The Christmas Stockings

A Christmas concert performed by a local symphony orchestra followed by holiday shopping in a rundown small town mall was the date that changed everything. With our purchase of cheese balls from Hickory Farms and two knit Christmas stockings from Dillard's, I knew that all my future Christmases would be spent with my date and many more Christmas stockings would be added over the years. Four stockings have been added to our hearth, and this year, we hung our original knit stockings for the fifteenth time.

Procrastination Wilts My Mistletoe Yet Again

December 25, Christmas Day – same day just a different year. The recurrence of the holiday should not be a surprise to me, but yet I am flabbergasted by the arrival of the Holiday Season each and every year. And, each and every December 25 concludes with excessive egg nog drinking and my resolution that next year will be better. That I will start earlier. That I will have Christmas pictures taken the day after Thanksgiving. That I will put my Christmas tree up before Christmas Eve. That I will actually give the neighbors real homemade cookies and not the irregular goof ups that I buy at the bakery to pass off as my own.

Did I do it? Was Christmas 2010 better than past years? Well, the answer to the question all depends on who is making the judgment and how low the bar is set. For the first time ever, Christmas cards and presents will arrive at their destinations no later than MLK Day opposed to their usual President’s Day arrival. The tree has been up since December 19, and cookies will be baked a few hours before Santa's arrival, maybe.

It is all about small steps. Maybe someday I'll be that Christmas caroler with the Jingle Bell earrings, the reindeer antler headband and the candy cane perfume.  But until then, I am simply satisfied that my Poinsettias are only partially dead and my tree-topping star is sort of straight.

The Four Fights of Christmas

Money, the kids, the in-laws and sex – these are things that married couples fight about the most. The frequency and duration of the quarrels intensify during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Money: There is never enough.

Kids: They are spoiled and unappreciative. So, why get them more stuff that they will play with one time and throw in their closets?

In-Laws: Your parents’ house, my parents’ house, or our house for the holidays. Let the turf wars begin.

Sex: Who is in the mood to get freaky with all the arguments about money, the kids and the in-laws?

Then, after weeks of bickering, the holidays are over. The kids throw their toys in the closet; money appears in your bank account; you declare “never again” upon leaving your in-laws house and make-up sex occurs New Year’s Eve.

Calm remains... until the fourth Thursday in November.

What I Really Think of Your Christmas Letter

Is it happiness, stupidity or complete oblivion that drives a person to write the obligatory Christmas letter filled with a year’s worth of good fortunate, bliss and too damn many tidings of joy. Does the author really think this is her reality? Is she over compensating? Does her water bottle re-filled with Jack Daniels throughout the day make her life that good? When she tells her readers about her husband’s promotion, her son’s AP classes or her baby’s feat of walking 14 steps at the age of 10 months, does she not realize that her husband is doing her jogging partner, the kid is cooking up Meth in the garage and the baby has many years until she grows into her ears? How much time did she spend to garner so many eye-rolls and behind the back cackles?

Although I feel sorry for this woman with each nauseating Christmas letter carefully printed on her garland and holly laced stationary sealed delicately with a matching address label, my greatest sympathy goes to the couple who send me their dog updates every December. Dogs are not kids no matter how many toys, sweaters and special snacks they have. And furthermore, an obedience school is not an elite preschool; if you have time to put your dog on a waitlist, you simply have too much time.

A better use of both the woman’s time and the couple’s time would be to create a blog or post more frequently to Facebook, so I can mock them year round. Or, really they could just send me a picture Christmas card. Being able to judge a family in 20 seconds or less makes it much easier on them and me.

Be green and skip the Christmas letter this year.

On Decorating the Christmas Tree

“We are going to decorate the tree,” said the mother who lugged the tree across the room on the Nineteenth of December.

“We can be like one of those happy families on T.V. who laugh and smile too much,” said her eleven-year-old son.

“Yep, we can even drink hot chocolate and sing Christmas carols," she said.

“Now that is crossing a line. I don’t do carols,” said the pre-teen.

Should You Tip Your Garbageman at Christmas?

Author's Note: I originally wrote this post to be facetious and to have a little fun with my humble upbringing. Since this post has received so many hits from people looking for a legitimate answer on how much to tip their garabgeman, I called my family to see what the protocol is for holiday tips. Prior to the economy going sideways, most families would tip my grandfather and father between $10.00 and $25.00 each year. Now tips tend to range between $5.00 and $20.00 and are frequently in the form of gift cards. They also receive many plates of cookies and baskets of fruit. All warm holiday gestures are greatly appreciated by my family who have owned their garbage business in the same town for more than 50 years. (However, feel free to take the below advice as well.)

People have been discovering my blog when doing searches for “Garbageman, Christmas, tip” and hoping for a definite answer on if they should tip their garbageman. And, how much is an appropriate tip at Christmas time for the man who picks up their filth all year long? I say write him a check for 20 percent of your annual garbage bill. So, if you pay $200 a year in garbage service then tip your trash hauler $40.

