No Wishes For Normalcy In 2014

   Once again Christmas has come, and now Christmas is gone, and even though the tree is still up, and will be for a good while, I find myself having to adjust to some normalcy. No hidden gifts in the closet, no more teasing the kiddo about One Direction presents all wrapped under the tree, the ballet The Nutcracker has come and gone, and everything is over. Normalcy invades this apartment like a thick mist....
   Wait, who's apartment am I talking about here? Normalcy: no. I walked in the door from work this evening and my daughter starts shrieking at me that I have to save her because she's offended the penguins and they are gonna get her, and here I am standing in the doorway -- shell-shocked -- wondering what the hell has been going on in my house while I have been gone. Fair warning, don't offend the penguins.
   And so far as I am concerned, this is imagination at it's finest. My daughter doesn't mope around bored. She finds something to do, and keeps entertained, even if that entertainment involves vengeful penguins. This is me being glad that I get to come home to full scale penguin wars going on in my living room. Because otherwise, life would just be boring.
    I hope all of you that celebrate Christmas had a wonderful one. For those of you who celebrate other things, I hope, whatever those other celebrations were, that they were equally wonderful. I hope you don't come home to a calm and quiet apartment, but to your own version of penguin wars, whether they involve eleven (almost twelve) year old little girls or not. I hope your life is anything BUT normal, and I hope that you understand what you have been blessed with.
   As I go through this end of the old year, I hope that whatever comes new in 2014, I never wish for normalcy. Maybe you have a humdrum job, maybe your finances are a tangled mess and the money stress is giving you stomach issues, or maybe you are just plain sad, but if you come home to a little bit of off-the-wall, harmless silliness, and you are smart enough to laugh and find your sense of humor, I think you are going to be okay. At least, that is how I have decided to view things in this home. And we have made it alright so far. So this is me wishing that in the new year to come, you find your own vengeful penguins, and that whatever comes your way, you laugh and get through it as painlessly as possible.
     

One Direction Woes

   Ahhh. Christmas time is coming. I love Christmas. My family loves Christmas. My sister has had her apartment decorated for Christmas since Halloween, which is nuts. But it's her apartment, and this is her right. However, I feel like a Grinch whenever I walk into her apartment, because while her apartment looks like a Christmas-y wonderland, I have a tree. And that tree was decorated by my daughter, because I didn't want to do it. If my daughter hadn't gleefully accomplished this task, we would just have a bare tree. Someone should just follow me around playing "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch." Except I really do love Christmas -- I just don't like decorating. Everything you put up must eventually come down, and I don't feel like doing all this extra work.
    Anyway, we do the whole gifts at Christmas thing. I know that I have heard some people express that gifts take away the meaning of Christmas, and that Santa has taken over a day made for Christ, but I think that both can coexist. They do in my home at the least, so I leave this how I always leave issues such as this, you do what you want, I will do what I want, and we won't hurt each other and call each other nasty names, and all will be well. And to those of you who don't celebrate, Happy whatever-you-do-celebrate. I wish you much joy. My family just happens to celebrate Christmas, and my story today revolves around our tradition.
    Some families wait until Christmas Eve to put out gifts, but we don't do that. We generally place all the gifts out except the ones specifically from Santa (who is based off a Catholic Saint, Saint Nicholas, who is the patron saint of children, and others but I'm not giving a Catholic history lesson here) and the presents from Santa are the ones that are placed out on Christmas Eve, after the kiddos go to bed.

This is what our tree looks like right at this moment.

   Which leads us to the fact that my daughter has seen some of the wrapped presents under the tree, and she began to playfully try to guess what they were. So I began to playfully suggest things that they could be, but I picked things that she would absolutely hate to get. In doing this, I hit on One Direction. My daughter hates the boy-band One Direction. She doesn't like the music, doesn't want the assorted items with their faces plastered all over, and doesn't wanna watch the 'movie' of the tours. So I started suggesting that these gifts under the tree where things like One Direction CDs, One Direction action figures, One Direction pajamas, and a One Direction poster, that I suggested that she could tack to the ceiling of her room, right above her bed, so that when she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw would be their faces.
   This horrified her, which was so much fun, that I followed around after her for days, suggesting every time she looked at the tree, that perhaps she was excited to get all of her One Direction presents. She would put her face in her hands, and pretend to cry, while laughing, because after all, she knows that I would no more do this than set the house on fire. I don't care for One Direction any more than she does, and giving her all this would place me in direct contact with all of their music. Plus, that would just be mean, and while I like to do a little teasing, I abhor meanness.
    However, today my little kiddo had a really bad day. And for a few moments I didn't quite realize how bad she felt, and I fell into teasing her. Her response, "If it's really all One Direction, just burn it. I don't want anything." Poor little silly-head. Momma's done teasing you. At least for a while. (And she got a giant hug and assurances that she was NOT getting One Direction.)

'Merry Christmas' Gets A Bad Rap

   It's the day of Christmas Eve, and like every Christmas Eve, I find myself working. Luckily, the store closes at six, and doesn't open at all on Christmas Day, and I'm thankful, because I know there are poor unfortunates out there who have to give up their holiday so the companies that they work for can squeeze in every drop of profit. My store doesn't though; we get our Christmas Day.
   All season long I've been politically correct and Happy Holidaying people left and right, because I know that there are other holidays out there, and I respect that. But today it is actually Christmas Eve, and while I'm glad that my store closes early, I could be doing other family things. I have a daughter at home waiting for me with baited breath because Santa is coming. There are cookies to bake, dinner to eat, stockings to hang by the chimney with care, sugar plums to have visions of (what the heck is a sugar plum, anyway?) and all that holiday magic. She has been waiting forever, and she wants me home, but I'm at work. And on Christmas Eve, I flat out refuse to happy holiday people. This is Christmas. Merry Christmas. This is my time for celebration, and how are you going to refuse me, on the actual days of my celebration? Even if you don't celebrate, you could just take my exuberant Merry Christmas as my heartfelt desire for you to have a fabulous day. You do not have to act like I spit in your face and kicked you in your shins. I mean, I have the temper for it, but I didn't. And for all your talk of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, you sure don't mind shitting all over my freedoms. Thanks. And congratulations, because those fanatics that you say you hate? Those delusional Jesus Freaks that you like to make fun of? Well, you're just like them, enforcing your beliefs on me by not allowing me to openly celebrate my holiday. I don't care what you believe, and I've been Happy Hanukkahing and Good Solsticing (and I don't even really know what that is) until I am blue in the face, so I think that turn about is fair play. So all I have to say to you is:

Merry Christmas!!!!

  May you have a fantastic holiday, whatever you celebrate. And may I have a very, Merry Christmas.