I don’t know if Andy and I are gonna pull off this Santa thing. There are so many details to keep track of! For those Santa newbies like us, here are a few tips:

• Don’t put packages of crisps in the stockings when she’s seen stacks of them sitting around the house.
• Make sure to set aside some presents for Santa to deliver. If you put all the presents under the tree as you get them, you find yourself sitting around on Christmas Eve thinking, “Huh. What is Santa going to bring?”
• Don’t discuss how you bought that salsa verde Santa put in Bubba’s stocking for real cheap in a case deal on the Kmart website.
• Remember to put out cookies. Then remember to eat some/part of the cookies. Do not move the cookies. Santa does not move the cookies.

I find myself wondering if the whole Santa thing is really even worth it for this kid. She doesn’t seem to really talk about Santa much, and I think if there were no Santa for her, she’d probably just go about Christmas merrily as ever. But, it seems sort of wrong to not have the jolly old dude be part of Christmas, so I guess we’ll keep working with him each year. Maybe if Santa was a fairy instead of an elf, Anya would be more interested.

This was definitely A Very Fairy Christmas.

We have to build an annex to the house for all of Anya’s new fairy and princess stuff. Oh wait, she got her own house, too!

Some solar panels and a composting toilet, and she’s set! First, though, she needs to get a dumpster delivered, so she can clean up her homesite.