Grasshopper New Media Presents...

December 1st: Realize that it is in fact December, and you’ve done nothing whatsoever to prepare for Christmas.

December 2nd: Frantically sift through the year’s photos to see if there’s one of all of your kids together that might be a candidate for use in your Christmas card. Sigh when you discover that the only such picture was taken on the beach. In July.

December 3rd: Convince yourself that gift cards aren’t as tacky as you believed them to be only a month ago.

December 4th: Have the first of many conversations you’ll have with your children about the fact that Santa is not rich, so no, he won’t be bringing a Wii this year.

December 5th: Agonize over gifts for teachers. End up buying candles. Again.

December 6th: After a particularly trying day with the kids, issue the first of many warnings to the effect that Santa brings presents only to those children who BEHAVE.

December 7th: Buy all new wrapping paper, because you can’t remember which paper was designated as Santa paper last year.

December 8th: Wait in an insanely long line at the post office so that you can mail presents to grandparents and great-grandparents. Get to the front of the line and realize that you’ve forgotten one of the packages, thereby ensuring a repeat trip.

December 9th: Suffer swelling of the tongue after licking too many Christmas card envelopes.

December 10th: Take the kids to the mall to visit with Santa, who, you notice, doesn’t look a thing like Santa at the library. The kids don’t notice.

December 11th: Spend an hour at the tree farm trying to find that perfect Christmas tree. Develop frostbite in the process. Arrive home and set up the tree in its stand. See only now that it’s plagued by a rather large bald patch, so that, as usual, you’ll have stick it in a corner to hide its bad side.

December 12th: Unpack the ornaments. Somehow a third of them are broken, even though you remember packing them up carefully in January.

December 13th: Attend a performance of The Christmas Carol. Everyone’s children sit raptly and politely. Everyone’s, that is, but yours.

December 14th: Start fielding questions from your kids about Santa and the chimney. Promise that you won’t light a fire on Christmas Eve, because then Santa might get burned.

December 15th: Spend the day eating from first one, then the next, then the third tin of Christmas cookies that friends have made for you. Chase the cookies with egg nog. Make a mental note not to wonder how it is that you gain ten pounds every holiday season.

December 16th: Start wrapping presents. Give yourself four paper cuts in the span of an hour.

December 17th: Persuade your son that no, Daddy probably doesn’t want a pair of underwear with a light-up Rudolph-the-reindeer nose.

December 18th: Panic when you realize that you forgot about the stockings. Every year you forget about the stockings.

December 19th: Receive a Christmas card from a family you don’t know very well. Consider whether you should send a card of your own in response. Nix the idea. It will be obvious that the only reason you’re sending a card is because the family sent you one.

December 20th: At 3pm, declare Christmas music banned for the rest of the day, because it’s all you’ve heard for weeks now. Endure your family calling you Scrooge and then proceeding to ignore your decree anyway.

December 21st: Drive to the post office for the fifth time. It takes fifty-two minutes for you to reach the front of the line, and, just when you do, one of only two clerks at their stations closes his window. The other is processing a passport application, which keeps her busy for a good ten minutes more.

December 22nd: Make a run to buy batteries for all those electronic toys you swore you weren’t going to purchase this year.

December 23rd: Stare in horror at the ATM machine, which is showing your balance to be in the single digits.

December 24th: Wait until 10:30pm (when you’re certain that the kids are asleep, because you’ve confirmed it) to start tucking presents under the tree. At 10:45pm, as you’re carrying a load of presents up from the basement, run smack into your older son, who says, guilelessly, “I was thirsty. What are you doing, Mom?”

December 25th: Declare that no, 5:30am is most definitely not morning. Relent once you realize that you’re not going to be able to go back to sleep in any event. Finish opening presents with the kids before the sun’s even up. Calculate that there are some 340 days before you have to do it all again. Fantasize about sleeping through at least 10 of those days. Pour yourself a glass of egg nog. But this time, although it’s barely 8am, spike it with plenty of Captain Morgan’s. You know you want to.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

by Slouching Mom

[tags]kids, children, parents, parenting, family, holidays, Christmas, humor, funny, calendar, schedule, controlled chaos [/tags]
Photo graciously provided by randomdepth, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved