When Santa Backs You Into a Corner: A Cautionary Tale

Playroom – Summer 2014

Christmas is on its way, and with that comes a new challenge for us. How is Santa going to redecorate the playroom this year? That sounds odd probably. For most homes, I am sure Santa just sticks to leaving gifts. But in ours, he also redecorates when he is here.

How did we get ourselves into this ridiculous situation?

It all started innocently enough maybe 5 or 6 years ago when he came, brought a train table, a side table and a lamp. The next year, he rearranged the furniture and added a homemade Lego table. The following year, he brought a new area rug. Another year, he came and set up a little art station in the garage. He always timed it perfectly with something I was thinking about doing. Such an intuitive guy.

Then, last year, he just didn’t seem to get his act together, and it seemed like all he could do was just slap down a few gifts to be found under the tree. After the boys opened the gifts, Ben (6 at the time), ran to the playroom shouting, “Come on, Max! Let’s see what he did in the playroom this year!” Oops. He was running everywhere looking for Santa’s redecorating project. We trailed behind him saying things like, “What could he possibly do? He has done everything already.” Ben would have none of it. “He always does something in our house. Let’s go in the garage. I bet he changed something there!” Nothing there. Talk about feeling like you have disappointed someone. It will not happen again.

Wheels are turning as to what can be done and rearranged in this small room that hasn’t been done already, and that won’t cost much. The image above is from this summer. Right now, we have the couch under the small window you see. The wall where the couch was is now wallpapered with a map. The Lego table in the foreground was also brought by Santa two Christmases ago. Looks like his elves made it using an IKEA side table. The boys haven’t used it for a while though.

For this year, I think Santa should be on the lookout for a low table to go in the center of the room, throw pillows for the couch, and a tall open bookcase to go on the other side of that window.

I hope he can pull that off in less than a month.

Posted by Ale & filed under Our Home. This post has one comment.