Stop enjoying what you're doing and go open another one!"

It wouldn't be so bad if they were a bunch of merely okay gifts, but Shawn and I put a lot of thought and effort into finding things that we think he'll really love: a car he can both ride in and (partially) take apart, little cars, a Little People lift-the-flap book that is not only pretty nifty in its own right, but it's a prelude to a huge Little People set that matches the pictures in the book, and a Bertie the Bus figure (one of his favorite characters in his new favorite show, "Thomas the Tank Engine") plus other stuff.

Ah, well. I guess we'll see what happens.