Christmas Redux

Aaaannnnd, we're back. To normal, that is. We had a lovely Christmas, and I am very thankful to be able to spend some time with our families and loved ones. But I really love that I've been laid off from that part-time job I call Christmas.

I had Christmas Eve off work, as it was a Friday, my regular day off. I met the Mister and the staff for a few drinks when they were all done work, and then we went to my parents for dinner. My dad makes a big, beef stew for Christmas Eve dinner every year. It was actually a recipe he remembers his grandmother making, back in Ireland, and for some reason, it's been the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in my family for years. (In fact, we have no other traditional dinner for any other holiday of the year, not even Christmas Day. Go figure.)

Here is the Loudshoes house all snug and cosy on Christmas Eve:

Toby is the blotch in front of the Christmas tree. It he could have talked, he'd have been all "dude, whaaaat are you doing out there??? Can I come too? Wait, it's cold out. "

Christmas Day was delightful, as the kids are old enough to sleep in to a reasonable hour, but still get pretty excited about Christmas morning. I have to admit, I'm a bit sorry that the whole Santa thing is over for the girls, but man, does it ever make my life easier....the Mister and I used to have to tip-toe around putting everything out on Christmas Eve, desperately trying to keep quiet and not wake up the kids, one of whom was on super-duper-hyper-alert mode and attuned to anything vaguely Santa-related and might wake up at the slightest noise. Do you have any idea how LOUD a shopping bag can be at 1 in the morning?

Toby enjoys Christmas morning very much. He had no idea what's going on, but he highly approves. Cinnamon buns for breakfast and enough time for two cups of coffee make me pretty happy. And the weather was bright and cold, with no snow, so the travellers could get where they wanted to go.

My brother and his family came down from Toronto, which was really nice. The cousins, especially, don't get together very often. And the dinner was fabulous and my sister-in-law makes kick ass desserts.

My kids got a game for the Wii called "Just Dance", which involves you holding one of the remotes and copying the moves of the dancers on the screen. Thing 1 absolutley rocks at it, consistently smoking the rest of us....who knew she had such hiddent talents? Even she seemed surprised at herself. I, on the other hand, made my children and my niece and nephew almost herniate themselves with laughter, when I tried it. Apparently, I'm no Barishnikov. (I knew I wasn't light on my feet; I'm Mrs LOUDSHOES for Christ's sake.)

Yesterday was Day Three of "Christmas Extravaganza 2010". We went to my in-laws for the day, about 40 minutes away. The kids opened yet more presents, and we ate yet more food and then lay in a food coma for a while before heading back home. As the kids get older, there are a lot less presents, which is a very good thing. Having two girls meant that there was a tsunami of pink, plastic things into our house every Christmas which threatened to bury us alive. The girls get a lot more clothes and CDs than toys now, which is great.

But the day I'm really excited about comes next week. In our city, you can put out four containers of garbage, and unlimited recycling. This usually presents no problem for us, unless of course, we miss a garbage day, and then we're under the gun. But the first garbage day after Christmas has NO limit, and we can put out as many bags as we want. Let me tell you, I love that day. I'm cleaning out furnace rooms, freezer rooms, garages and closets in anticipation. My family are like Mother Nature, they really hate a vacuum. Or an empty space. So I'm looking forward to pitching out a ton of stuff and getting it to the curb before they notice.

The Christmas Shopping Strategic Manoever

I'm ALMOST done Christmas shopping. I will be ALMOST done Christmas shopping for the next four days, because I am never really DONE Christmas shopping until the malls close on the 24th and I can't buy any more stuff. (Even then, my friend Kelly has been known to stop by the 7-11 on her way home from Midnight Mass to pick up some peanuts and windshield wiper fluid for her dad.)

I've been very good this year, stayed on budget and I did not clock anyone, much as I felt like it. Over the years I've learned a few strategies to make it less likely that I end up on the news.

