Our Crazy Christmastime
Hola, Wild Boy friends and family. We have plunged headfirst into this madness known as the Christmas season, and we have been fully engulfed with holiday madness. Don't get me wrong, we all love it. In the same way people love exercise, because afterwards you get that wonderful feeling of stinky exhaustion and you sleep well. And in the midst of it you get to humble brag to everyone else about how well you're doing with it. So, since I'll never be the woman who gets to casually mention every damn morning how intense her crossfit workout was before work while she sips some protein concoction instead of eating a damn meal, I will for SURE be the one who casually passes out Christmas cards at the BEGINNING of the month and plays it off as if it was no major effort.
Real story: A full day was spent trying to juggle house chores and remember who to send cards to - I have A LOT left because the truth is after about 80 I thought to myself "nobody really cares..." and moved on to mopping. It's as close as we get to meeting seasonal expectations here, and it got me thinking about our ACTUAL holiday traditions here in La Casa and with our families.
The Cop came from what is pretty close to the perfect suburban family. There was a McMansion and an in ground pool. Christmas Eve saw freshly baked cookies set out for Santa, and Christmas morning found fully constructed train sets weaving through stacks of brightly wrapped Christmas presents to greet four cherubic child faces. This is a family that sang Christmas carols while playing their own musical accompaniment. They watched Bing Crosby and Danny Kay, and could have appeared in Hallmark movies.
Somehow, the Cop ended up with me. Our traditional Christmas Eve moving growing up was the Night of the Living Dead. Every year my father told us all the story about how Santa was actually a Russian spy, dressed in red and flying in under the radar, and every year as we toddled off to bed he made his way outside with a shotgun to do his duty for 'Murica should the commie bastard fly into sight. My mom, the staunch Catholic, brought SOME aspects of normalcy - there was the beautiful tree and manger set, and midnight mass. It was a hodge podge of insanity, is what I'm getting at here. We were no Hallmark movie, we were really the makings of a B grade horror film that would air on "Saturday Nightmares" (shout out to my sisters and dad, who will get that reference because they watched them every week with me. Apologies to my poor mother, who had to deal with all of us).
They say opposites attract. The cop is stuck with me. And we have begun rubbing off on each other, a little bit at a time. He has my warped sense of humor, and I now enthusiastically decorate with him:
Well, I cheer from the bottom. And I only watch zombie movies when nobody else is around. The kids sing Christmas carols with us, but they do it in accompaniment with our stereo and it's along with The Jackson 5 or the Muppets, so concessions are made there. We do an early Christmas Eve service and leave out cookies, but a lot of times Christmas morning is all kinds of chaos that brings on early morning Irish coffee to get parents through the day.
Mid-December we always accompany my parents to their Knights of Columbus Christmas dinner. It's my dad's men's group through the church, and my parents are the youngsters of the crew. So, I force the Wild Boys to dress in adorable, cheek pinching clothing to impress the dozens of grandparents who will be showering them with adoration and sweets when I'm pretending not to notice,
Real story: A full day was spent trying to juggle house chores and remember who to send cards to - I have A LOT left because the truth is after about 80 I thought to myself "nobody really cares..." and moved on to mopping. It's as close as we get to meeting seasonal expectations here, and it got me thinking about our ACTUAL holiday traditions here in La Casa and with our families.
The Cop came from what is pretty close to the perfect suburban family. There was a McMansion and an in ground pool. Christmas Eve saw freshly baked cookies set out for Santa, and Christmas morning found fully constructed train sets weaving through stacks of brightly wrapped Christmas presents to greet four cherubic child faces. This is a family that sang Christmas carols while playing their own musical accompaniment. They watched Bing Crosby and Danny Kay, and could have appeared in Hallmark movies.
Somehow, the Cop ended up with me. Our traditional Christmas Eve moving growing up was the Night of the Living Dead. Every year my father told us all the story about how Santa was actually a Russian spy, dressed in red and flying in under the radar, and every year as we toddled off to bed he made his way outside with a shotgun to do his duty for 'Murica should the commie bastard fly into sight. My mom, the staunch Catholic, brought SOME aspects of normalcy - there was the beautiful tree and manger set, and midnight mass. It was a hodge podge of insanity, is what I'm getting at here. We were no Hallmark movie, we were really the makings of a B grade horror film that would air on "Saturday Nightmares" (shout out to my sisters and dad, who will get that reference because they watched them every week with me. Apologies to my poor mother, who had to deal with all of us).
They say opposites attract. The cop is stuck with me. And we have begun rubbing off on each other, a little bit at a time. He has my warped sense of humor, and I now enthusiastically decorate with him:
Well, I cheer from the bottom. And I only watch zombie movies when nobody else is around. The kids sing Christmas carols with us, but they do it in accompaniment with our stereo and it's along with The Jackson 5 or the Muppets, so concessions are made there. We do an early Christmas Eve service and leave out cookies, but a lot of times Christmas morning is all kinds of chaos that brings on early morning Irish coffee to get parents through the day.
Mid-December we always accompany my parents to their Knights of Columbus Christmas dinner. It's my dad's men's group through the church, and my parents are the youngsters of the crew. So, I force the Wild Boys to dress in adorable, cheek pinching clothing to impress the dozens of grandparents who will be showering them with adoration and sweets when I'm pretending not to notice,
and we spend an evening drinking boxed wine and enjoying karaoke performed in front of the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe by people who make statements like "well, our youngest is 61 this year..."
My mom coordinates the Santa presents and always manages to pepper in tiny nerf guns along with such Catholic holiday favorites as the wind up Jesus (no, I'm totally not kidding):
And Gavin manages to wildly entertain all of us after we try to caution him against eating the entire heaping plate of desserts he carries back to the table with the one day to be regretted statement: "Well, if this is diabetes then I LOVE diabetes!"
We've survived the decorating, the cards, and the party. We have one week left, in which time we need to wrap ALL the presents, work full schedules, attend two school performances, bake, not gain 80 pounds, and maintain sanity. All in the name of what have become our very memorable holiday traditions. It'll be a Christmas miracle if I blog again before New Year's, so until next time, Merry Christmas from La Casa! Enjoy the baked goods, but be ever vigilant for zombies and commies.
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