With less than a week left,
it is my Christmas Go-Time.
Time to get it all in while I can like some kind of Christmas Tradition Cookie Monster,
just shoveling it all right in.
Time to find the things, and bake the things, and wrap the things, and sing.
Time for family photos.
“Look at the camera.
No. The camera.
See this? *taps lens*
This is the camera. Look here.
No. HERE!”
*picture now blurry from tapping lens*
Time to don my standard
week-before-Christmas expression of
meth-looking-eyeballs and a half-cocked smile because I JUST HAD THE TAPE FIVE SECONDS AGO AND LAST TIME I CHECKED TAPE DOESN’T HAVE LEGS!
Justin used to help with the wrapping back when we were newer, and cuter.
He wouldn’t rest until it was all done.
He would make hot cocoa.
It was one of our things.
This year, on Crazy-Eye-Wrapping-Night,
he got two very small, perfectly shaped gifts in and fell asleep sitting up with his mouth wide open.
Noted: It is possible to glare and wrap simultaneously.
He could have at least wrapped something lumpy.
I started to be bitter about it until I saw that the two gifts he had wrapped were decorated with bows that didn’t even match the paper, friends,
and so he was swiftly let go from his job.
Clearly,
he is not taking Christmas seriously enough.
Doesn’t he know that you’re supposed to Christmas so hard it becomes part of your actual DNA?
A tiny little candy cane striped bar, added right there to the chain.
Two gifts…Ha!
Novice.
The crazy-eyes grew that wrapping night, though, until even the tags I was writing started to sound like shouting, because,
like I said,
GO. TIME.
“To: TesSA
I LOVE YOU, BUT
PLEASe DON’T SAY THIs IS SCRATCHY WhiLE PULLING AT THE NECK.
I PAYED GOOD MONEY FOR THIS AND SOMETIMES WE SACRIFICE COMFORT FOR FASHION IT’S JUST WHAT WE DO.
Love, Mama.”
And really, was there a BETTER time for the dog to go into heat than while laying on Paige’s new comforter?
Sure, I stepped on an earring stud that went all the way into my heel while cleaning it up, but it was fine. It was FINE.
See! Christmas cheer!
*barks out a terrifying * “Fa-la-la-la-LAAAAA.”
I recognized my increasing levels of stress.
I did,
so I decided to take a step back for just one night.
It would be good to re-focus on the true meaning of Christmas.
We made plans to go to a musical performance at a local church.
Surely that would be fun for the girls, right?
However,
I neglected to consider in this plan the reality of what taking a bold, and openly opinionated 6 year old to a church musical would be like.
How much her regular speaking voice is much like a megaphone.
How hard it would be to stifle laughter as she loudly commented things like,
“Somebody up dere is singing WAY diffrent notes den da udder guys!
I fink dey are singing somefing dat’s not eben NOTES, actually!”
I heard the woman behind us choke into her scarf.
I pressed my index finger firmly to my lips and did my best Mom Eyes at her.
The kind that widen for just a split-second as a threat.
The mobsters of mom expression.
She kept it down for the most part after that.
She drew in her notepad as the songs and skits continued,
and when I leaned over to ask what she was drawing, she answered again with a boom,
“It’s Kim Kardashian. See her fancy shoes?
See how I made her speech bubble say
‘Fank God DAT song is done?”
*More choking sounds from behind*
All this is to be expected with Paige,
of course, and I simply shrugged it off
until mid-way through the performance when we discovered that we were seated directly behind famous author Francine Rivers,
THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK THE PLAY HAD BEEN ADAPTED FROM,
and special highlighted guest of the show.
Because, of course.
As always,
Hi.
We’re the Greens.
Sorry, Francine.
Your musical was sheer delight.
Now tomorrow night the girls will have their school Christmas program.
Tessa, with the lead speaking role;
I’m sure, one of her life-long Christmas wishes.
I am positive this production will be everything that makes an elementary school Christmas program great:
Off key singing, kids scratching themselves inappropriately while dressed in suits and sparkly dresses,
Paige disappearing under the pews and resurfacing five rows down through the calves of an unsuspecting seventy year old.
Someone in front of us with terrible gas, and
at least one kindergartener that appears to have been drinking;
But also so much love, and pride, and clapping, and laughter that all my videos will give you motion sickness.
I wonder what things are about to come that I will NOT be expecting.
Around here we’ve learned to expect the unexpected.
It’s practically our family crest.
After all,
what fun would Christmas be without a surprise?
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