• Shop Early. The Mister and I started a strict "cash only" policy when it comes to Christmas presents when we first got married, and it's been very nice to not have any credit card bills coming in in January. But this means we have to buy a few presents every week, starting around Halloween. Sometimes that means people get Jack o' Lantern socks or goblin-themed wrapping paper, but that's what they get.
• Wear appropriate footwear. High heels and smooth soles are right out of the question for Christmas shopping; you need something that will let you bob and weave while moving at Mach I like a runningback at the Super Bowl. It helps if the floor is dry, too.
• Wear thin layers. For some reason, they keep the malls at a temperature that is appropriate for growing bananas. This might be comfortable for the staff, but when I am wearing a winter coat, boots, a scarf and a turtleneck, I can create my own weather system just walking around. Wearing polar fleece and shedding layers like a demented stripper is the only way to make it work.
• Avoid crowds. The older I get, the less tolerant I am of herds of lumbering wildebeest with shopping bags. I get to the mall when it opens, and, with any luck, am leaving within a half an hour. This sometimes means that I grab the first thing I see when I get in the door (hence the Jack o' Lantern socks) but anyone getting a present from me knows what they're getting into.
• Shop on-line first. How much do I love the internet? So much I would marry it, if I could. Being able to go on-line to see if they have it before I venture out is worth the price of admission alone. And I know you are wondering why I just don't do ALL of my shopping on-line, and that is because I've tried to, and although things like books are just fine to get without seeing them, the time that Barb the Receptionist bought a Ralph Lauren t-shirt in Large that barely fit a then-8-year-old Thing 2 has made me wary.
• Do not mutter under your breath. Sadly, I'm not as quiet as I think I am, and when I sigh and talk to myself, it only gets me in trouble. How was I supposed to know the lady in front of me has ears like a cat when I said "Oh, for God's sake, take your 10% off coupon and eat it instead of the chocolates, your ass certainly will be better off"?
• Don't take a cart. I get that stores want to be sure that they don't run out of stuff, but man, do they ever pack themselves tight. There was a Hallmark store I went into recently that had so many candles and ornaments and calendars and crap you couldn't actually get into the store, you had invade it, like Normandy. A cart at Costco is the height of folly. Those carts are big enough to fit in an entire live sheep and a birthday cake and tires anyway, but at Christmas time, the place is so crowded with people and stuff that I imagine if you got a cart, you'd get stuck back in the paper towel department and wouldn't be found until after New Years.
• Revise your plans. You thought you'd get a cashmere scarf for your brother, but they have acrylic ones on sale right by the door? Remember, people don't know what you planned on doing, they only know what they get.
• Wear earplugs. Because if I hear "Saaaaaaanta Claus is comin' to town!" one more time....

On the Lam

The Mister's family lives in a small city about 40 miles from us, and we see them fairly frequently. We were there for the annual "Christmas Gastro-Intestinal Challenge and Gift Opening Free-for All" last week.

My sister-in-law has the shin-dig at her house every year, for which I am eternally grateful. Not only does her husband cook the turkey, he deals with it hijacking all the room in the fridge for three days beforehand, AND the whole carcass leftovers, too. And they seem to be able to put a magnificent dinner on the table without anyone bursting into tears or swearing a blue streak. We can't do that here.

The city where they live has a garbage disposal system where you pay for tags, and each container of garbage has to have a tag attached to be picked up. The idea is that people will reduce their production of garbage if they have to pay to have it hauled away. In actuality, it means that everyone pays for their garbage to go, but if you have enough money, you don't really care about it.

As Christmas, and specifically, Christmas dinner, generates a metric tonne of garbage per person, per day, my sister-in-law asked if we would mind taking some of their excess garbage home with us, mostly light, non-smelly stuff. No problem, says I, our city's garbage system has a four bag limit, so we could easily take another couple of bags because we didn't host Christmas dinner, and had plenty of room in our allotment.

So we took a few bags, one of which was a big, see-through bag of white packing styrofoam. We had to wait a few days before garbage day, and I noticed that the styrofoam bag escaped frequently from where it was stored in the breezeway, and I had to corrall it from the front lawn more than once.

Yesterday, we got a snow squall off Lake Huron, and it got really, really windy. And when I went to put out the garbage tonight, that bag of styrofoam was just.....gone. Like, gone from our house entirely. I looked in the backyard, the front yard and even up and down the street. No sign of it. Gone.
So, somewhere in our neighbourhood is a renegade bag of fugitive styrofoam. Maybe it went the 40 miles home to my sister-in-law's house.

Christmas Redux

And I've survived another Christmas. Every year at around the 23rd I wonder if I will make it without me bursting every single vein in my head, and somehow, someway, I always manage to. I've come to realize that I enjoy Christmas itself very much, I just don't enjoy the two months before Christmas so well.
But we've had three very nice days, full of family and fun and laughter and entertainment. And food. Man, was there food....I am very much in danger of having what Thing 2 calls a "food seizure", where one is entirely disabled because of eating too much. My mother-in-law considers fewer than four pies to be mean, and if your legs can still hold you after dinner, then you just weren't trying.

