Tateisms.

Tate: Dats a cow on da milk.
Me: Yep.  Milk comes from a cow.
Tate: Milk comes from the store.
Me: Milk comes from a cow first, Tate.
Tate: It comes from the grocery store with food.

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Me: You may not walk on my bed Tate.
Tate: I not walking on your bed mama. I dancing and dancing.  I got a tutu mommy and I dancing with the tutu on.

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Tate: Funny old daddy texted mommy.

 

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Tate: *carefully inspecting Dave’s face*
Dave:  Are daddy’s whiskers gone?
Tate: Uh-hum.
Dave:  Tate, where did daddy’s whisker’s go?
Tate:  They in daddy’s ears!
Dave:  What?? You’re silly, but you might have a point. Do you like when Daddy has whiskers?
Tate:  Uh-hum.  They funny.

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No Elf on My Shelf.

I’m creative, I could totally get into the club of these crazy Elf on a Shelf parents doing fun things every night with their elves.  Dying milk different colors, fishing in the sink, taking ornaments off the tree and framing that creepy little doll for it.

But, I’m not.  Multiplied by a thousand. 

Before you think it, I’m not a Scrooge of the Ebenezer variety, nor McDuck.  I love pretty much everything about the holidays.  They are a pretty big deal around these parts, but still, I have a beef with that menacing little midget. 

I want my kids to behave, period.  Not because of an elf or the threat of Santa, but because it’s the right thing to do.  Even that two year old knows when she’s doing something she probably shouldn’t.  While my kids are boundary testing, Dave or I are the ones who are supposed to remind and teach them, that’s our job.  And yes, yes, there are LOTS of ways to get that end result.  Quirky little thing, that parenthood, what works for one, just might not work for another.  I just personally, don’t want them to think that they should behave because an imaginary elf is watching over them.  I even feel a little weird about lying to them about Santa quite honestly, but to the best of our ability, we don’t use Santa as a threat for good behavior either. 

That’s not all. 

The ELF is also adding one. more. thing. to the holiday season.  It’s tough enough parenting right now, let’s face facts.  Your kids are inundated with want, they are sugared up with cookies, they’re tired, and overwhelmed and sometimes cranky.  You have to make decisions that are a good fit for them, for you.  More family, more friends, more giving to others, more down-time, YES.  More obligation, overspending, stress, time I’d rather spend doing something else, or the worry of remembering to move the Elf every night, uh NO.  Nope.  Not even a little bit. 

Plus, it totally reminds me of Chuckie.  That thing just might come after you with a kitchen knife or change your Facebook status to ‘It’s Complicated’ while you sleep.

I know you legions of Elf-ers, if my Pinterest feed is any indication, are all outraged at me right now and that’s ok.  I feel like I should tell you that it doesn’t remotely bother me if you use it in your house, lots of friends have it, including my friend Erin who let me steal her photos of Phineus.  She’s waiting for the day when her kids are like 15 and she can have ol’ Phineus dancing on a stripper pole or engaged in other completely inappropriate behaviors. 

I am not telling you to ditch yours or that you shouldn’t have one.  That would be as assinine as me telling you to ditch any of your other holiday traditions. 

I hear your cries of, It’s fun!  They love it!  It gets them excited for Christmas!  It’s not meant to be taken seriously!  If that works for you and yours, go right ahead.  I’ll laugh along with you at the hilarious pictures of Inappropriate Elf and marvel that you have the time and creativity to come up with these great ideas in the midst of an already crazy holiday season.

We’ll just be Elf-less over here.

Fess up.  Is there an Elf on your Shelf?

It’s OK to Say “No” During the Holidays.

Hey… you over there.  Yes, you.  The one on the phone saying “We’d LOVE to come to your daughter’s cousin’s brother’s best friend’s holiday get together.  What can we bring?  Ten dozen cut out cookies?  It’s tomorrow night? Um.  Sure thing.” 

I’m also talking to you, parents of little kids trying to make everything the BEST. Christmas. Ever. and staying up until 4 am the night before wrapping gifts, only to be too tired to enjoy watching them open them.  The ones with the kids who haven’t had a normal nap in a week. 

And you, single person who always gets roped into helping everyone else in the family and running incessantly because, obviously, you have nothing better to do.  Can you just drive four hours to pick up Grandma? 

And you, PTO parent that just agreed to sew last minute costumes for the Christmas pageant for forty-five students, forty-four of whom are not your own, while working full time.

If I don’t do it, who will? 

We can’t go without the…

It’s tradition! 

The kids don’t have equal numbers of gifts!  What can we buy at ten pm? 

We’ve always…

I just need one last…

I just want it to be perfect. 

I feel obligated to… 

Everyone else is going.

We tell ourselves a bunch of bullshit during the holiday season.  Don’t we?

