Holly Jolly Christmas Count Down

Well, the turkey carcass is in the can and waiting at the curb. MIL showed up at my house, on my first T-Day at home, with her catalogs to gather ideas for her Black Friday Reconnaissance. As my children reveled in commercialism, and Christmas hunting and gathering, rather than the family card game I had planned, I watched a recorded episode of "House" (The one where he threw out the Christmas decorations and threw a Secret Santa, for his staff, that only included his own name.)

House's grinchy cynicism was working it for me. It reminded me of a little bit of Christmas "poetry" I attempted a few years back. Soooo, I went to my Myspace and pulled it off to share with my dear friends (that's anyone willing to suffer through reading the drivel I pour out after consuming large quantities of coffee, wine, and/or vodka.)

Christmas Days

The day's nearly here, the time's nearly come, like last year and last year back past 2001

But something is changing,

The scraggaly crushed mushed up lists are all gone,

covered with dog hair and cheezits and gum.

Instead, in their place, with neat cursive writing,

New letters to Mom & Dad (who was that guy Santa?)

The times are a' changing the children aren't begging

It's now organized, well timed, thought out,

plain old pleading.

And under the tree, (and in Daddy's wallet)

oh the changes we'll see...

From Barbies and airplanes to Wii's and I Pods

From pink fluffy slippers to Aero ensamble

From $2 make-up to spa days and haircuts

It's all enough to make Dad just sick in his gut.

The gifts are all smaller

The wrapping is less

But not all is changing....

We don't love them less

and I in my Martini and Dad in his cups

Will pay January's bills with the usual stress.

and look forward to next Christmas

with the usual fuss.

Yessssss, I'm something of a Grinch. I guess the thing is, Christmas in "my day" was different. Life really was a little simpler. We stayed kids a little longer than our own will I think... We ideolized Laura Ingles Wilder, not ICarly (no mom and dad at home) or Hanna Montana (lying to the world). Our video games didn't save. You had to commit to beating Mario Brothers, I mean COMMIT. I remember my mom shutting it off after my Sis and I beat the game through and were part way through the second, harder version that came after. I still don't know why she did that (after we had played for 18 hrs straight) I mean we were SHARING after all.

In our time, boys had to put some effort into locating, reading and replacing dad's Playboys before being caught like miniature 007's, and girls had to secure and skim mom's romance novels always prepared with a good excuse if caught "I really liked her haircut on the cover, it's so pretty I thought Fantastic Sam's could copy it on me." Now kids just Google "big boobs" or "Cosmo sex stories" or "celebrity crotch shot images" and bam, there they are. And hell, my 10 year old knows how to clear the history on the computer.

We would air pop pop corn and RUN to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer and other select holiday favorites which we had carefully noted on the calendar in order to be certain we would not miss them. My kids DVR what they want to see and they didn't know what an air-popper was until recently (I'll save that for another blog).

Methinks things are now too easy sometimes.

This Christmas, as I cringe at the impersonal gifts we spend hundreds of dollars on for our kids, and wish I could still pick out dollies and race cars, I will imagine them as parents. With any luck, technology will one day stump my little angels as they try to raise their own little angels. It's only fair. Oh, and I won't imagine them as the intensely cool parent I myself have turned out to be, but more along the lines of the goofy parent my own mom was... is.

And maybe I'll download some Little House Christmas Episodes to share with them.

The Christmas Countdown is on. Isn't that link so cool? Just click that and whammo, you are whisked away to a site that counts you down. Fantastic, I know.

Best wishes,

RebeccaFlys