I love Christmas Eve, because it has the double-barrelled delight of the air of anticipation and festivity, coupled with the undeniable thrill of being on vacation. It is always very busy at the salon for the weeks leading up to Christmas, and after work on the 24th the staff usually goes out for a few drinks...I enjoy that feeling of being let off the hook more than I can describe. Also, there's nothing more I can do to prepare for Christmas at that point, I just have to let it happen. There's certain liberty in not being able to do any more.

Christmas morning is still a delight, even if Santa is a thing of the past. The girls are still thrilled to open presents, and Toby is unendingly entertained with the plethora of boxes to be explored.
We have Christmas day with my family and Boxing Day with the Mister's. (I tried to introduce the tradition of actual boxing on Boxing Day, and the Mister's nephews were all for it, but somehow, it never took off. ) It used to be that Christmas with two daughters meant a tsunami of tiny pink plastic things that engulfed the house, but that has gotten better as they've gotten older. Now they get clothes and candy, and in much smaller quantities than the Polly Pockets or Barbies of the past.

And now I'm home, and it's all over, and I'm ready to have my life get back to normal.

Christmas Shopping and Testosterone.

Christmas is in a few days, and judging by the parking lot at the mall, this has come as a MAJOR surprise to many, many people. It's the 25th of December, same as always, and yet it appears to have caught plenty unaware. Again. I can understand the grocery store being busy, there's some stuff you just can't get more than a couple of days before using. (Bean sprouts and raspberries? I'm looking at you.) But if you are buying a gift, you probably knew for the last 51 weeks that Christmas was coming.

I used to work in a record store, when I was in university. (The fact that it was a "record store" should give you some indication as to how long ago it was.) The store specialized in classical and jazz music, and it was a fabulous job.

We were open until 6:00 pm on Christmas Eve, and every year the most amazing phenomenon would happen: things would be fairly steady until about 1 or 2 pm, and then quiet down, but at 3:00 the place would completely fill up. With men. Desperate, serious, driven men, men who knew that they had left shopping for their wife's present WAY too late, and had to get something suitable in the next hour or face a year's worth of cold, quiet loathing. Again.

And we could sell those guys anything. They would buy whatever we told them was good. It seemed to me that every single one of those men somehow felt that the lateness of their purchase, and the guilt that ensued, could be most easily offset by throwing wads of cash at us...the more expensive the record, the better."See this Beethoven boxed set that sells for $300 that we've been trying to unload since March? She'd love it. In fact, you should get all of Mozart's operas, too."
What with it being Christmas and all, we did try to keep ourselves in check, and not take advantage of the sweaty, middle-aged guy waving his gold American Express card like a white flag. But on the other hand, most of them were begging for it: "Are you sure this is enough? Maybe I should get MORE!"

Occasionally, we would get a man who wanted to get a gift certificate for the woman in his life, and, since this was before computers, we would hand write the date on the top with a little note to ask the recipient to use it within the year. Almost every man asked if we could put the date a few days before, so that the recipient would not know that he bought it on Christmas Eve. Because if there's anything that says "I love you, Merry Christmas", it's a forged document designed to manipulate your life's partner into thinking you are a better person than you are.

At least these guys were out getting a present at all, even if it was at the 11th hour. I'm sure the 7-11 is pretty full after Midnight Mass with some poor slob who forgot to get something for his wife or girlfriend. A record, any record, is better than the Juicy Fruit and air fresheners that she's going to get.

Deck the Malls.

I'm pretty sure that if I'm ever involved in an international incident, or charged with assault causing bodily harm, it will involve Christmas shopping. Or, more specifically, Christmas shoppers.

The girls and I went to the mall on Sunday...I know, I know, a terrible idea for someone as adverse to crowds and noise as I. But the girls don't drive and I do, so to the mall it was. Also, Thing 2 wanted some ideas as to what to get me for Christmas; I certainly had no intention of thwarting that particular plan.

The most egregious Christmas shopping transgressions:

• Shouldn't the rules of the road apply when walking as well as driving? When you are operating a motor vehicle on a busy street, do you EVER stop in the middle of the road and just stay there? Or spin around and start driving in the complete opposite direction? Because people do that when they are walking in the mall all the time. It makes me want to bash right into them.
• Multiple Choice Question: The top of the escalator is the worst possible place to A) take out your cell phone and start texting, B) have a chat with eight of your best friends, C) stop and carefully take in your surroundings and have a long, slow thought about where to go next. Answer: ALL OF THE ABOVE!
• Retail store clerks are paid minimum wage, get one day off at Christmas and hate you. They are not about to perform a Christmas miracle and circumvent store policy and give their manager an opportunity to yell at them because they let you use an expired 10% off coupon. They just want you to go away. As do the rest of us waiting in line.
• Get off your cell phone when dealing with a cashier. It's abhorrently rude to keep chatting to your friend about "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" when dealing with another human being.
• See all those people patiently standing in an orderly fashion near the check out? It's called a "line" and you should join the end of it. They are not just abnormally motionless people with admirable serenity.
• A stroller is not a weapon.

