’Tis the season for a new set of words – and learning new and old traditions
We’ve spent much of December thinking our son has gotten the Christmas bug, but we also wonder if we’re just trying to convince ourselves. His interest in anything we try to force is usually quite limited, but something as complex and specific as Christmas is all the harder. He’s not even particularly au fait with more standard special occasions. During his last birthday, we tricked ourselves into thinking he really understood what was going on as he walked around displaying his piece of cake and shouting ‘my buthday!’
He undercut this sense, however, by proclaiming several further birthdays for himself in the months that followed, including mine, each of his friends’, and several of his cousins’. Sometimes he just presumes it is his birthday if he’s having a nice time. ‘Buthday?’ he said one random August day, relaxing with a tiny gelato cone after a stroll in the park. He said this in such a sweet, plaintive tone, we worried it made him look so deprived, so unaccustomed to kind treatment, that a walk in the park or a small scoop of ice-cream reaches festive proportions.