Sorry I haven’t posted anything in a week, but I decided that I needed to leave the laptop alone and hang out with the family.  We went to the zoo, a holiday train show and to Rokefeller Center to gawk at the tree.  The wife and I took in the Will Smith movie The Pursuit of Happyness, and we shopped at Macy’s.  There’s nothing like December in New York. 

All things considered, the actual holiday was a success.  Devin got lots of stuff that he didn’t know he wanted like a Fisher Price Kid-Crap camera and a Spiderman laptop that teaches spelling.  He also got a couple of things that he hasn’t touched because out of the box they didn’t work, like a Leapster TV video game and a Sponge Bob DVD player (shut up, I know I’m a bad parent for buying a three year old a DVD player, but I don’t care and it didn’t work anyway). 

Then there was the battery-powered Polar Express.  That little thing has not left my kid’s side since he opened the box.  I’ve already replaced the batteries twice and I fear that keeping the express rolling will cost me a fortune.  According to one of his teachers, yesterday Devin told every single parent that walked through the door of his school, and every staff person, that he got a Polar Express for Christmas.  He didn’t even mention the other toys. 

There were, of course, a few minor glitches.  Like when the Devil emerged after hours of quiet play and destroyed his Imaginarium wooden train set in a fit of rage (picture Godzilla wrecking Tokyo) because the Express couldn’t pull a line of about 20 trains up a hill.  And the fact that the radio station here in NY that was playing 24-hours of holiday songs since Thanksgiving went back to it’s regular lite music format the day after Christmas caused a meltdown of epic proportions.  And finally his having a cold for the last week didn’t help much either – he coughed, sneezed, and rubbed snot on every corner of the house.  Other than that, it was all good.Â