Christmas, Hanukkah & New Year’s Came & Went…and No One Died, Got the Swine Flu or Went to the ER

Believe it or not, aside from a short period of time during the Wednesday evening before Christmas (that’s my personal hell day), I made it through the entire month of December without a significant incident. You might think this is no biggie. Lots of people make it through December without incident, illness or catastrophe. But to me, emerging from December relatively unscathed felt like a major accomplishment.

The month of December and bad stuff has precedent in the Picket Fence Post house. Last year, as I’ve mentioned before, I missed Christmas because I came down with the swine flu on Christmas Eve and on, the day after Christmas, The Spouse severely injured his ankle while playing basketball, during a snowstorm I might add, and had to be driven to the ER by a neighbor because I felt like death not even warmed over. (The only plus from the whole thing was that I lost some weight . . . which I eventually gained back.)

The year before that, The Spouse broke his wrist on New Year's Eve Day while ice skating with the Youngest Boy and we rang in the New Year while my husband was high on morphine and The Eldest Boy had a raging fever. That was delightful, I'm telling you. A couple years before that, both my father and I came down with either food poisoning or the same stomach bug on Christmas Eve night and essentially spent Christmas Day feeling and looking like something you accidentally stepped on and then scraped off of the bottom of your shoe. Several years before that, my grandfather died on Christmas Day.

Luckily none of those things happened during December 2011, so once it officially became 2012, I felt as though I could finally breathe, and let go of the Yuletide Zen upon which I had a death grip throughout the month, determined to enjoy the season no matter what happened. I’ve even decided to extend the Christmas spirit by allowing the holiday decorations to remain up in the house until this coming weekend and have still been playing Christmas music . . . quite unlike me who’s normally an up-on-December-1-down-on-New-Year’s-Day kinda person.

So, how was Christmas et al, you ask?

X-Box Wars: Well, Santa brought the boys (*godhelpme*) an X-Box which became not only the focal point of their Christmas vacation, but the source of many a lively, uh, discussion, yeah, discussion’s a good word for it. (Sounds a lot better than "heated screaming matches.”) The Spouse and I told them that there was no way in hell that we were going to allow them to buy any video games which were rated M (for Mature), like Call of Duty, even though they swore up and down that EVERYONE they knew had that game. We, they claimed, were being unreasonable, overprotective control freaks.

After we celebrated Festivus with two other couples with whom The Spouse and I used to hang during our UMass days, along with all their kids (nine juveniles, up way too late, trying to comprehend what the adults found so amusing about the Seinfeld Festivus episode and why The Spouse brought an aluminum pole to the gathering), The Eldest Boy started to grill us and ask if we thought our college buds were good parents. It was a set-up because my pals had gotten their children a rated M version of Call of Duty which the kids played it on Festivus night. It was an annoyingly torturous lobbying campaign that the two young bucks waged, culminating with The Spouse proclaiming that they could only buy games that were rated T for Teen or E for Everybody. The knuckleheads felt as though they’d pulled a fast one over on The Spouse when they found a Call of Duty game that was rated T the following day. Of course they did. They excitedly ran up to me as I was scrolling through my e-mail in our local Game Stop, clutching the coveted video madness in their sweaty hands and declared victory. They’ve been obsessed with the simulated shooting and mayhem ever since.

Cell Phones: We, as Liz Lemon might say, went to there, that place we’ve been trying to avoid for so long.

The Spouse and I gave The Eldest Boy and The Girl cell phones for Christmas. And yes, they can text. The Spouse dropping The Girl off at a gym where he thought she had basketball practice on his way to run The Eldest Boy's practice, then learning, after he'd left her, that she didn't have practice and was in fact stranded, alone at the gym at night (and he couldn't abandon the practice he was running so I had to go get her) was what motivated us to finally make this move.

And since December 25, it’s as though we’ve unleashed a technological monster as far as The Girl is concerned. She's already composed and received hundreds of texts. (Thank God for unlimited texting packages.) The Eldest Boy, by contrast, seems genuinely pleased to have a phone but isn’t crazy about texting, at least for right now. When his sister kept texting him when they were both in the house, he would yell, “Just talk to me!”

