Christmas Concerns

We're hosting Christmas this year, which means for the first time Fiona is going to wake up Christmas morning in her own bed and will get to see what Santa Claus brought for her in her own living room. She's very excited, and has even started talking about how she's going to wake up in the middle of the night so she can sneak out to see Santa.

We have a non-working fireplace in our living room, so we've talked about how Santa's going to slide down the chimney and leave her presents (but first we'll have to clear her toys out of the fireplace--this being a New York apartment, we find storage wherever we can). A few days ago, Fiona was playing near the fireplace when she suddenly noticed that the flue was closed. I don't think she'd ever noticed the flue's existence before, but the consequences were immediately clear:

"Daddy!" she shouted. "We have to open that for Santa!"

I have no idea what's in our chimney after decades of a closed off fireplace, and I'm not about to find out. I explained that the flue opens from the inside as well and that Santa was going to open it on Christmas Eve when he lands on our roof. Fiona seemed okay with that.

We tried to take her to see Santa two years ago (when she wasn't quite two years old) and she was so terrified we couldn't even get close enough for a photo. Last year our schedules didn't work out and before we knew it we'd missed Santa for the season. We're planning on taking her on Friday afternoon this year; I'm sure an update will follow.