Santa who??

I wish I was a kid again. Sometimes. Not in the "I really miss those awkward and painful middle school years, lets do that again!" kinda way, but in the "Its Christmas and everything is so magical and exciting and jolly!" kinda way. Kids have it so easy this time of year. The only stress for them is deciding which item would be the best one to ask Santa for - the Barbie dream house, beach house, or town house. Or what would be better/more fun to play with - the Harry Potter castle lego set, Lord of the Rings helms deep lego set, or the lego Millennium Falcon. Or which toy would cause the most bodily harm to my brother...an electric airsoft rifle, shotgun, or sniper rifle. Contrary to what they would have you believe, these are NOT difficult decisions. Not. 

I'm really not complaining. My stress this year around the holidays has been waaaaay better than it has been the last 2 years.  I also realize that nothing I have ever had to deal with at the holidays (or any time of year for that matter) can remotely compare to the stress of other people's circumstances (having a loved one away fighting overseas, dealing with a serious illness/disease/death, etc). So fear not, even with all my rantings, I do have some degree of perspective. Some. 

I am a planner. I have calendars coming out my ass. One on the computer that syncs up with phone/iPad for keeping track of things that come up away from home, a monthly dry erase (yes, people of COURSE its color coded!!) for current events/activities, and a paper calendar for writing down items that are more than a month out. I want to be able to know what's coming. This obviously fits right in with my personality - have a back up plan for EVERY contingency no matter how "for sure/positive/definite/absolute/guaranteed/bet-my-life-on-it" someone else may be (because if I had a dollar for every time something that was "for sure/positive/definite/absolute/guaranteed/bet-my-life-on-it" fell apart and left me in the lurch, I'd be calling Fort Knox my freakin' living room). This characteristic has actually been a very helpful thing in the past on many occasions but it has also caused me gallon sized buckets of stress, since as we all know in life, shit happens. And happens. And happens again. And as soon as you get it cleaned up, yup, there it is again. I am cautiously optimistic that the shit-happening this year won't be like the shit-storm of stink-laden fireworks that was last year's Christmas. I mean, how can it be worse than crushing the Christmas magic for one of your kids and sucking the Santa right out of the entire thing? Mom of the year, I know. I'm pretty sure I'm already out of the running until at least 2017.

Last year was a giant orgy of shit-tastic-ness in trying to get things organized. Everyone needs ideas. I keep a detailed list of all the ideas I've given and to whom so we don't end up with 3 different people giving the same kid 3 different hess trucks. Last year, in the spirit of making things easier on those who didn't want to have to actually shop or do any looking, I even included catalog names, websites, phone numbers to said catalogs, and item numbers. This gave me an entirely false sense of confidence that things would run smoothly. I mean, whats easier than going to the website provided, entering the item number you've been given, and having it shipped here to us so you don't even have to worry about wrapping it or paying postage to mail it?? Well apparently this was just not meant to be. One entity got wind of an alternative gift idea about a week before Christmas (an idea that had already been given to another entity, purchased, wrapped and labeled from the 2nd entity). Entity One decided that is what was going to be purchased by them. So began the "Christmas gift shuffle". Somehow we had a snowball effect happen and next thing I know, things are getting unwrapped, rewrapped, relabeled, retagged, returned, repurchased, rewired... ARGGG!!! I finally get things settled right before Christmas and settle in for a nice enjoyable family holiday, right? Yeah. Something like that.

Christmas morning, ape-shittery is occurring as the kids are diving into stockings and grabbing their gifts from Santa. Each of them has their little stash pile that they are working their way through and my husband and I are sitting back trying to wake up and take non-blurry pictures of the beautiful moments of joy. What we got was one really pathetic and depressing moment of complete and utter confusion, as my son opens a gift from Santa only to find a smaller wrapped box with a label stating "From: another family member". The look of befuddlement and confusion on his face could not have competed in a million-trillion-gazillion years with the complete look of horror and guilt that was on my face as I realized what had happened in the Great Christmas Gift Shuffle. I had done it. The worst thing a parent could do and the one thing we hope to God some little shit-for-brains on the school bus doesn't do to our kid. I killed Christmas. Done. Stabbed it in the eye with a spork, poured hot sauce down its throat, and taped a plastic bag over its head. It was over.

My husband, God love him, stepped in without missing a beat and made up some story about how sometimes, at really special houses, Santa likes to play tricks on kids to see if they are really paying attention by taking a gift and writing that its from someone else. Cuz some kids don't actually even pay attention to the names on the boxes and just rip into them and aren't thankful or grateful for the gift. This way, he said, Santa can keep track of who is taking their time to read the packages and know who gave them the wonderful gifts that they should be thankful for. Oh. My. God. I love this man and his whackadoodle brain - the same brain that concocted the story of the New Year Babba (who is Santa's brother and lives on an island in the caribbean - which explains all those images you see in magazines or catalogs of Santa in a Hawaiian shirt). According to my husband this guy takes over watching boys and girls after Christmas and if you were only good til Christmas to get the presents, the NYB comes at night and takes them back. No shit! He actually visited my son one year. Freakin' awesome! Anyway I digress...

This glorious man came up with what can only be called a band-aid for the moment, but it distracted the kids enough for them to return to their present-opening without any further questions, and allowed me to slip away unnoticed upstairs to bawl myself into oblivion. I had to be the worst Mom EVAH! Instead of vigilantly protecting the magic of Santa for my kid, I was the one slapping him across the face with the horrible, stark, empty reality of No Santa! You can see why that would not only take me out of the running for last year's Mom of the Year, but pretty much shit down the neck of my chances at the award for the indefinite future. I've already changed his college fund into his therapy fund. Its all good.

I have 2 left who believe so the stress this year is to "not fuck it up as royally as I did last year". I'm gonna play the odds that that sort of shit doesn't happen to the same person twice, and go with the idea that last year was my "one" and this year is gonna be better. I've taken all the precautions possible - detailed list, organizing who got what ideas, keeping track of what was purchased and what is from whom, etc. Of course I did all these things last year and look how THAT turned out. I'll just have to wait and see how it goes this year. With my wine. The waiting will be better with wine. And after enough of it, maybe it won't bother me if I blow a hole in yet another Christmas. Everything's better with wine. Even ruined Christmases.