Santa-pa-looza

Twas the Night Before Christmas and all through the house
The Pinkone was running around like a twacked out lab mouse
The cookies she laid out in rapid succession
Hoping that eggnog would erase her latest transgression

The aunties and MiMi goaded her on
Loving her panic and her stressed cranky mom
She tracked Santa on NORAD and Google earth too
Having only an hour she knew what to do

When Shay Shay announced that Santa was near
Pinkone Jumped up, her eyes filled with fear
Away to the bedroom she flew like a flash
She gave hugs and kisses and a smack on the ass

Her eyes squeezed shut tight she asked me with fear
Mom, does Santa know I really tried to be good this year?
Pinkone, I said my heart growing full
Santa knows on the inside you have a good soul

But will a good soul get me my sled?
Oh shit thought mommy, I think I’m dead
For no mention of sleds had been whispered to me
And a whole different gift would be under the tree

Uh, Pinkone, I said attempting no stammer
What happens if Santa couldn’t make a sled with his hammer?
“Then I will be angry” she said with conviction
“so, nothing else will meet your predilection?”

“Nope, nothing” she said as she drifted to sleep
And mom uttered the F-bomb and began to weep
So off the to the Wal-mart she flew in a flash
with all other moms on the last minute dash

And there I did paw through bin after bin
Not a sled could be found much to my chagrin
A saleslady looked fearful as I approached in a panic
This Christmas was sinking like Leo in Titanic

I wandered on home my head hung with shame
This whole endeavor was incredibly lame
Santa had failed or so I freared
Would Pinkone give up and be naughty all year?

The next morning she rose, her eyes all a twinkle
The bells on her jammies lightly did jingle
She walked down the stairs, her sled she looked for
she peeked round the fireplace, the bathroom and door



 When no sled she did spy her face it did fall
Until she saw presents stacked high up the wall
“Are those all for ME?” She asked with shock on her face
“Mom there are presents all OVER the place!”

She smiled wide and looked directly at me
“Santa did know, he really did see”
“I tried to be good and he saw my soul
I worked super hard and I reached my goal”

So sled or no sled, Pinkone was happy
Santa had listened and though her behavior was crappy
He saw that she’d tried and cut her some slack
and for the whole morning she gave me no flack

Pinkone was great and her Christmas was too
Mommy was stoked with no discipline to do
As she climbed in bed she hugged me tight
“Happy Christmas Mommy, and have a good-night!”



Gifts, of a Spiritual Nature

I am spending my morning trapped in a cubicle bunkered down with my IPOD and a huge sheet of claims to slug through. The beauty of my IPOD is that is allows me to watch movies, which makes my day just a tiny bit more bearable. Currently, I am indulging my love for Christmas movies and watching Four Christmases with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. This movie is ridiculous, but one scene in particular inspired me this morning.

The scene I’m talking about is when the staring couple is visiting with Reese’s mom and sister and aunts in the, “cougar den”. The mother is now dating a pastor at a local “Hip Christian” church and at his urging has decided to do away with the “commercial trappings of Christmas” and speak to the “spiritual gifts” they want for one and other. So, this whole scene is acctually rather silly, especially the part where the 80 something year old Gram Gram offers her husband the spiritual gift of “pleasuring Milt more often with my hand and with my mouth”. That never ceases to amuse me.

The point of this description is that I want to take this particular blog post as an opportunity to offer up some “spiritual gifts” of my own to those in my life and surrounding it. This is a rough year for my family, as you all are aware at this point, and I am certainly not the only one that could benefit from some gifts of the spirit this holiday.

To my daughter the pink headed weirdo:

I gift you with a sense of whimsy. Take life lightly Pinkone, its not all so serious. Why worry so much about vampires and wereostritches when there is magic everywhere? I gift you with strength. I want you to see the women in your life and the strength that they have to meet every challenge head on and plow through. You are coming from a long line of strong, bawdy, noisy women that will be there to hold you up through all of life’s challenges. I love you, we are a team kid.

To my 3 best lady friends, who are each battling their own particular demons:

I gift the three of you with clarity. I want all three of you to see your goals and your lives clearly. Find peace as you move forward and seek out answers to your personal questions. Know that I am with you through every step of the journey and will be there when you need a leg up. Cari, Shelli, Tera; I love you all.