Forget Brand a New Bag. Mama’s Got a Brand New iPad: I now own my very first Apple product. Everyone else in the Picket Fence Post family, except Max the dog, has some form of an iPod or an iPod Touch. And, until this year, I’d never really been jonesing for a tablet or Apple product. Now that I have my own iPad, The Eldest Boy is in his glory explaining to me, the Apple virgin, how it works and frequently informs me that I’m “doing it wrong.” That’s because I’m an ancient, know-nothing, power-mad, anti-X-box kinda mom I suppose.

Gone in 10 Minutes: Max the dog consumed one of his presents in, literally 10 minutes. While the dog toy that we gave him for Christmas was edible and meant to eventually be eaten, it was intended to last for more than the time it takes to listen to two songs on an iPod. Watch the video for the Spinz Bone and you tell me that it’s normal for my 26-pound dog to eat that product in 10 minutes.

Oh, and as of New Year’s Eve, Max had also killed the stuffed, faceless toy we called “Dough Boy” (after the Pillsbury Dough Boy). Max gutted Dough Boy, removing his squeaker and much of his stuffing. I kept thinking that this was an apt metaphor for . . . something, but, as Dick Clark counted down to 2012, I couldn’t put my finger on what metaphor for which I was grasping and fell asleep.

The Braces are Coming. The Braces are Coming. The Eldest Boy and The Girl got “spacers” put in between their back teeth a few days after Christmas, rendering their mouths sore to the point that they didn’t want to eat very much for a few days. I whipped up milkshakes, soups and other soft foods and doled out ibuprofen to no avail, especially for The Girl who was in a lot of pain. The spacers are a precursor to actual braces that The Eldest Boy will get in the next week or so and the palate expander The Girl will get (to which I’m not looking forward because The Spouse has declared that I’m going to be the one who’s going to have to turn the key to expand it every night, but more on that later).

Their younger brother’s response to this development? To grab the container of gum that he got in his Christmas stocking – the 13-year-olds can no longer have it – and pop a bunch of pieces of gum into his mouth. Right in front of them. “What?” he asked mischievously when I called him on it. Let me tell you, there’s no question that The Youngest Boy’s will need braces and, as my mom noted, payback’s gonna be a bitch.

Happy New Year Picket Fence Post peeps.

Decorating the Tree: 'This is Your Life' in a Couple of Red & Green Bins

Keeping in line with the Picket Fence Post family’s fa-la-la-la-la 2011 Christmas  -- wherein I try to maintain a happy, cheerful Yuletide facade -- we’ve finally decorated the family Christmas tree after it sat in its tree stand, stark naked in the family room for several days.

I always marvel, every single year, at the memories I inevitably unwrap when I remove the ornaments from their plastic bins. (This year I had to keep vigil over the ornaments because Max the dog kept slyly grabbing them and scampering away in a joyous game of chase . . . joyous on his part. It was an unfortunate time for Max to suddenly become mischievous and charge around the room.)

It was hard not to smile when we looked at all the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments, the here’s-my-handprint-when-I’m-7-years-old ornaments which always evokes melancholy about how fast time is passing. There are the ornaments from vacation destinations, like the Grinch and Max one we got at Universal Studios this summer, the pewter sand dollar from Cape Cod, the trolley car from San Francisco and the Chateau Frontenac ornament from our Quebec odyssey last year. There are the ones my grandmothers made me or gave me when I was a teen, in preparation for the day when I’d eventually have my own tree. I fondly look upon the Lenox one my mother gave The Spouse and I for our first Christmas in our first house. We annually re-tell the anecdote about the cloth snowman ornament onto which a 2-year-old Eldest Boy wiped his chocolate-covered face one Christmas at my parents' house.

It’s like This-Is-Your-Life contained in a couple of red and green bins. And the tree really reflects much of what we love, from the kids' ornaments of ballet dancers (when The Girl used to take dance) and the soccer and hockey ornaments, to the Harry Potter and Star Wars themed ones they've coveted. In addition to the Red Sox and Patriots ornaments on our tree, I added a new one this year to honor my caffeine addiction: A tiny Starbucks coffee cup ornament at which The Girl rolled her eyes when I showed it to her.

