Good will to men, and peace on earth

Got an email from my friend Mara yesterday that I want to share.  Because I laugh every time I read it.

O.K., which is worse: having to tell your child that Santa isn't real after all, and you have been lying to him for years, or have him thinking that instead of making lovely toys in his North Pole workshop, Santa buys them from China!?  It was fine when Liam couldn't read, but tonight he noticed that on the back of the remote control to his "Christmas Train" he got last year, are the words MADE IN CHINA.  And he said "wait a minute, I don't get it...did Santa BUY my train?  Why does it say made in china?". My response?  Go ask Daddy.

Happy Holidays!!

Love Mara 

We never really had this problem with Abby.  She started asking at four if Santa was real, and we were like, well, what do you think?  Which put her off for quite a while.  So imagine my surprise when, at nine, I had to sit her down and say, look, you know, right?  And she was all like, yeah, I just didn't want to hurt your feelings.

A little easier than crushing your child's North Pole fantasies.

Johanna still believes, and has taken to asking (again) how Santa possibly manages to fit in our small wood stove chimney pipe.  So I tell her the truth: It's magic!

Although I really like Mara's approach of passing the buck.

In more holiday news (?), yesterday I put up the Christmas tree at work.  Why, you ask?  Good question.  Stacey and I went down to the very scary basement to get the thing--in its box, mind you--last week, and it's just been sitting to one side of the lobby ever since.  Yesterday Chris, the office manager, was all, hey, if you're looking for something to do...  And I was all, okay, but if I see any sign of mouse poop or spiders, I am outta here.

Unfortunately, there was no sign of either.  So I had to put the thing up.

Then Chris and I went back down to the basement to see about ornaments.  You know what we learned?  There are boxes upon boxes of Christmas stuff in the basement.  Chris starts reading labels and is all, what's our theme?  And I was like, uh, Christmas?  She thought I was joking.

I was not joking.

So we pack up some lights and exactly one box, because we both agreed we didn't need to get crazy.  Less is more!  That little mantra will get you out of all sorts of stuff, I kid you not.

I start unwinding the lights and feel obligated to announce that I'm not allowed to actually touch the lights at home.  (Eric has a system.  We'll leave it at that.)  So Stacey is all, well, this should be interesting.  And I was like, let's hope it's not TOO interesting.

Here's what the tree looked like with just the lights.  Oh, and FYI, each of those branches?  HAD TO BE INSERTED INDIVIDUALLY.  They were color coded and everything.  It was sort of depressing, if you want to know the truth.

That sign behind the tree?  Our "$500 and
Under" Free Classified Ad!

Now, I was all ready to call it a day (I had a headache, you see), but I figured, well, what the hell.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  Plus people kept coming out to see the progress and were tossing around all manner of complements.  Again, it was sort of depressing.

Here's what it looked like with the one box of ornaments, hung on the tree with paper clips.  I told Stacey and Chris that anyone at all was welcome to rearrange or add or whatever, but they were just so darn happy they didn't have to do it that I don't think they cared how whack this whole ordeal really was.

Our theme?  "Whatever is in this box."

I started putting up what appeared to be strings of Marti Gras beads, but decided it looked too tacky.  And that's saying something.  Clearly.

Anyway, I didn't go into work today, so I don't know if anyone rearranged my handiwork or not.  Oh, what?  Yeah, I didn't go into work... let's just say I had a wicked awful IBS attack this morning, and I was down for the count.  I took a nap this afternoon, and tried to force myself to drink a lot of water, and I'm feeling better now.  Thanks for the concern.  I try not to write too much about my IBS / artificial colors, flavors and preservative allergy / hyper-acidic stomach on purpose, because honestly, no one wants to go there.  Especially me.  So I won't start now.  We'll just say that it was bad, bad, bad, and I'm lucky that Eric is so awesome.

Ray Conniff, "O Tannenbaum."  Because!  When I was growing up, my mother had a couple of Ray Conniff Christmas records, and THAT is what we listened to in December.  And probably all winter long.  We'd get blankets from the closet--we had this white one that was fuzzy and was cast in the role of "snow," and we'd pretend to ice skate around the living room while listening to these songs.  When I got my iPod, my first Christmas downloads were of Ray Conniff.  I can't help it.  Ray Conniff just makes me happy.  And so does this song.  PLUS!  It's about a Christmas tree!  And I just wrote about... oh, never mind.