Maybe they should hand this out in a pamplet at the mall. I know I'd appreciate it.

Whew.

Happy December 27th! My favorite day of the year, because the Christmas foo-for-all is over and done with, and my life can go back to normal after having been terrorized for the past 6 weeks.

I love the week after Christmas, because the kids are entirely entertained, there is nothing that has to be done, and the house is full of spectacular leftovers, so I barely have to lift a finger to survive. I plan on spending the next few days lounging in my pajamas, reading all the good new books at hand and working my way through an entire box of Lindors all by myself.



Don't get me wrong, I do like Christmas itself, but the lead-up to it is exhausting and tiresome. My mother used to say that if the woman of the house doesn't make Christmas happen, it doesn't happen and she's right...I figure that the day I see a men's magazine covered in articles about "how to avoid stress over the holidays", then we will have acheived total equality.



We did have a lovely Christmas this year, though, despite my whining and complaining in the 6 weeks leading up to it. Our children are old enough now that they slept in on Christmas morning, and we opened our presents in the day light for the first time since they were born. Christmas Day saw us only changing out of our pajamas so that we could go over to my mother's for dinner, which was very nice. (A few years ago, my mother declared that she was never making turkey ever again...she and my father don't particularly like turkey or the leftovers, and she hated the way the turkey hijacked so much of her fridge space for 4 days beforehand. Usually we have prime rib, but this year we had roast chicken, which was dandy.)



My mother also made a trifle, which, as a dessert, I can take or leave, but as a breakfast, trifle is superb...the leftovers are highly prized. She gave me a great big portion, all for myself, which I enjoyed very much in the wee hours of the 26th. (When I lived with my parents, my father also held trifle for breakfast in high regard. There was a quiet but ruthless tussle for the remains of the trifle every year, which resulted in each of us trying to get up earlier than the other to have at it. We'd end up getting up at 6 then 5:30, then 5 to beat each other to it. I tell you, Christmas spirit and good will towards man went straight out the window when it came to polishing off the trifle before the other one knew what was up.)



We spent yesterday with the Mister's family, and got fed until we burst there, too.

I'm looking forward to a couple of days off work next week, too. As the kids have gotten older, I find their Christmas vacation time too short, and by taking a couple of days off I can manage some time with them. Usually, when they go back in January, I indulge in a little down time; I've made a habit of renting a movie on the Monday they go back and watching it in the middle of the afternoon. It feels like I'm totally playing hookey.



We are off to my mother's for dinner again this evening, but after that I hope to spend until Wednesday indoors, in my pajamas and on the couch with the cat. We have plenty of trifle and chicken and chocolate, we should do just fine.

It's All Over But the Wrapping

Thank frigging God, the Christmas shopping is done! I plan on not going anywhere near any retail establishment for the next 10 days at the very least. (I wish I could include my place of employment in that moratorium, but that's probably not going to be doable.) I've even done the grocery shopping to get us through until the 30th, maybe the 31st. I could probably get through the entire rest of the winter if not for my family's penchant for milk, bread and fresh fruit. ("Come on kids! It will be like pioneer times! I'm sure scurvy isn't as bad as you'd think! You could stand to lose a couple of teeth!")

The weather here has been terrible the past week or so, with a few snow squalls and storm systems wreaking havoc on people's shopping plans. The result is that every single person who celebrates Christmas went out today to get stuff done. Including me. Stupid me.

The roads were still very slushy and snowy, with the result that people just ignored the possibility of lanes, and just drove wherever they damn well pleased. The snowbanks in parking lots meant that there were fewer spots than usual, and somewhere along the line, people got the idea that if there isn't a parking spot available, you could just invent one and park there. Also, when it is snowy and people are desperate to get their shopping done, they stop driving with any degree of civility or decorum....it really does go against the spirit of the season to steal someone's parking spot. I was ready to have an aneurysm by the time we got home.