“Are we putting all of these on the tree?” The Spouse asked incredulously as if he’s forgotten that we somehow always manage to fit them onto the tree quite nicely, with the exception of the glass balls we bought when we shared our first tree together (back in 1991!) in order to take up all the empty space that’s now consumed by 20 years worth of ornament collecting.

Surprisingly, there was no bickering about the lights – which The Spouse and The Eldest Boy calmly placed on the tree – and no fighting over who got to put which ornament onto the tree.

Only one ornament was broken and it was my fault. I accidentally knocked the Rudolph and Hermie the elf ornament (where Rudolph’s nose lights up if you press a button) onto the floor, decapitating Hermie and knocking off his left hand, onto which the string to hang it was attached. I was able to pop Hermie’s head back into place pretty easily, but his hand is unfixable. Now that ornament is sitting on the mantle, a testament to my clumsiness.

After the decorating, we shut off all the lights, grabbed candy canes and sacked out on the sofa for several minutes to admire our handiwork. Not bad, not bad at all.

So How's the Christmas Zen Thing Going? Tenuously . . .

I’m trying, fighting against the odds, to maintain my grip on this Christmas Zen thing to which I vowed to adhere in order to keep myself from going crazy during the harried holiday season in my interfaith home. But life is not making it easy, nor are the folks on the radio, TV and elsewhere who delight in telling us how few “shopping days” there are left before Christmas arrives. It’s stressing the hell out of me and I really wish they’d just knock it off.

Not only that, but it feels as though a million little things keep coming at us, affording me precious little time to breathe never mind enjoy the season, stuff like shows for the school bands the boys are in (one which required me to run to stores the night before and buy The Eldest Boy a black dress shirt), a book swap at The Youngest Boy’s school (I forgot to sign and send in the paper to give him permission to participate), the Secret Santa in The Eldest Boy’s French class (he just asked me to take him out to buy something for his person), the specific gifts I’m supposed to get for the Giving Tree at church and submit (wrapped) on Sunday, making sure not to forget to attend one of my niece’s performances of The Nutcracker before it’s too late, and getting Max’s ridiculously long -- now partially knotted – Havanese/Wheaten Terrier hair cut (his regular groomer has been ill and we’ve been putting it off).

No, The Spouse and I haven’t started Christmas shopping for our family yet, though we’ve had rushed conversations in dribs and drabs over the phone or just before we’re about to pass out from exhaustion at night about what we think we should get the Picket Fence Post Posse. I think we’re going to have to open a bottle of wine, boot up our laptops and plop onto the sofa together after the kids go to bed on Saturday night and get this shopping done online (and be prepared to pay extra for expedited shipping). At least I won’t have to battle traffic or wait in lines.

And while our personalized Christmas and Hanukkah photo cards have been delivered to the house, I haven’t yet sat down to address the cards and have everyone sign them. (I thought it would add a touch of humanity to have each member of the Picket Fence Post family sign the cards. I have a feeling I’m going to live to regret that wholesome decision.)

No, we haven’t gotten our tree yet.

And while last week I was wistfully pondering all the different kinds of Christmas cookies I wanted to bake – trying to keep that happy Christmas spirit flourishing – there is NO TIME for that right now. I hope I’ll find a free afternoon closer to Christmas to make them. I'll remain optimistic.

However this is the context in which I’m now operating: The other day The Spouse had meetings (of course he did) and I had to: Drive the boys to a math class, drive The Girl to her hoop practice, rush to the store to buy a black shirt for The Eldest Boy's concert and a gift for the Giving Tree, pick up the boys, drop The Youngest Boy off at a friend’s house so another mom could drive him to hockey practice, pick up The Girl from practice and drive her to the library for her book club, drive The Eldest Boy to his hoop practice and pick The Youngest Boy up from hockey practice. (The other two kids got rides home with others.) Oh, and I had a deadline to meet that night. I’ve got another day like that ahead of me next week when The Spouse will be out at some work event.

Nevertheless, I’m forcing myself to be fa-la-la cheery and Christmas-y as all get out. I’ve got a strained smile on my face, but this sunny disposition shall disappear with shocking speed if 1) You remind me of how many shopping days are left and b) I hear the odious “Dominick the Christmas Donkey” song. God do I loathe that song.

Christmas Card Photos . . . DONE!

We had a not-too-stressful photo session with the Picket Fence Post trio and Max the dog yesterday. I dressed them all in red T-shirts that read "Thing" and then a number on it.