I get it.  There are work functions, family dinners, decorating and brunches.  There is shopping and Christmas cards and wrapping and just that one final, last minute gift.  There are school plays and cookie baking and don’t forget the Santa pictures.  There are friends having parties and babysitter shortages and your best friend is in town.  There are neighbors with their lights up and everything looking as jolly as the damn north pole. 

There isn’t enough time in the day or enough sleep in the night for the to do list you have going.  You are frazzled at best and heading for a full on holiday breakdown at worst.

So, make the decision to say no.

Say no?  I can’t do that!  Christmas is about family!  It’s about friends!  It’s about gifts and Santa and church functions and baking cookies!  It’s about **insert whatever ranks high on your priority list here** and it would ruin Christmas to say no!  What do you mean that I should tell my child’s teacher that I don’t have time to make twenty-seven pairs of reindeer antlers?  Why would I tell my extended family that I have time for dinner, but not four hours of caroling through the neighborhood?  Turn down my boss’ invitation to a five hour cocktail party four days before Christmas, are you crazy?  I can’t tell my siblings that we should stop buying gifts for each other!  If I don’t do my holiday letter and family photo, won’t people miss it?  My child can’t be the only one without a Tickle Me Elmo, yes, yes, of course I’ll pay four times the amount and spend half a day driving to pick it up!  The tree, how could we have forgotten the tree, it needs to look like Martha herself decorated it!

I think it goes without saying, I don’t mean that you have to say no to everything.  {Unless that is what you want to do, then book that ticket to the islands and say screw the whole thing.}  Just pick and choose the things that mean the most to you and your family and do those, forget the rest.  No really, just let the rest go.  If someone doesn’t understand, oh well.  It might be hard the first few times you do it, but it does get easier.  Take it from a recovering holiday YES-woman.  Like a Christmas miracle, it will feel like a weight has been lifted. 

Suddenly, you have time for bundling up with hot chocolate and driving around looking at Christmas lights on a Tuesday evening instead of baking twelve dozen cookies.  Or maybe you have the time and the desire to have the Clark Griswold-iest house on the block instead of making small talk at the company Christmas party.  Maybe you just want a quiet Saturday to sit around watching your favorite holiday movies and not getting out of your pajamas.  Maybe it’s less shopping and spending you want?  Or a built in nap every day for your children {or you!} to avoid the inevitable meltdowns?  Just me?

Set your priorities and your limits now, before you’re frazzled and chugging eggnog.  How much driving do you want to do?  What exactly do you want out of the holiday season?  How many parties do you want to go to?  Which friends do you want to see?  How much sleep do you want to get each night?  How much quiet time do you need?  How much extended family time is too much?  How much are you going to spend on gifts?  How many days of vacation are you going to take from work? 

Decide, and if it doesn’t fit into your wants or needs or priorities or time constraints, say no.  I know this is difficult for you to believe right now, but the holidays will survive regardless. 

You might even have a little breathing room to enjoy them.

Santa Visit.

We were right in the midst of decorating the tree when Santa, who was out riding around on his sleigh on a test run, spotted us through the window and made a surprise visit to the house.  You can be sure that we were all stunned that he took time to stop over and see us since he is so busy right now.  He had to use the sleigh with wheels though because we didn’t have a lick of snow yet. 

It was the real Santa too, Finn tested his knowledge with a lot of questions... just to be sure. 

In case you were wondering, all of the reindeer are GIRLS, except for old Rudolph, of course.  Blitzen is the fastest and Vixen is his favorite.  Santa remembered that time when Uncle Christopher stayed up all night waiting for him!  And told us about what little Dave was like as a kid, even though that was a LONG time ago.  Santa even heard from the elves that Finn and Tate had JUST finished their Christmas list and he took it back to the North Pole personally!

He made time to talk to every child in the house, including Monty Poodle who got in a little trouble for eating the reindeer’s carrots two years ago.  He told Finn that that he needed to be nice to his sister and to keep up the excellent school work.  He also drove home the message we’ve been trying to instill about the season, time with family and friends, giving and service to others.  And Tate just wanted to eat her ‘candy corn’ aka candy cane that Santa brought to our house and touch the shiny buttons on his coat.  He took photos and we sang a song and he told the kids a very special story.

It was awesome, Finn told us so first thing the next morning.

 

 

*Disclaimer: Santa Ken is a very close friend of the family who had Santa school and being Santa on his bucket list and decided this was the year he’d do that.  We paid for his visit and it was worth every penny.  All opinions are my own and he didn’t know, nor ask me to post on his behalf.  If you would like to book him for your own visit and you’re in the metro Toledo, Ohio area, you can email him santa.ken1105@gmail.com, he is booking through December 22 and filling quickly.  A half an hour visit with up to four children {so there is time with each child} is $75.  He can also make arrangements to deliver gifts if you arrange that in advance.