I'm not sure why Christmas is such a surprise to everyone every year; it's clearly marked on the calendar, and God knows the retail industry starts reminding us of December 25th somewhere around November the 1st. But every year, it's the same crush just before the day. I remember working in retail, many moons ago, and we were open until 3 o'clock on Christmas Eve. Inevitably, the store would be full of frantic, desperate men who would, quite literally, buy anything you put into their hands. ("Here, take this $4oo Complete Works of Beethoven set that we've had hanging around since May! Your wife will love it!")

Now the only thing I have to do is get something for myself, from the Mister. (We decided a long time ago to buy our own Christmas presents for ourselves. It saves me from getting Vegas-showgirl earrings, and him from getting a game he already has.) But at least I don't have to go out to get it for another 10 days or so.

Oh Tannenbaum

We finally got our Christmas tree up this past weekend. I know people who can't wait to get their tree up, barely heaving the Jack O' Lantern on the compost heap before hauling out the foliage. But here at Chez Loudshoes, two weeks before Christmas is the bare minimum, and even at that, I'm sick of the thing by New Year's Day.

When the Mister and I were first married, we lived in a house that was the size of a shopping cart. (Seriously, it was about 900 square feet, and only had two closets in the whole house. It was a real education in creative storage, let me tell you.) The Mister wanted a Christmas tree very much, but I was against the idea; partly because we didn't have the room, partly because we weren't home hardly at all at Christmas, but mostly because I couldn't be botherered. I suggested that if he really wanted one we put it up on his side of the bed, because that was about the only place I could think of for it to go.

Since we've been in this house, though, we've had a Christmas tree, sometimes a real one, and sometimes a fake one. I'm all keen on the fake one, because no matter how well we water a real one, it seems to hemmorhage needles all over the place, and I'm terrified that the whole think will burst into flames spontaneously. Once I was sitting in the living room reading a book, and all I could hear was the gentle but relentless sound of needles plopping onto the presents below. By the time Christmas finally got here we had a naked, brown tree with jaunty, shiny decorations all over it. Very festive; it looked like some sort of macabre art installation.

Here is our tree this year, right after Thing 2 put the angel on the top

That angel is not moving, by the way. That's the way she sits. We did eventually put it to rights, but I rather enjoyed the whole "angel in a hurricane" effect.

We are lucky that Toby pays almost no attention to the Christmas tree whatsoever. Although he thinks that a tree in the house is an excellent idea (possibly the best idea we've ever had, in fact, other than tuna.) it has not occurred to him to climb it, gnaw on it or assault it in any way. Mostly, he just arranges himself in his meatloaf pose underneath it:

Trees in the house. What a concept.

Making A Scene.

A number of years ago I worked with two very nice, very young women, who were delightful people, but a tad...um....insulated. (One of them once asked me if Venezuela was in Europe. And she had been there.)

One of them had recently been married, and this was to be her first Christmas in her own home. She bounced into the staff room one day, having been out shopping. She was very excited to show us her purchase of her first Christmas decoration, a creche: "Look! Look what I got! A "maternity scene"! Isn't it cute?"

The second young woman, in a voice dripping with scorn, replied "It's not called a "maternity scene", it's an "activity scene". Jeesh."

At that point I interjected "you're both idiots. It's a NATIVITY scene."

But it was very cute.

And One More Thing....

Thing 2 submitted her Christmas list some time ago, and it was lengthy and detailed, as I had requested. (She's a little less imaginative than in years past, probably because she got none of those things.)
The other day she mentioned to her father that she would like to add something to the list: a mat for the bathtub so that she "wouldn't sand off her butt when [she] slides around".
He had to explain to her that, generally, people liked having some sort of traction in the tub precisely so that they did not slide around easily, and that since she was the only one who treated the bathtub like an amusement park, she may have to put up with a little butt-sanding.

Deck the Malls

The annual Christmas shopping ordeal has to be gotten overwith, I've come to accept that. No matter how I think my way around it, that particular mountain has to be scaled, except that there's no downward slope on the other side, it's just a sheer cliff face that I fall off of on December 24th.

The Mister and I began our shopping last Monday, because A) we both have the day off and B) if I have to suffer, then so does he. (I've never understood the whole "the woman does the shopping for the entire family" thing....just because I won the X Chromosome lottery does not mean I like slogging through the bargain DVD bin at Best Buy any more than he does.)