The dog got "Thing 1," because the kids were uber-sensitive as to which one of them would be perceived as the literal "number one" offspring and get to lord his or her supremacy over the other, lowly siblings. The Eldest Boy had "Thing 2," his brother got "Thing 3" and The Girl, obviously, got "Thing 4." (There was some minor drama before the session started because I couldn't find the "Thing 4" shirt. I had to search through everyone's dressers, closets and beneath beds, though everyone, including The Spouse, swore they did not have it. After about 45 minutes of harried hunting around I found it stuffed in the back of The Eldest Boy's pajama drawer.)

The kids were, ultimately, cooperative (as long as I didn't ask them to locate any missing item in the house) and the photos looked cute, not of the Awkward Family Photo variety.

But as for Max, he refused to look at the camera when he was seated with the kids. Every time I brought the camera up to my face, he turned his head to the side as though he was some camera-averse celebrity who couldn't deign to look my way because I was lowly paparazzi. Either that or he thinks he looks best in profile. The only time he did look at me when I had the camera in front of my face was after the group had broken up and the kids were all standing around me, as in the first photo above.

I've ordered the photo cards through an online service, so I'm waaaay ahead of last year when I didn't get my act together on the Christmas card front until late December and was sweating over whether the box of cards would be delivered to my house in time for me to address them all and mail 'em before Christmas.

As for my Christmas shopping . . . well, it hasn't even begun. But I've thought about the gifts at least.

*reminding myself that this is going to be a STRESS-FREE December, no matter what*

This Year I’ve Decided, No More Grinch (Seriously)

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I broke out the Christmas decorations. On my own. No one was bugging me to do it. It was my idea.

This is earlier than I’ve ever pulled out the festive Yuletide décor and placed it around my domicile. (Typically, per my anal retentive must-wait-until-December-1-to-deck-the-halls belief, I wait until the 12th month of the year.) I was singing Christmas carols. I was even smiling. I didn’t have to hassle any of the kids to try to help me out because I didn’t ask for their help. I didn’t want any. I did it myself and actually enjoyed the experience.

This year, I resolved, the Grinch is dead.

The Grinch, normally, is me . . . well, me ever since I had the audacity to try to combine three active children, a career, Christmas and Hanukkah together into one little month. My Grinchiness was compounded by the exponentially exploding school, youth sports and extracurricular activities schedules kept by the Picket Fence Post kids, the responsibility for trucking said kids around to practices falls mainly to work-from-home me. (I coordinate with The Spouse over the nightmare of an overloaded calendar on getting them to games, etc.) I also have the responsibility for sending out Christmas and Hanukkah greeting cards (including the requisite photo), doing the bulk of the holiday shopping, making Christmas cookies with the kids, making latkes on the first night of Hanukkah, buying advent candy for the ginormous Advent elf we have on a kitchen door (which sometimes scares me when I enter the kitchen in the middle of the night and forget he's there), buying the Hanukkah gelt (traditional chocolate coins) and wrapping the gifts.

In past years, Christmas time hasn’t gone all that smoothly. In the mid-1990s one of my grandfathers died on Christmas, his favorite holiday. A few years ago the Picket Fence Post family had to have our cat put to sleep the day after we put up our Christmas tree. (She was having full-body seizures as we decorated said tree with the children, and The Spouse and I tried to act all cheery.) Last year I came down with the swine flu on Christmas Eve, missed seeing The Girl play Mary in the Christmas Eve church service and spent eight hours alone in my house on Christmas Day feeling absolutely miserable while The Spouse and the Picket Fence Post kids went to my brother’s house. Bah freakin' humbug.

But it will be different this year.

I’m shaking off the stress, the melancholy, the feeling of tremendous burdens from Christmases past and starting anew. As I made this vow to myself on Saturday while decorating the mantel with a Santa Claus, an angel and various stuffed characters from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special, I learned that a beloved senior member of The Spouse’s family passed away. While the family mourns and remembers her – The Girl’s middle name is the same as the now-deceased relative’s daughter – we are making an effort to be light of heart and respect what she meant to us. (This was NOT some omen or sign indicating that the Christmas season is forever doomed in my house, I repeated vigorously to superstitious self.)

