I'm so excited about my son's first Christmas. He'll only be seven months and five days old when it happens, but I still want everything to be perfect for him. That's why we're finally getting a real Christmas tree.

Last night when I was finishing frosting the first batch of Christmas cookies, my mind kept wandering to next year. Then he'll be old enough to eat the cookies. He'll even be old enough to "help" me with the cookies.

Then there's the Christmas presents. We got a big package the other day from my father. It had tons of gifts for him and a Christmas outfit. I know he'll wear the outfit on Christmas day. As for the gifts, I hid them. Okay, okay. I know he can't crawl, let alone drag out the footstool and climb up to the upper cupboard where I hid them. Heck, even if he could do that, he's way too short to reach the cupborad with the stool, it's pretty high up. But it made me feel good to hide his gifts, a tradition for the years to come. I even want to write "From Santa" on some of his gifts from us.

So far I bought him two musical toys and am looking for one more. Toys that are easy to press buttons or turn over to start the music. The two are from Leap Frog and one of them will grow with him. For now I'll keep it on the music setting. Later I can put it on he letter learning setting. But it plays over 26 songs. It's great and he loves his music toys, so he'll love this too.

Well, once we get the tree up, we'll have Paul II help trim it. Maybe he can even help put the star on the top.