A few things that caught my attention this time around:

• There is a lot of shit for sale out there. Seriously, who really thinks to themselves "The only real impediment to my happiness is an interactive tyrannosaurus rex "? or "God, there's no point in living if I don't have a Richard the Lionheart toilet seat cover."
• The combination of big winter coats and overstuffed stores is a recipe for disaster. Claire's was so jammed with crap that when I turned around to see what was behind me, I took out an entire display of "Hello Kitty" backpacks. (Just to tell you, if you've never been in "Claire's", and believe me, you should thank your lucky stars if that's the case, it is a store for girls that looks as though each and every Disney princess threw up in it. It is stocked to the rafters with hairbands, earrings, key fobs, jewelry cases, necklaces, purses, makeup and diaries, all of them in pink and purple and covered in glitter. It's craptastic.)
• There should be a special place in hell for people who walk through the mall and just stop. Especially if they are talking on a cell phone while doing it. Seriously, if you can't carry on a converstion while remaining in motion then maybe you should walk over to the side, where there isn't anyone else trying to get by you while plotting your imminent and violent death.
• When there is a line behind you a mile long, it's probably not a good idea to pull out that expired coupon for 10% off and insist on it's redemption to the pimply, minimum wage earning clerk who has the IQ of a carrot. The people in that line are going to snap.
• Caffeine, and plenty of it, is the drug that makes Christmas shopping at all bearable. I asked the Mister to go into the drive-through at Tim Hortons on our way to the mall, and he, the non-coffee drinker that he is, asked if I really needed to. I replied that I was deadly serious, and did he honestly want to go shopping me me unmedicated? He silently and wisely pulled into the drive-through. Regular and copious administrations of carbohydrates help too.
• Gift certificates are the greatest invention of modern man. Forget computers and indoor plumbing and internal combustion engines, the fact that I can just go in, get one of those little plastic cards and be done with my shopping makes me want to weep with gratitude.
• Wal-Mart is hell. The narrow aisles, the surly help (when you can find it), the unending Christmas music and the ever-present screaming toddlers makes Wal-Mart my Number One Place To Avoid In December. This is followed closely by Costco, Zellers and (shudder) Toys R Us. Truly, if they played rap music, served blue cheese and required me to wear high heels, it would be a perfect hell.

The only thing worse than Christmas shopping, I think, is Boxing Day shopping, and luckily, I don't have to do that.

This Is Why We Never Let the Cat Decorate.

This site amused me terribly. I don't know what's wrong with me.
A Cat's Christmas is a site depicting two cats and a Christmas tree. I especially appreciated the "before" and "after" shots of the tree, about 2/3 of the way down the page.
Thankfully, Toby has far more dignity than these two. He acknowledges the wisdom of having a tree in the house.

Christmas Concert.

Last week the girls had their school Christmas concert. At least one girl did....Thing 2 dropped out of choir early on in the proceedings, because she "couldn't see the point". Fine by me; I've seen enough Christmas concerts in the past 10 years to last me a life time. Thing 1 was in the Grade 8 band, which performed the most dirge-like "Good King Wenceslas" I ever heard. Honestly, it would make you want to lay down and weep, it was so depressing. I do like the concert, though, because I get to see so many parents I don't see anymore, now that our kids are too old to hang out on the playground after school. Oh, and the kids work hard and deserve some recognition, and it's not simply a social opportunity for me.

One of the mothers there was deeply embarrassed that her child did not wear the requisite white top and dark bottoms, and kept repeating "I didn't know! I didn't know!" over and over again. I told her not to worry; at Thing 2's kindergarten concert, one little girl, sitting front and center in the first row, kept herself amused for the entire concert by playing with the hole in the crotch of her black leotards. I thought the kid was going to get her knees completely behind her head at one point. The child's mother was a puddle of mortification by the end of it, and, in fact, the child does not go to that school anymore. (I'll bet it's not a coincidence.)

We sold some fair trade coffee as a fundraiser for the school before and after the concert, which was why I was there. We had some samples for people to taste, so that they could choose the roast they wanted to buy, and a bunch of Grade 8 kids came up and asked if they could have some. Sure, says I, and then watched at they each put about 6 tablespoons of sugar in their little styrofoam cups of coffee. I told them not to tell their parents who gave them the coffee. I'd be surprised if they have gone to sleep yet.

At the end of it all, it's a kind of nice way to see people and feel Christmassy and get a requisite dose of "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth".

University or Therapy?

I know that the ritual of the picture of one's happy, smiling offspring on Santa's knee is a cherished one for many parents, particularly the newish parents for whom the whole "kids at Christmas" thing is fairly new and still novel. But small children have a way of blasting your best laid plans to smithereens with split-second mood change, and that new parent had better get familiar with that idea right smart. One of the things I learned really quickly as a parent is that a two-year old will turn on you like a rabid dog, given the slimmest of excuses, and you, the parent, must be ready to abandon any scenario, at any time, at a moments notice, and with equanimity. Such is your lot in life until the little darlings are old enough to understand "I gave you life, you're giving me this."

Sadly, some parents learn this particular lesson way too late. By then, the money set aside for higher education will have to be spent on some pretty intensive therapy to counter-balance their lack of parental resourcefulness.

I found the following pictures on The Sun-Sentinel website, which is a paper out of southern Florida. Now, not all of the pictures come from southern Florida, so I'm not going to hold that against them, but the glee with which the hundreds of pictures in the "Scared of Santa" feature are published does give me pause.

Santa's looking pretty chipper for a guy who's got two absolutely traumatised toddlers on his lap. No doubt the two are wailing the place down with some pretty bone-chilling shrieks, and Santa looks like he's just had a beer at the Sunday School picnic. That's cold, man.

This poor child looks like she is afraid, truly afraid, that Santa is going to eat her. And she may be right. I mean, look at him...does he look like he's ever said "no thanks, I'm full" in his life?

Holy shit, this Santa scares the bejesus out of me, and I know I could deck him if I had to. That kid doesn't stand a chance...... Run, little girl, RUN! Man, where did they find this guy? I'll bet his sister has a house in the woods made of gingerbread.

Check out this Santa.... "God, I'd kill myself if I wasn't so damn tired." That little guy shouldn't be afraid of Santa, Santa's just going to topple over and have a nap real soon. Then he should be able to escape without any problem.

This guy is enjoying his job way too much. I wonder if he strangles kittens for fun in the off season.

I love this kid; she's giving Santa a full-out, direct-frontal assault, while still having the presence of mind to keep a steely grip on that candy cane. I would not want to mess with her, girl has her priorities.

Wow. Psycho Santa. From the unnatural blue-grey of his beard, to his expressionless reptilian gaze to the apparent ease with which he is breaking that child's arm, he is ten kinds of unnerving. It just appears to be dawning on the kid on the right that perhaps this Santa is, in fact, an alien.

I love this one best of all.....a mere facsimile of Santa can make you relive the horror all over again. It's a clear case of PSSD: "Post Santa Stress Disorder".

Just for the record, I wouldn't have put my kids through this sort of trauma just for a picture of them with Santa. I will happily save the trauma for more important things, like bathing suit shopping, or haircuts. Luckily, we've been saving for years.

All I Want For Christmas...

Yesterday, the Mister and I started in on the Christmas shopping. Our Christmas list has been winnowed down to a few friends and our children over the years, and shopping isn't nearly the Iron Man Endurance Marathon it used to be. Mostly we have to shop for our children, and as I dislike shopping for the most part, I am extremely grateful to have another brain to help with the endless agonizing over what to get.
We have the girls make out lists to give us an idea of what they would like. When they both still thought Santa was responsible for the Christmas bonanza of gifts, we got some pretty interesting requests; after all, mommy and daddy might not get you a pony, but there was no reason for Santa to hold back.
Thing 1, being the reasonable, easy-going and moderate soul that she is, always asked for the most modest and sensible of Christmas presents, to the point where we would gently encourage her to think a little bigger. One year all she asked for was some gum, some pencil crayons and "those kleenex with the lotion in them". Hardly the stuff that dreams are made of; I don't think there are any Christmas legends or stories about luxury kleenex.
Thing 2 has exactly the opposite approach to Christmas lists; she aims very high, and very low, with the idea that she will wind up with stuff somewhere in the middle. It actually works very well. Over the years she has asked for the following for Christmas:

• Ballroom dancing lessons
• real diamonds
• a cottage
• a chemistry set (yeah, right. She'd have us all in the hospital by Boxing Day.)
• her driver's licence. (She asks for this one every year: "Some day Santa's going to come through for me!")
• puffy dresses and "pritty" clothes
• a jetpack ("For quick getaways.")
• an inflatable palm tree
• flowers from Sobeys
• a live monkey
• a motorcycle (presumably, that's what the driver's licence is for.)
• good books (not bad ones?)
• a unicorn
• her own laptop
• a Wii, an X-Box and a PS3
• a trip to Disney World
• pizza
• a chain saw (she saw her father using one a few summers ago and thought it looked like something she could use.)
• wings
• "perfection" (not quite sure what she meant by that. I'm not sure she does, either.)

