Down with Dad: Preparing for Santa

Rory has been on at me for ages to get the decorations out but I keep telling him it’s way too early.

Secretly, though, I’ve been reminding myself of what outdoor decorations we have and then ordering more lights to turn the garden into a proper experience.

The enthusiasm for the town event was cranked up earlier in the week when Rory and Eilidh got to touch the Falkirk snowman light.

It was sitting propped up against the wall ready to be fitted when they were walking to school with friends.

By far Eilidh’s favourite Christmas decoration, she was ecstatic to have seen it up so close. It was like finally meeting Tinkerbell or Moana.

If the snowman failed to light, then I’m sure it has nothing to do with the group of schoolkids manhandling him earlier in the week!

We decided to write our letters to Santa to to get us even more in the mood.

Eilidh said that she had been a good little sister all year. That is probably only around 20 per cent true.

The other 80 per cent has consisted mainly of mischief, cheek and stubbornness.

Hopefully Santa has not been watching too closely as there are a fair few things on that list and I don’t want an upset girl on Christmas morning.

Maybe the fact that Rory is such a good boy, some of his magic will rub off and Santa will be generous to his little monster of a sister.

At our last meeting Eilidh’s teachers told us they were planning on learning Makaton signs for their Christmas songs this year.

We’re going to learn them in the house too, so we decided to put the songs on while we wrote our letters.

Eilidh jumped up at the first note of Mariah Carey ready for a dance.

The biggest cheer of the day, however, was reserved for the Singing Hands version of ‘‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’’.

Eilidh signed it brilliantly and demanded that we play it over and over.

There is no danger that girl is not going to nail it at this year’s concert and, based on today’s performance, there is a chance I will hear it around two and half thousand times over the next month.

We have been a bit lazy learning Makaton with Eilidh, always finding a reason to not fully embrace it.

It’s clear she loves it and the visual side really helps reinforce her learning and speaking.

I must commit to doing more of it. In fact, I think I’ve got my new year’s resolution wrapped up already!