To my Mommy friends:

I gift you with patience and the knowledge that you are doing a great job, no matter how little you feel it sometimes. If only there were some award show that once yearly gave every mom a lifetime achievement award. Everything about mothering is hard and most of it is thankless and kind of gross. But we do it, everyday and take joy in it most of the time. For all of you, thank you for raising the next generation and you are doing a great job.

To all of us in the blog-o-verse:

I gift you all with inspiration and bloggy goodness for the new year! Blogging is therapeutic and sometimes feels tedious and even selfish (at least it does to me) but if you all are anything like me, it keeps you sane. Use your gifts and share them with the world! I hope all of you find many fun, funny, and fascinating things to blog about and share with the rest of us over the next 12 months.

To Myself:

I am gifting myself with the gift of perspective and care this year. I am allowing myself the ability to see things clearly and find out where they fit in my new life. I give myself permission to go to the doctor, to eat healthy and to work out. Taking care of myself does not mean I am being selfish, and taking care of others needs to come second. This year I will get my ducks in a row, so to speak, and actualize my priorities. I will move forward and I will be strong. I am also giving myself the gift of a punching bag...becuase everybody just needs to hit something sometimes.

What kind of "spirtiual gifts" would you offer your people blog-o-verse?

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Kwanza and Satisfactory Non-Denominational Winter Solstice Celebration to all of you! 

Spoiled Rotten...

…or just impossible to please. With Christmas only 4 sleeps away my family has been setting about the task of enjoying this last bit of the holiday season. Every year we try to get Lily all excited about Christmas, get those sugar plums dancing in her head, the whole thing. Christmas has always been a big thing in my family. Shopping, baking, wrapping, listening to music, it all starts right after Halloween (you heard) and goes until February if we can at all help it. Sometimes we throw a little pseudo Christmas party in April or May just for the hell of it too.

My sisters and I have very specific traditions that we observe every Christmas, something I am going to be talking about in a blog post in the very near future, as I am struggling with the incorporation of the new traditions Steve and I are trying to develop into the old ones that I hold so close to me from growing up.

Today’s post however is about how hard we are trying, and how spectacularly we are failing, at making Christmas special for our spoiled rotten 4 year old.

Last night we tried to make an “all about Christmas” day. We wrapped some presents, listened to Christmas music while we did our chores, collected old toys while we cleaned our room to donate to charity, got peppermint chocolate milkshakes, and went to see Santa, who had returned to the North Pole by the time we got there-oops. Because Santa was gone, we went on a drive through some of the better lit neighbor hoods in town and Oooh’d and Ahhh’d over the fabulous light displays. All in all, it was a lovely day.

Unless you are 4.

Apparently, several things were wrong this completely lovely day.

1) We wanted to listen to “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas AGAIN” and the radio “NEVER, EVER” plays that song. (though it was on twice that day)

2) Chores are so BOWING, and I didn’t MAKE this mess, the baskets did!

3) I didn’t want a milkshake, I wanted ICE CREAM!

4) Ponytails are hurty and I don’t like my sweater over my dress its not beautiful. I don’t care how cold it is I want bare arms!

5) I don’t WANT to see Santa, he is going to bring me coal because I was naughty! (apparently, if we avoid Santa, he may forget to check the list a second time)

5) We NEVER, EVER, EVER get to go through the James Street Estates twice. Resulting in crying as we left the park where we were looking at lights.

*sigh*
So a long day of desperately trying to get the child into the Christmas spirit ended up with her parents feeling dejected and exhausted. It just feels like it is impossible to please this little girl sometimes. She even ended up with a spanking from daddy at the end of the night because she spent the entire time getting ready for bed telling us how un fair it was that NEVER, EVER (a favorite phrase) gets ice cream, and how it isn’t fair that she has to brush her teeth. Daddy lost it. He’s sorry now though.

This is, of course, my penance, because I was EXACTLY the same way when I was little. My parents often tell the story of taking me to Disney Land when I was 5, and I spent the entire time crying. I was afraid of all the rides and always hungry but they refused to feed me, at least in my recollection.

Merry Freakin’ Christmas!