Sadly, she will not be getting most of this, yet again. It doesn't seem to bother her, and she is certainly happy with whatever she gets. Just once, it would be nice to be able to get her a cottage, though.

*I have been informed by Thing 1 that "Perfection" is actually a board game. But I like the idea of her asking for some metaphysical ideal instead.

Make It Stop.

I was walked to and from the mall today, and noticed that the decorations are up and the Christmas music was on. While I walked home, I had ample opportunity to think about which Christmas song I hate the most. It was a very pleasant diversion, I must say, eating up the miles while getting my heartrate up into an almost cardio workout. So here it is, my Top Five Most Hated Christmas Songs...

#5 And So This Is Christmas by John Lennon. John and Yoko and their dirty hair, self-righteously drone that war is only continuing to exist because I, the listener, don't want it to end badly enough. "And what have you done?" I'll tell you pal, I've done 5 loads of laundry, made yet another batch of Christmas cookies this morning, made up the present list and figured out how we're going to pay for all this. What have YOU done???

#4 Bruce Springsteen's version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Okay, so it's not bad enough that this song aggressively threatens children with a most heinous emotional blackmail, but then we have to listen to SAAAAAAANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN!! like a million times.

#3 Wonderful Christmas by Paul McCartney The herpes of Christmas songs. Stays with you forever. It gives me brain damage just to listen to it.

#2 Do You Hear What I Hear Unfortunately, yes, yes, I do. A dirge-like melody, a nonsensical lyric and an unpleasant affinity with the likes of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. I like to sing it with a panicky inflection at the "do you hear what I hear?" part.

#1 The Little Drummer Boy The depth and breadth of my loathing for this song is admittedly out of all proportion, but dear God I hate this one. If I was Mary, I tell you, there would be blood on the floor. She's all exhausted from the donkey ride and the labour and whatnot, she's probably going to have one hell of an infection from giving birth in a freaking stable, and this kid shows up and gives her and her newborn a few riffs from the rhythm section? Oh, the humanity.

And don't get me started on "Jingle Bell Rock".

And So It Begins....

It was an "at home" day today. The Mister had the car today, as he had some business-related errands to run, and a home visit to make. (We often make house calls for clients who can't get into the salon, usually for health reasons. I figure that if a haircut at your house is the only perk to having a broken hip/cancer/at-risk pregnancy, then so be it; we are happy to provide that singular dividend.) This meant that I was provided with the perfect opportunity to stay at home and Get Things Done.
Last week, Thing 2 wasn't feeling well enough to go to school, and so I spent all day at home then, too. However, last week, I felt like it was a perfect opportunity to malinger and laze about and read and play on the computer, and generally while away the day in a most indulgent manner.
The difference is, that was only the day after Halloween, and today is the 47th day before Christmas. This compels my mindset to switch over from "Normal Sloth Mode" to "Holiday Terrorist Mode" in about 2.3 nanoseconds.
"Holiday Terrorist Mode" means that, for the next 47 days, my life will be dedicated to dealing with Christmas. I'll be preoccupied with getting stuff, remembering stuff, decorating stuff, organizing stuff and dealing with....stuff. Now, believe me, I run a pretty minimalist Christmas ship here at Chez Loudshoes, but as my mother once noted, if the woman of the house doesn't make Christmas happen, it doesn't happen. I don't do much, but even "not that much" adds up to plenty of time and energy when it comes to Christmas.
So, the first level of Holiday Defcon One is to clear out all the extraneous shit that this family has accumulated over the past year, to make room for the tsunami of shit that will engulf us come December. (DO NOT get me started on the ridiculousness of hurling out 2 metric tonnes of stuff we don't want, so that I can make room for another 2 metric tonnes of new stuff I'll be throwing out this time next year.)
I spent most of the day in the family room, which appeared to have been the scene of a particularly raucous Mardi Gras parade. I cleaned out cupboards and under the couch (eww.) and got rid of a whole lot of random game pieces and playing cards and craft kits that were clealy abandoned and never going to be rescued again. (I live with three committed pack rats, so my work is cut out for me, trust me.)I moved a bit of furniture around, and it looks fabulous. I keep going in there just to admire my work.
Next week, I hope to tackle the freezer room, which tends to be the place where things get put when we don't know were else to put them, the same function the dining room table serves, only larger. I figure that, eventually, I will have cleaned the house thoroughly, and maybe, for a few precious minutes on the evening of December 24th, all will be right with my world.