A Holiday Story.... 2008 Christmas

As a parent I love watching my kids get excited for Christmas morning. And c’mon, who are we kidding… the bribery that comes along with Christmas…LOOOOOVE IT! It’s a pleasure having something to hold over my kid’s heads. A threat of Santa not stopping at our house is enough to buy me at least 30 minutes of quiet time here and there. And I really do love the fact that every year my little brother dresses up like Santa Clause with a tapeworm. He walks around the yard for a few minutes to really bring that “GET YOUR BUTT TO BED” plea. So, this weekend we put up Christmas lights around the outside of the house. We carefully placed our moving reindeer in the yard and anchored down the spiral Christmas tree in the decorative rocks. It was fun to watch the girls draw Holiday Greetings in chalk all over the driveway and on the sidewalk. It was equally as sad to watch the sprinkles of rain come and ruin the masterpieces they had just finished. We packed everything up, stored it back in the garage and lit up the lights. Well, most of the lights anyway. It never fails. I plugged them all in before Eric climbed up the ladder of death to string them along the tall peaks of the house. I KNOW they all worked. Every last one of them WORKED!! Up at the top, the icicle lights hung so pretty. He was irritated and said it would get done tomorrow. Umm. No. So here I go. Since I am about oh…. A foot and a half shorter than Eric, I actually had to climb to the very top rung. I replace 2 broken bulbs that were NOT there before, put the ladder back in the garage and stepped back to admire. What the hell? Now there is another portion that doesn’t work. I feel as if there is some Christmas Light Fairy laughing at me.I am such a visual person that I can actually see this little elf-like fairy with his mini sling shot taking out my bulbs. I shake the crazy out of my head and continue on. This time it wasn’t as high up. Again? Where are these broken bulbs coming from. Okay… we are good now. All the lights work on the front peak. I put the ladder BACK in the garage. Step back. Are you kidding me? Above the front porch! Forget it. Eric can do it another day. So we have a break in the flow. The lights are imperfect. Goes with the theme. I just noticed that the moving reindeer has a broken neck. He is thrashing around like a hunter just shot him.I am trying to maneuver his stick body to get the head back where its suppose to be but my clouded by the "psycho light fairy" judgement, I forget to unplug him first and go about a good, oh, 10 minutes before I realize that the back of his body WILL stop moving enough for me to mount his head if I just unplug the "soon to be tamale meat" reindeer!! Okay….. He’s fixed and I am done. In the house I go.... and a light wind…..the spiral tree is down for the count. I often wonder if things like this happen to everyone. Eric has this amazing ability to just walk away. He leaves it for another day and all is well in the world. ME? Well, it has to be done right then and there. I usually only give up at breaking point. All is NOT well in my world. So I wrapped up my Sunday telling the kids to leave the Advent alone! Don’t touch the soldier boy! Rylie! Those cranberries are decoration not food! No Rylie… you cannot open the tiny presents on the table… its decoration! I have NO IDEA where the stuffed Santa is! Rylie…. Did you open all of these little presents and then crumble all of the Styrofoam? I AM TAKING ALL OF THE DECORATIONS DOWN TOMORROW!!!!!... and the excitment of Christmas is done.....I think the Advent is for me. I can countdown the days of holiday chaos and look forward to normal everyday chaos. Chat with you soon!