I spent countless hours wrapping, taping and tagging. I stole money from the electric and gas bill fund, just so I could give all of the credit to a morbidly obese old man who breaks into your house and steals your cookies.
Did I mention that fat bastard isn’t even real? Sorry kids. The jig is up.
Now, as I sit here at work after a 5 day “break” all I can think of is, how will I pay for next Christmas? Because every year becomes more expensive than the last. I think I liked it better when I could buy the kid’s presents from the Dollar store and they would be happy just to play in the boxes and chew on the wrapping paper.
Now, the
What happened to tube socks, pajamas and oranges in our stockings?
I am exhausted. I am holiday party’d, Christmas ham’d, pass-the-mashed-potatoes-and-open-another-bottle-of-wine’d the fuck out. I need a Valium, some comfy pajamas, my couch and an all day Jersey Shore marathon to chill me out.
And of course, the minute the kids get a gift card or cash, they already have it spent. And you have to rush them to the store “right fucking now, MOM!!!” before their heads implode and every Xbox game and pair of skinny jeans is SOLD OUT.
No lie, my son asked me to take him to Game Stop to buy Modern Warfare 3 for his Xbox. On Christmas Day. Seriously, kid? He’s lucky I was all doped up on lack of sleep and Christmas spirit or I would have knuckle punched him in the baby maker.
My daughter is easy. She took her makeup and her hair straightener and clothes and books and hid out in her room. No fuss, no muss. She threw out all of her garbage, put her new clothes away and was content.
My son? He’s a unicorn of a different species. He had to have everything opened IMMEDIATELY.
It was a tsunami of ripped boxes, plastic ties that held in toys as if packaged by homeland security, wrapping paper, and instruction manuals. We barely made it out alive. All I heard all day was:
“Mom, how do you get this to work?”
“Moooommmm, this is BROKEN! Why did you buy me a broken toy??” (PS…NOT broken, but installed incorrectly by an impatient preteen with an attitude).
“MOM, do we have 17 C batteries, a USB cable, a magic wand and some duct tape?”
“MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM!”
“These pants are too long! How tall do you think I am?”
“The drums that came with my Guitar Hero don’t work! This is stupid!”
“I can’t get on YouTube and Facebook because my Xbox Live is stupid!”
And then, folks……I lost it.
I made him gather up every toy that “Santa” brought him, bring it downstairs and put it back under the tree because “There are kids all over the world that would be happy to have ONE pant leg of your too long pajamas, and who would shit themselves and break out in hives if they got ANY video game at all much less the $60 Madden 12 game you got and I swear to God, if you bitch about one more thing I bought you, you better have CPS on speed dial, because I swear on all that is Holy you will need protective services when I am done with your ungrateful ass!”
And then my heart, which was now officially two sizes too small after yelling at my kid on Christmas, broke and I cried. On Christmas.
After standing my ground for a little while (because he really WAS being kind of a douche), I let him take his things back. After talking about appreciation and patience. And then I drank wine. By the gallon. I may have even licked inside the box. I can’t remember.
But despite all of this, when anyone asks me, “How was your Christmas?”, I always reply, “It was beautiful!”. Because it was. Because I have a family. And a home. And I am loved. And I am grateful everyday that I am still here to yell at my kids. And that they are still here doing things that teenagers do to be yelled at for.
How was your Christmas?
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