What am I basing my recommendation on? Not a damn thing. How the hell am I supposed to know how much a garbageman gets tipped? Yes, I was a granddaughter of a garbageman and I am the daughter and sister to garbagemen, but it’s not like I was or am privy to their financial dealings. I remember a few checks at Christmas because who we were to tell our customers that we weren’t as poor as they thought we were. In actuality, their act of charity or Holiday cheer (depending on if they were Democrats or Republicans) wasn’t needed but always was appreciated. Every year, my dad cashed the checks and bought a few extra gifts. Why shouldn’t the families of all garbagemen have a few extra gifts?

So with my power and authority as a Garbageman’s Daughter, I deem that all garbageman in the United States and Canada should get a twenty-percent tip. But if your garbagemen happen to be a short bald man in his early 60s with bow-legs and a mustache as well as a short, bald guy in his early 30s with a huge beer belly, I say tip them 30-percent.

If the Presents Aren’t Wrapped, What the Hell Were the Elves Doing?

Wrapped presents under the tree with little name tags that read “From: Santa.” This was the image I experienced every Christmas morning during my childhood. Santa Claus brought all the gifts and all the gifts were wrapped, except the huge ones like a bike or a life-size kitchenette (which would later be my premise for rebelling against domesticity and adopting Feminism). Mom and Dad stoically allowed The Man In Red to take all the credit. If this format was good enough for me, it was going to be good enough for my kids.

So, I thought until Christmas Eve 2003.

While spending the Holidays at my in-laws house, my husband and I performed our usual Christmas ritual of wrapping presents and putting them under the tree. But, before I could wrap the Lego table that my husband proudly purchased for our three-year-old son who already displayed tremendous talent in the areas of engineering and construction, my mother-in-law had the table and chairs out of the box, assembled and in front of the tree along with a large art easel that she bought for him so his drafting, sketching and painting skills could continue to flourish.

“Why are they out of the box?” I interrogated.

“They are Santa Presents. Santa is too busy to wrap gifts.”

Having neither a witty response nor the courage to stand up to her, I went along with the ridiculous, anti-climatic, non-surprising, generally un-fun plan. But to this day I wonder why Santa is too busy to wrap the gifts? He has 364 days to prepare for his big night. And, what’s the point of having Elves? Don’t they spend all their days making toys, wrapping them and loading the sled? Sure, the man is busy, but if he has to go down the chimney anyway, a little wrapping paper shouldn’t slow him down too much.

Unwrapped gifts from Santa are as ridiculous as Elf on the Shelf. Save the $29.99 by skipping the Elf and just buy some wrapping paper.

Elf on the Shelf: Lazy Parenting and Just Plain Freaky

Is Elf of the Shelf a harmless holiday gimmick packaged as a new “Christmas Tradition” or a creepy Orwellian device that will push your children to the heights of paranoia found in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? If you are unaware of this holiday phenomenon, it goes something like this: Parents who want to inspire, trick or terrorize their children into behaving nicely purchase a doll called Elf on the Shelf (whether it is inspiring, tricking or terrorizing completely depends on the parents’ Christmas spirit and twisted desire for seasonal spying and manipulation)

For kids to truly be scared into behaving properly, parents are suppose to tell their kids that the Elf watches them all day long and reports directly to Santa. While at the North Pole, he shares the kids' Christmas wish lists but more importantly tattles on them if they are not behaving merrily. Supposedly, the Elf returns to a different location in the house each morning, and the kids are not allowed to touch him. The rituals surrounding Elf on the Shelf exist to promote its mystic and to preserve the Elf’s magical powers. But, when mom forgets to move him from the mantle to the baker’s rack or until the dog chews him just like any other doll, the Elf on the Shelf is just another prop in the ruse called good parenting.

Yes, Elf on the Shelf is all subterfuge and slack-parenting. Whatever happened to “behave or you get your ass smacked and your Christmas presents returned to Kmart.” And when it comes to spying, nothing beats just riffling through your kids’ crap both tangible and electronic.

And, really why spend $29.95 to trick your children when you can just do what I do? You could tell your children that you are calling the number given to all new parents at the hospital, the North Poll’s Emergency 800 Hotline for the Reportage of Juvenile Naughtiness -- all the deception of Elf on the Shelf for a fraction of the cost. It is always better to have paranoid children for free.

I Was That Kid

"Hello," said the unsuspecting mother of three when she answered the telephone.

"Mrs. Garbageman, I am your daughter's first grade teacher, Mrs. Reese. I am concerned about your daughter. She has told everyone in our class that there is no such thing as Santa Claus."

"Is that so?" she said as she grabbed her six-year-old daughter by the arm.

"Yes, she ruined Christmas for a lot of kids. I think you should take her to a psychologist. Research shows that young children who do not believe in Santa Claus share the same sociopathic tendencies as children who abuse animals."

"Thank you for your call. I promise you nothing like this will happen again. "

Yep, that's the story. If you were Mrs. Reese's first grade class in Central Pennsylvania and had a miserable Christmas in 1979, I am truly sorry.