I am just warming up to Christmas-Holiday-ish stuff.
It's not that I'm exactly a Scrooge, per se, but I haven't caught up with all the festivities because I like to bathe in my sense of smug, condescending pah-tooey at all the consumerism and what-not. Oh, that's pretty much the complete description of Scroogery, isn't it?
I had some identity crisis in my youth. Conflict of beliefs: Christian vs. Non-Christian, and then I was seriously traumatized to wait up all night for Santa and not discover that he was not real, but that he had skipped us. With all the carols claiming he wouldn't bring presents if you were bad, and then waiting up all night for him to appear and him being a no-show, I naturally assumed I had been very, very bad. So on Christmas Eve 1979, my Christmas Spirt meter took a nose dive, and never quite recovered, especially since Hannukah Harry left no gifts, either.
The next morning, there were pajamas. Socks. Underwear. Oranges and walnuts in stockings. No Princess Leia double bun-wig. No Strawberry Shortcake lipgloss. It was all very anticlimactic and the bitter seed was planted. I joined the forces of the Grinch [except I hated him for yanking poor Max around].
Now that I have a Wee One, I decided to break all the rules. I let her plunge into Christmas as far as she wants while I buck The System. Determined that she should not suffer the cruelty of dependence on self esteem from Santa, I told her early on that there wasn't any Santa. That people pretend-believed for fun.
Her response was that I was completely out of the loop, she had someone on the inside, who had phoned Santa directly. We've argued about this numerous times, I've pleaded with her, even told her that I am Santa. All to no avail.
So my other semi-stick-it-to-da-man Christmas thing is that I buy presents from Thanksgiving through December 17th and put on my Santa hat and give them to her along the way. She's usually right there when I buy them, too. This makes it fun because I am the kind of person who can't WAIT to give presents, plus I hate wrapping! On her end, she gets the cool stuff that the other kids all have to wait for, which makes her kinda zoomin'. Zoomin' in grade school is very important, if you don't remember. I made that expression up just now, but I think it works. [Dec 17th because she always flies out of state for Christmas. That's custody stuff].
Anyhow, here's a review I wrote of one of the toys she just got. If you're thinking of buying the Barbie Secret Password Journal, consider this:
Good luck getting your child back into the diary once she closes it. Despite saying the correct password roughly eleventy jillion times in different voices, at different distances, at different pitches, the snooty British double oh seven voice repeats "Password does not match. Please enter your password." The second time you fail, annoying sirens blast and something to the effect of "New intruder!" narcs on you, even though you're just trying to help a seven year old open her journal full of super secret heart doodles.
Whatever technology they have employed here to protect such secrets as "Bubble gum is my favrit lollipop," rest assured that it is safe. Hackers beware, Barbie is no dumb blonde when it comes to security.
Protectors of liberty and leaders of the western world, Barbie is on to something here. Perhaps a meeting of the minds is in order. A lunch at the Pentagon? Our freedom may very well depend on the superior cyber-steel password technology known to Barbie.
In the meantime, we'll be sitting here, resisting the urge to throw the journal against the wall to break it open and shut up The Voice.
P.S. It wouldn't hurt to take a look at Ken, too.
It's not that I'm exactly a Scrooge, per se, but I haven't caught up with all the festivities because I like to bathe in my sense of smug, condescending pah-tooey at all the consumerism and what-not. Oh, that's pretty much the complete description of Scroogery, isn't it?
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| Sorry. Female Grinch was the closest pic I could find to the me-Scrooge reference. Work with me, huh?
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The next morning, there were pajamas. Socks. Underwear. Oranges and walnuts in stockings. No Princess Leia double bun-wig. No Strawberry Shortcake lipgloss. It was all very anticlimactic and the bitter seed was planted. I joined the forces of the Grinch [except I hated him for yanking poor Max around].
Now that I have a Wee One, I decided to break all the rules. I let her plunge into Christmas as far as she wants while I buck The System. Determined that she should not suffer the cruelty of dependence on self esteem from Santa, I told her early on that there wasn't any Santa. That people pretend-believed for fun.
Her response was that I was completely out of the loop, she had someone on the inside, who had phoned Santa directly. We've argued about this numerous times, I've pleaded with her, even told her that I am Santa. All to no avail.
So my other semi-stick-it-to-da-man Christmas thing is that I buy presents from Thanksgiving through December 17th and put on my Santa hat and give them to her along the way. She's usually right there when I buy them, too. This makes it fun because I am the kind of person who can't WAIT to give presents, plus I hate wrapping! On her end, she gets the cool stuff that the other kids all have to wait for, which makes her kinda zoomin'. Zoomin' in grade school is very important, if you don't remember. I made that expression up just now, but I think it works. [Dec 17th because she always flies out of state for Christmas. That's custody stuff].
Anyhow, here's a review I wrote of one of the toys she just got. If you're thinking of buying the Barbie Secret Password Journal, consider this:
Good luck getting your child back into the diary once she closes it. Despite saying the correct password roughly eleventy jillion times in different voices, at different distances, at different pitches, the snooty British double oh seven voice repeats "Password does not match. Please enter your password." The second time you fail, annoying sirens blast and something to the effect of "New intruder!" narcs on you, even though you're just trying to help a seven year old open her journal full of super secret heart doodles.
Whatever technology they have employed here to protect such secrets as "Bubble gum is my favrit lollipop," rest assured that it is safe. Hackers beware, Barbie is no dumb blonde when it comes to security.
Protectors of liberty and leaders of the western world, Barbie is on to something here. Perhaps a meeting of the minds is in order. A lunch at the Pentagon? Our freedom may very well depend on the superior cyber-steel password technology known to Barbie.
In the meantime, we'll be sitting here, resisting the urge to throw the journal against the wall to break it open and shut up The Voice.
P.S. It wouldn't hurt to take a look at Ken, too.
2 comments:
I love how your child is arguing with you about Santa Clause! Sometimes kids really just want to believe. Makes me think of all the articles I've read about always being truthful with your child, especially regarding the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause.
Yes! We just had this discussion again last night! We went to the Santa Sailboat parade thingy on the bayou where Santa arrived by some manner of redneck speedboat and then drunkenly threw candy canes from the boar to the kids on the dock. Most of the candy canes went on to the fish in the bayou. I said, "See? Real Santa wouldn't pollute the water with plastic wrappers! Plus there are no reindeer!" She said, "Of course not, Dummy! Reindeer FLY, they don't SWIM." Duh.
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