COVID-19 Can’t Stop The Easter Bunny

Being a non-religious sort, and not having many local family members to gather together, we rarely do anything special for Easter Sunday. We decorate eggs, and the Easter Bunny shows up and leaves Connor some sort of something, but this socially-distanced Easter wasn’t much different from other years, except that we didn’t go out to lunch with my brother-in-law.

Connor and I decorated some eggs on Saturday. He was proud of his basketball egg, and was aghast when he learned that the decorated eggs get eaten eventually, just like normal hard-boiled eggs. Contemplating getting some non-edible craft eggs for decorating next year.

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When Connor saw this photo on my phone after the fact, I had to admit that I had snuck downstairs after the Easter Bunny came so that I could snap a picture.

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Connor has been wanting Metroid Prime for a Very Long Time; now that he has it and has gotten used to the first-person thing, his favorite part is the multiplayer Deathmatch.

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One of Connor’s other favorite video game franchises is Kirby. He’s been drawing likenesses of the round pink title character since he was in preschool. So, he was pretty stoked about this Waddle-Dee character from the Kirby games in a super-soft bunny costume.

Connor seemed genuinely impressed and surprised that I knew enough Japanese to read part of Waddle-Dee’s tag. I got through “a-ni-ma-ru” before I threw in the towel and fired up Google Translate:

Those who can read katakana will note (as I did) that it actually says “wa-do-ru-ji” and not “wa-di-ji” as Google seems to think. Honestly, though, that’s pretty darn close, and I wish we’d had this kind of real-time almost-translation when we visited Tokyo over a decade ago.

As Easters go, this one may end up being more memorable than most, just because of the circumstances surrounding it. Connor certainly enjoyed his presents from the Easter Bunny, and has been enjoying his jellybeans and robin’s eggs and peanut butter eggs (and still has some left!), and that’s really what matters to us.

Christmas Preparation Festivities

Christmas Preparations

We hauled the Christmas decorations down out of the attic this Saturday: pre-lit artificial tree, giant box of ornaments and other holiday accoutrements (including the baby Santa hat that Connor still manages to fit on his noggin every year), giant box containing the Very Breakable lighted ceramic tree with music box, and the toy train that Grandpa Jim got Connor a couple years back.

This year, Connor decided to put the stickers on all the signs, then plunk them around the perimeter of the tree skirt. Mei was clearly unfazed.

Christmas Preparations

After the halls were bedecked, Connor decided it was time to write out his Christmas list. Most of his wish list items came from the Mindware catalog that showed up in our mailbox, and a great many items made it onto his Amazon Wish List.

Christmas Preparations

Connor’s already asking when we can go back to Children’s Wonderland to see Santa. Last year was the first time we took him to see Santa, and it clearly made an impression. I still haven’t been able to make myself use Santa as a behavioral prompt — Santa’s watching you!

It’s still early — not even December yet — but the holiday season is off to a good start.