This year, despite the fact that we’re heartbroken upon losing a member of the family, I’ve told the Picket Fence Post kids that they’re going to see a different mom this holiday season, one that’s not all clenched and jaded, dark and twisty. As much as it goes against every fiber in my body to do so, I’m going to try to just go with the flow this year. If things don’t work out exactly as planned, that’s okay. If things get missed, well, I’m only human. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect, especially not all at the same time. Things don’t even have to be super-organized (that’s always my undoing, I try to be super-organized then get crushed by my "To Do" list and miss stuff anyway). I’m going to be of the moment this December. I’m going to listen to Christmas music and try to reclaim the spirit I once had. It’s worth a try isn’t it?

Who’s with me? Who’s up for de-stressing Christmas and throwing onerous "To Do" lists out the window, or better, yet, into a roaring fireplace while you sip a mug of hot cocoa?

“How do you spell ‘sword?’ Is it s-w-o-r-d?” The Youngest Boy asked me this afternoon while he was writing his Christmas wish list . . . We might need to swap that hot cocoa with something stronger if a “sword” is on the list.

We Had Ourselves a Flu-ey Little Christmas . . .

Lots of folks are emerging from the Christmas holiday break and are politely asking one another how their holidays went. For most people, I hope the answer is, “Fun! The kids had a great time and I got some time to relax and see friends and family.”

But in the Picket Fence Post household, my answer is, “The kids had a blast, loved Christmas, but I was sick in bed for eight days with what my doctor said was the flu, perhaps the swine flu, and my husband sustained a very serious ankle sprain during a basketball game – had to be carried into the house by a friend – and a neighbor had to drive him to the hospital in the middle of a blizzard.”

Yep, after all the planning, the anticipation, yours truly fell ill on Christmas Eve day, when I brought The Girl to church to rehearse the Nativity play (she was playing Mary). I got out of bed for the Christmas morning gift-opening extravaganza, but spent the next week mostly in bed, not eating for four days due to crushing nausea, fierce head aches, dizziness and life-sapping fatigue. The Spouse’s ankle sprain occurred the day after Christmas but he was able to hobble around on crutches and an air cast.

It, in essence, sucked.

On the bright side, the children loved their gifts from The Spouse and I and Santa. The Eldest Boy received the item for which he’s been pleading for years, an iPod Touch, The Girl got a white desk for her room and a DSi, while The Youngest Boy spent vacation re-enacting A Christmas Story's Ralphie Parker with the airsoft BB gun Santa brought him -- think regular BB gun but it shoots non-toxic, biodegradable plastic BBs at a lower speed than the metal BBs -- while wearing the faux leather jacket we gave him that he loves so much he wants to sleep in it.

Unfortunately, because their parents were detained by illness and injury, the original plans we had for an active, fun Christmas vacation (I’d hoped to take them to play Laser tag, maybe go into Boston on New Year’s Eve day), it was a mellow week-plus. The Spouse did limp to the theater to see two movies with the kids and, on another afternoon, sat in the car while they went sledding, while I mostly laid in bed uninterested in reading or doing much other than sleeping and wondering when I'd get my appetite back.

This morning was the first morning since I’ve been sick when I woke up not feeling like utter crap. Plus I've eaten. So I consider both of those things major accomplishments.

Fingers crossed that 2011 will be a healthier one . . . and that The Youngest Boy doesn't shoot his eye out a la Ralphie Parker.

Christmas Flicks/TV Specials: Moms in the Background

While writing a recent Pop Culture & Politics columns I gave a lot of thought to Christmas movies and TV specials, in particular, how moms are portrayed.

With the exception of Doris Walker, the strong divorced mom in Miracle on 34th Street, most of the moms who appear on the Christmas movies/specials the Picket Fence Post family owns on DVD, were mostly background figures, like Mary Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life (which the Picket Fence Post family just watched together), who was mostly just an accessory for George Bailey. Ditto for the moms in Elf, The Year Without a Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I wrote at length about all this on my pop culture blog and declared that only one other mom, Mrs. Parker from A Christmas Story, really asserted herself, albeit in a passive aggressive manner. (Think the leg lamp’s “accidental” demise.)

Do you have a favorite mom character from a Christmas movie or TV special?