Christmas

The Christmas Blow Off List

December 18, 2012 by amushro

Who do I speak to about adding an extra week to the month of December? Seriously, let’s just take the oddball months with 31 days and tell them they are good to go with just 30 days each year. We could even borrow a few from February. It’s already shorter and probably wouldn’t mind sparing a few more days if it meant we could all slllloooowwww things down during the holiday season.

I’m sorta like Buddy the Elf because Christmas is my favorite holiday and I love, love, love everything that goes along with this magical time of year. I really don’t mind when stores play Christmas music before Thanksgiving, and I do a little Christmas jig when I see lights and ornaments on sale the same time as Halloween candy. It’s just that I need to start marathon training for the actual month of December. I’ve been shopping since October, the tree has been up since November, and the multiple holiday parties have been going on all December. I will even let you in on a secret, I start planning my Christmas card in August. I mean, it doesn’t go out until the week before Christmas because that would take planning in June, but I start the hunt when we are still putting our toes in the summer sand.

Even though Hanukkah is a celebration that lasts “eight crazy nights,” it seems like our Christmas is lasting just as long.

By the time we celebrate with my husband’s family, then start the trek three hours to celebrate with my family, fit in a few visits with other family and friends, it’s time to watch Ryan Secreast countdown to New Years. Oh wait, did I forget about Santa? Well lucky for us, Monkey and Mimi are so young they have no idea when Santa is supposed to slide down the chimney. So this year, the big guy is coming on Saturday so we can pace them with endless toys, wrapping paper, and stocking stuffers. Eight crazy nights, yeah we got this!

In order for this all to work, some things have to go. Here is my Christmas blow off list. Feel free to add your own:

Homemade cookies. Sorry Martha Stewart, if we were supposed to slave away in the kitchen for hours, God wouldn’t have made Pillsbury slice and bake. Add a few M&Ms and pretzels and boom—reindeer cookies!
The creepy Elf on the Shelf. So you’re telling me I have to commit to placing this little dude throughout my house for a month? You do realize my kids will still act up and I will be stuck trying to find new and funny places to put this guy? Try this site out instead http://www.portablenorthpole.com/home. You make a free, personalized video where Santa calls your kid by name, age, and where they live. You can even pick if your little elf was naughty or nice this year. Monkey was scared straight after the first view of his video. His face was a mixture of terrified and amazed—a parent’s dream.
The painful Santa picture. I am NOT forcing my kids to sit on Santa’s lap just so I can have an overpriced picture to document this occasion.We went, we waited in line, and waited, and waited. Monkey waved to Santa and after a while he said he didn’t want to talk to Santa and wanted to ride the train instead. Sounds good to me because I am sure both kids would have lost it the minute it was their turn. Later, creepy mall Santa. Maybe we will try again next year…maybe not.
Pinterest holiday crafts. I may pin and pin until my fingers go numb, but I am not feeling bad about abandoning the clay handprint Santa and the toilet paper roll reindeer. I pay good money for Monkey to go to preschool. His teachers can get all crafty there. I will however continue to pin cocktails and enjoy them this holiday season.

So Fa-la-la-la-la there it is; I highly recommend you create a list as well. You can do it (you just read that in Rob Schneider’s voice from Waterboy, right?) Now I really have to go. I have a half a dozen Christmas movies I still haven’t watched!

Breaking in Christmas

November 30, 2012 by amushro

I find analogies to be helpful. How about you?

Try this one on for size.

Darla is to fish:

As my kids are to Christmas decorations:

The Christmas season has barely started and this pile is looking like the place Christmas decorations go to die. Except this stash of decor has seen their unfortunate end by the hands of my children.

Honestly, it’s bad enough that I suspect my Hubby has left several bins in attic and is pretending “No, Honey, that’s it. We don’t have any more Christmas decorations up here.” He’s a sneaky one. I think he skims off the top every year so that I don’t suspect how much Christmas cheer he is leaving in our dark, cold attic. If I wasn’t afraid that seventeen bins full of kids clothes and toys would fall on me and I would be trapped in the attic forever, I would totally go upstairs and sort through the bins myself. That’s a lie—that attic is a deathtrap. I’ll just buy more décor at the after season sales.

Back to Santa’s destructive elves, yes we put the fancy decorations up high and the bottom half of the tree is empty (saddest tree ever), but somehow they have gotten their hands on a few too many ornaments and a singing bear. Now they are goners. Maybe it was the fact that we left the Christmas bins lying around for four days. Questionable Choices in Parenting? OK, you got me, but in my defense I was really tired after laying the foundation for the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER.

Listen, I get it, kids break stuff, a lot, but dang when does the destruction end? How long before I can bring my prized Pottery Barn Reindeer Dishes out of storage without fear of my Rudolf cookie serving plate being smashed to smithereens? Oh yeah, that was a BK (before kids) purchase. When can my tree live up to its full potential and actually hold ornaments all the way to the bottom branches?

Really, I could get really frustrated and lose it because my kids keep breaking my Christmas crap, or I could use this as a life lesson. Yes, I choose the lesson because I choose to just go shopping to replace everything with kid friendly and even more fabulous Christmas style. Yes, friends, I choose the life lesson.

Cripes, I have actually lost Mimi while I was writing. Oh wait here she is:

Irreconcilable Holiday Differences

November 25, 2012 by amushro

Let’s start with a visual.

This is my husband’s idea of Christmas decorating:

And here is mine:

Before we had kids, he would totally indulge in my Christmas decorating extravagance. He thought it was cute and charming, and was willing to dangle from the roof to hang twinkle lights for me. The man even let me put up a hot pink and lime green tree in his house. Now that is love.

Since Monkey and Mimi have come along, and our house slowly morphed into Toys R’ Us, the hubby’s patience has worn thin with my love of all things Christmas and my excessive need to show holiday joy through lights, glitter, and tinsel. *cough, cough* Ebenezer Scrooge, anyone?

Since marriage is all about compromise (sham), we have a new tradition, the “Christmas Bargaining”. Here is why this went down, last year I made the whole family drive out to a tree farm where we dragged a newborn Mimi and an exhausted Monkey through fields of trees. I read somewhere that huge Husky dogs would happily carry your tree to your car. Amazing, right? Imagine the holiday cheer! We needed to do this! The only thing is that you cut down your own tree….I sorta left that part out when telling Hubby we NEEDED to do this.

As always, he was the doting husband, and we arrived at the tree farm where we quickly learned that the Husky dogs were taking a break and we (and by we, I mean Hubby) would have to cut down the tree, drag it back several hundred yards to our car, and attach it to our roof—-All. By. Himself. Hilarity did not ensue, he was not thrilled with this idea, and some may say, he even turned a shade that resembled the Grinch. But I had two babies, a video camera, and my best Christmas face on. Who could ever say no to that sweet image? Not that adorable boy I married so long ago J

Long story even longer, shit hit the Christmas fan and I was banned from ever suggesting such a ridiculous idea when all I was willing to do was sit in the car and feed Goldfish to the kids.

So this year I agreed to getting the tree from the place that all you do is point and pay and they do the rest. And my hubby agreed to this: