The previous post is password protected because it discloses what I’m getting J for Christmas - so HE CAN’T SEE IT.

If you want the password, just email me or something.

amy [at] myskepsi [dot] com

We’re being somewhat non-traditional this year and I’m not sure how I feel about it. On some scales, tradition is very important to me. It’s a way to connect to years past and people I may not have ever met. A little bit of history, lived out in the present. It’s something to look forward to every year, and reminisce about years before.

On the other hand, there are times when I tire of formality and doing things just because they have always been done that way. For instance, one year J and I and his immediate family decided to scratch the gift-giving thing (for the most part) and run off to Canada to stay at the Four Seasons hotel for Christmas - then we enjoyed Boxing Day afterward. That was a fun way to escape the monotony of Christmas Day, and the crowds of pre-Christmas shopping.

Although I will say that the pre-Christmas crowds have got nothing on the Boxing Day crowds. The stores quickly exceed their fire code limit on the number of people permitted inside, so you have to take a number and wait in line just to get IN. And for all the hype, the “great deals” on Boxing Day aren’t really that great.  I think my grand total of loot for the day was a sweater.

This year we aren’t forgoing the traditions lived out each year, generation after generation. We’re mostly forgoing the traditions we set ourselves.

We’re not sending out Christmas Cards/Newsletters. That has been something I have been religious about most years. This year I find that I just don’t want to spend the money and energy writing, printing pictures, putting them all together, addressing, etc.

We have no lights outside. I’m sure the neighbors are beginning to think that we don’t ever celebrate a holiday. Christmas is the only holiday we have ever taken the trouble to decorate for, and we’re not even doing that.

We don’t have any decorations on the inside either. Last year was our first Christmas in this house, and I probably single-handedly supported the commercial holiday industry by bringing home 500 tons of Christmas decorations over the course of the season. This year they are all in boxes in a closet.

We’re not having a Christmas Party. This was a tradition we started last year because we finally had a house worth inviting people over to and really enjoy hosting parties. We had a great turnout last year and loved seeing all our friends and family and with the exception of a flying pot of cyder and some mysterious sticky stuff that ended up on the carpet, it went smoothly and was nothing but fun. Unfortunately, this year we just couldn’t afford it and presents. So we opted for presents.

We’re not getting a tree. Mostly because we have a 1-year-old that likes to remove objects from their place and distribute them around the floor, and a dog that likes to confiscate anything he finds on the floor and chew it into itty bitty pieces. I have no interest in walking in to find that all the glass ornaments hanging at the bottom 3 feet of the tree have been stripped off, and distributed in tiny shards around the house.

There will be no array of presents spread about the base of the tree, because a) no tree, and b) our 1-year-old also likes to dismantle wrapped gifts. All presents will be securely stowed out of reach and probably transferred to my parents’ house for safekeeping.

For the time being, none of these changes really bother me. I just hope that when we’re sitting around on Christmas Eve, I don’t start to wish I was curled up on the couch with my hot chocolate, staring at the twinkle of a tree, and basking in the glow of 10,000 little lights strung up around the house (inside and out); stockings hanging over the fireplace and a warm and peaceful aura all around. That’s one of my favorite parts of Christmas and this year it won’t be happening.

So, I’m curious - is anybody else out there a traditionist at heart?  Do you have any annual traditions that will be going by the wayside this year?

We went to the mall today. Button and I. Went to the mall. It was a big day.

She used to be very easy to take on a stroller ride around the mall, which gave me the chance to get some exercise while staying indoors. But now she is no longer content to ride around and watch all the scenery go by.

She wants to walk. And she doesn’t want to walk WITH me…no. She would much rather determine her own path.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that I was actually trying to BUY stuff today, not just buzz around the track a few times. Approximately half an hour into our journey, my stress level was at Orange.

I eventually stopped fighting the fits she was throwing in the stroller and figured she could use some exercise (apparently the time spent in the CHAOS of the children’s play area wasn’t enough) so I let her walk, provided that she hold my hand. She wasn’t really into that either after a while.

The child is fearless. I realize that I’m partially responsible for that because I’m usually there to protect her from bad things, so she has no reason to suspect that anything negative will result if she runs away, dives off a sofa or jumps on the bed. I have to reinforce discipline repeatedly right now, so I was getting really tired of running after her every time she dropped my hand and ran, grabbing her hand and leading her back, and laying out that her only options were hold my hand or ride in the stroller.

And then the answer came. She dropped my hand again but instead of running away, she grabbed the metal rim on the basket at the bottom of the stroller with both hands. And started pushing.

And boy, did she push. She threw her back into it like there was a task manager cracking a whip behind her. She pushed that stroller from one end of the mall to the other, stopping only briefly to inspect a piece of lint on the ground. I steered, she pushed. And pushed and pushed and pushed. In stores, out of stores, wherever I needed to go…as long as I didn’t need to stop for more than 3 seconds.

Everybody that went by got a chuckle out of “Mommy’s Little Helper.”  She went about this the same way she does all her self-appointed tasks:  with utmost seriousness and determination.

And then she took a most excellent nap. It was a good day.

I love Christmas music. I really do. I know, I know, you and all your friends, your neighbors and your dog hate it. I swear, it is such a fashion statement to hate Christmas music these days. Everybody’s doing it. It even comes in 3 flavors: “I hate Christmas music played before December 25th,” “I hate Christmas music,” and “I hate Christmas.”

There’s a station here that plays nothing but Christmas music 24/7, which I think is great because I can hear it whenever I want to…except that evidently somebody broke into their office and stole all their music because they play the same 5 songs over and over again. And they’re not GOOD songs - they’re just random Christmas songs that for some reason they think everybody wants to hear 5 million times a day. So I’ve made a list of the songs that make me want to throw something every time I hear them:

• A Wonderful Christmas Time (Paul McCartney) - Ok, what? Is it, like, mandatory to be obsessed with anything remotely related to the Beatles? Because personally, Paul just doesn’t do it for me and I am so sick of hearing this song EVERY. SINGLE. TIME I turn on the radio.
• I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause - I hate this song because I was a slow child and didn’t understand that “Santa” in the song was really “Daddy” - ha ha, mixed identity joke. I DID understand, however, that cheating on one’s spouse was really really really bad and wrong and that after the kid’s parents got divorced and he grew up in a broken home with visitation on weekends, he would have confused ideas about love and be jaded about marriage because Mommy couldn’t keep her hands off the old guy in the chimney long enough to set an example about fidelity.
• Merry Christmas Darling (Vanessa Williams) - This song makes my eye twitch every time I hear “I wish I were with you.” GAH. WAS. I wish I WAS with you. Die, prescriptive grammar, die. This is not Latin; you should not base all your rules for one language on another, especially one that is no longer spoken.
• EDITED TO ADD: I thought of one more. Last Christmas (Wham) - Pardon my French, but what a dumbass. For those unfamiliar with the stupidity of this song, he told some chick a year ago that he was in love with her - they knew each other so well that she doesn’t even recognize him now. He’s still obsessed with her, to the point that he’s singing a love song to her, despite the fact that he has supposedly found true love with a mysterious “someone special” who doesn’t even get dignified with a name. Loser.