And Thus Begins Another Christmas Season

Friday afternoon, we decided to go ahead and put up the Christmas tree. We don't usually set it up right after Thanksgiving, but with my folks being in town and turkey day coming so late in November, it seemed like a good idea. MelodyJoy was very excited, to put it mildly.

Earlier that day, Jeannette, MelodyJoy and I made a trip to the PetSmart store. For several years, Jameson has been saying that he wanted to buy a tortoise. We promised he could get one after we finished the move from Oregon and he has been saving his money. We knew he would love finding one under the tree this year.

Jeannette found a Russian tortoise at PetSmart a few weeks ago but they had only one and will keep only one in stock, so we were uncertain as to when we should try to buy it. Wait too long and it might be gone, or buy it early and then have to figure out what to do with it. My sister and her husband offered to help us buy the tortoise, so we headed out on the afternoon of Black Friday to claim a $10 off coupon and see what we should do.

Interestingly, we'd been told by several employees that this particular tortoise was "really cool." I guess there must be pet store nerds just as there are Star Wars nerds, computer nerds, math nerds and professional wrestling nerds. In any case, we decided that we might want to snag this specific reptile rather than placing an order simply to get it closer to Christmas. So we bought the tortoise, warning MelodyJoy that it was a secret and she shouldn't say anything at all to Jameson about the turtle.

We went home and started setting up the tree. Needless to say, it took Melody only a little while to spill the beans, "We got you a turtle!" After the tree was done, Jeannette let Melody open a little Christmas gift and then told Jameson that we would let him open one early present as well. But she had a plan . . . she remembered something I'd bought for Jameson several months ago: A boot cleaner in the shape of a turtle for our front porch. She wrapped it up and let Jameson open it:

When Jameson saw it, you could tell he was a little disappointed but he tried not to let on. But while he and everyone else were focused on the prickly figurine, Jeannette left the room and returned with a box behind her back. As you might imagine, he was pretty excited when he realized what she had placed in his lap:

So Christmas day will be a bit thin for Jameson but he had a great, surprising start to the holiday season. And we're accepting nominations for the tortoise's name. My own suggestion is Tolstoy Tortoise but I'm the only one who seems impressed with that idea so far.