When Jakob was born in 2001, I began the tradition of giving both kids a Christmas ornament as their first holiday present, timed with bringing home and decorating our Christmas tree. This year I surprised them with fabulous spiderwebs from our neighbourhood florist Fiori (http://www.fiorifloral.com/).



I hate to sound like I'm plotting their departure from home but my thinking is that when they do move out and settle into a place, they will have this fabulous collection of unique and mostly hand crafted ornaments that will create a wonderful nostalgia for every year celebrated as a family.


But, frankly, I will probably keep the ornaments here, forcing Satch & Jakob to return to the family home each year bringing bitter wives/girlfriends/boyfriends/partners/grandkids...because I can't imagine a Christmas without them.

And watching Satch play trombone as part of the jazz band at the school holiday concert proved to me how fast time is going by and that in a blink of an eye, they will be threatening to move out and start their lives.

So being the good mother, I have to start figuring out ways to escalate the guilt and plot to thwart their plans. And I've already started, I told Satch that when he does decide to move out, he should take Jakob with him. And he doesn't even have to rent a two bedroom apartment, a one bedroom will be fine seeing as they constantly bunk in with each other anyway. Save some money!