The other day, the Captain arrived at his classroom at school in the morning to find this written on the board:
Have a Cherry Merry Christmas…
Which is obviously going to be the greeting inside all my holiday cards next year.
And then underneath that was this:
I am a tiny potato and I believe you can do the thing.
Needless to say, it caused a sensation in the classroom and created an instant Phrase of Legend. Now, whenever someone is having a hard day or struggling to open a jar of pickles or can’t figure out how to find Masterchef Junior on the PVR, we bust out with, “I am a tiny potato and I believe you can do the thing.” Funny voices a plus. You can do the thing! You can do it!
In other news, our advent activities are going well and I think I can say that we’re all having a good time with it, which is a welcome surprise. On Monday we broke out all the old Thomas the Tank Engine stuff to build a track around the Christmas tree. The Captain in particular has gotten really nostalgic about Thomas this past year and was super into this activity, singlehandedly engineering the layout and design, and then spending hours that night and on every day since playing trains. The girls joined in, and I have to say, if the sight of your three kids playing with wooden trains at the base of the Christmas tree isn’t enough to get you into the holiday spirit, I don’t know what is.
Brainwave! Next year I should drop some of the less popular activities (i.e. the crafts, we seem to have craft-adverse kids around here) and instead just name some old toy, and make it a “play with that toy” day. We could have a Fisher Price Little People night, a Playmobil night, a Hot Wheels night. I think it would fly and be a lot of fun.
Last night we played Pin the Nose on the Snowman – I printed off a giant Olaf and some noses and the kids, to my surprise, enthusiastically took part. There were secret prizes involved, so I guess that was a motivating factor – the prizes were picture books, and they were a HUGE hit. Each kid got a book for participating, and there was one extra book for the winner.
Gal Smiley had spotted this one – Dojo Daycare by Chris Tougas – in the Chapters flyer and desperately wanted it, and I thought it was too cute to pass up. So I got that one for her, and it’s sweet and adorable and charming and she loves it.
For the Little Miss, I chose I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, because she loves bears, brown bears in particular. And it is AWESOME – soooooo funny in a subtle and almost twisted way. I would highly recommend giving picture books to your older kids, and this one book is the reason why – they totally get the subversive humour in it. I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in a while – and we have read this one about 20 times since last night, so yes, WIN.
The Captain got a copy of More Pies by Robert Munsch, because he has an obsession with pie and I have NO idea where he could have gotten such a thing. Absolutely did not disappoint – Munsch is always good but this one in particular is a) hilarious and b) chock full of pie, and we all loved it.
The winner of the nose pinning was Gal Smiley, and she got the bonus book – Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Barnett. The pictures in this book are drawn by Jon Klassen of I Want My Hat Back fame, and they are just as hilarious and subtle and AWESOME as that book, and we have read and giggled over this one about 20 times so far as well.
So to sum up: we’re all feeling very cherry merry over here. You can do the thing!
TurtleHead 
I love the new “Phrase of Legend”. I think I love the phrase “Phrase of Legend” even more though! It reminds of the beginning of Kung Fu Panda – “Legend tells of a legendary warrior, whose deeds were the stuff of legend!”. Jack Black, you are hilarious.
I’m curious though – who wrote the “tiny potato” phrase – was it the teacher? What was meant by it – do you know?
No one knows who wrote it – it’s a mystery! It definitely wasn’t the teacher – she arrived a few minutes late that day and it was already on the board, and had nothing to do with anything they were doing in class. All of the kids in the class deny writing it. The Captain thinks it was maybe someone who was in the school in the evening for a non-school event (they often host other sporting events or meetings in the school after hours). But what the writer actually meant…your guess is as good as mine!
Well, now I’m feeling pretty cherry myself, thanks for the laugh!
I’m going to put that phrase up on my wall next to this guy https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/196706315/turtle-advice-a4a5-digital-print?ref=shop_home_active_9
That’s awesome. When I read about the hat book, I thought “that’s funny because it sounds exactly like the book Eve and I were reading in the school library while I was shelving, but I’m sure it wasn’t a bear, it was a fish.”
http://tinyurl.com/p6e47ht
Apparently this Klassen guy is fond of the hat schtick. Lucky us.
Oh my, that looks adorable, and hilarious. The “I want my hat back” book contains a line where a snake says, “I saw a hat once – it was round and blue.” It has now taken on even deeper hilarious meaning (the fish book, “This is not my hat”, came first). MUST OWN.
You know, no other root vegetable would work. “I am a tiny carrot, and you can do this thing.” Carrots are too grand, too orange. It must be the humble tiny potato that has faith in us.