Twelve Steps to recovering from the Holidays…

1.   Admit that you have a problem. Brownies are not breakfast, no matter the season.

2.   Believe that there is a power greater than yourself… Santa!

3.   Make the decision to turn over a new leaf, but not until the New Year. For now, live it up!!

4.   Take a moral inventory of yourself and your children and set new goals. Start by reinstituting the nap.

5.   Purge yourself of stressors. Play dough is the Devil, get rid of it.

6.   Humbly ask for forgiveness. Next year’s cookies will be edible.

7.   Acknowledge your shortcomings. Nothing you do will make you as cool as Santa.

8.   Make a list of everything you did right, everything you did wrong, and everything you won’t be doing again. (Hey, I wasn’t the only one in Walmart on Christmas Eve!!)

9.   Carefully take down the tree. Be sure to meticulously wind up the lights in perfect individually wrapped bundles and secure with twist ties. It takes a while, but keep at it. Don’t do half, then just dump the others on top of it and say you’ll deal with it next year. You’ll regret it, I did.

10.   Clean out the fridge. If your Christmas ham looks like its ready to get up and walk out on its own, it probably is.

11.   Continue to take personal inventory, admit when you have wronged others, and apologize for throwing away the Play dough. That wasn’t very nice.

12.   Turn off the ringer. Some idiot is bound to call at midnight on New Years Eve, and wake up the children who have just gotten back into their routine.

As early as last month my husband had been warning me that ‘ it will be a small Christmas ‘.  Nonsense!  I don’t believe in ‘ small Christmases ‘.  Inexpensive maybe, but not small.

My oldest son, just back from Iraq, arrived with his youngest son which with just their presence already elevated the joy of the season.  We went to the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree, we decorated it over carols and homemade egg nog.  It still amazes me how the kids can identify and date every single faded construction paper ornament decorated with glitter, macaroni and tin foil, each lovingly wrapped like priceless works of art (which they are). 

What I have noticed over the years that my husband did not was that it wasn’t the presents that the kids would remember over the years but the traditions of the season.  They would forget all the Barbie dolls and Transformers they’d received over the years.  The drum set and guitars  we saved so hard to buy would one day be sold at a yard sale.  But the trips to the mountains, trekking through the snow to find the perfect Charlie Brown Christmas tree, the plate of carrots on the porch each year (even this year) for Santa’s reindeer, the tree trimming parties, the caroling, the present wrapping parties, the year of the Christmas potato (I couldn’t find a piece of coal, or even a rock on Christmas Eve for a couple of naughty boys so I wrapped a potato), the year Santa forgot to buy wrapping paper and ended up wrapping all the presents in butcher paper, those memories would last forever.  Those are little things are what really matter.

So yes, this year we had a HUGE Christmas, as we do each and every year. 

Seasons Greetings to all!

There were 30 people at my gym class this morning.  Heck, there were men at my gym class this morning.  Most days there’s less than half that and never a jock strap in sight (though probably it shouldn’t be in sight anyway.  Eww.). Clearly, resolution time is here again. 

I resolve every year not to make any resolutions.  Then, with a predictability matched only by the rise and fall of every 20-something Hollywood starlet, I start to equivocate.  Apparently, there’s nothing I enjoy more than arguing with myself over a nice cup of coffee.

“I’m definitely not making any resolutions this year; they never work, it’s all forgotten in a month, it’s pointless.  But… maybe I can just set some simple goals.  That’s not the same thing at all.  And probably, since I’ll have goals, I need some deadlines.  That’s just smart business tactics.”

And so it begins.  Every year, I go from simple “goals” like calling old friends once a month to topics decidedly more resolved.  As in, how I will lose weight, or get in shape, or eat a more healthy diet, or control my spending.  And every year, I never. follow. through.  NEVER.  I read somewhere that in order to establish a new habit you have to repeat it for 21 days.  So that’s usually how long my resolutions last- 21 days.  If I’m not feelin’ the love by then, it must not be destiny, right?

This year, instead of trying to resist the clean slate temptation of a completely un-screwed-up new year, I’m going to embrace it.   Let’s be honest- 2008 kind sucked for me, people.  That alone is inspiration enough to make some changes.  Here’s my biggie- I will not spend any time in the psychiatric ward in 2009.  BAM!  Awesome resolution, lots of staying power.  The completely not fun memories from those times are really effective motivators, too.  Terrible food.  Plastic beds.  Instant coffee.  Among other things.

In all seriousness, though (not that avoiding the mental hospital is oh-so-silly), my hopes for this new year have no deadlines or strict action plans.  To put it plainly, I want only to be normal.  Tall order, I know, but… I don’t mean Stepford Wife perfection.  I just mean… within reasonable bounds of perception, mostly my own.  I don’t want to question my emotional stability if I lose my temper with the girls or get misty over Grey’s Anatomy.  When, from time to time, I have one of Those Days and take myself to bed the second Kurt’s car pulls into the garage, I’d be thrilled if everyone thought, “Damn, that girl has a wicked case of PMS,” instead of wondering if my meds are working.  Second-guessing my responses to every situation, second-guessing the thoughts in my head, fearing interactions that might be too stressful- that’s all 2008.  2009 will be about trust.  Finally accepting that, perhaps, it doesn’t mean something bad will happen if I am feeling a little crazy- that would be the achievement of normal for me.

So that’s my resolution, one teensy little thing.  Oh, and to remember to eat breakfast every day.  That’s all.  Really.  Pay no attention to the long list behind the curtain.

So The Big Day has come and gone and here I sit three days later. The downstairs of my house looks like both Target and Toys R Us exploded all over the place.  The TV room is mostly a large pile of plastic video game jackets, Wii steering wheels, Wii light sabres  and lots of wires that somehow have something to do with the Wii, but nothing that I’d ever be able to figure out, even if the survival of my family depended on it (b/c in that case anyway,  I’d just leave it up to one of my sons).

Which brings me to the “hmmm” part of my post.  I think back to the scrambling that I did this season to make sure that both Logan and Ryan had THE Wii game  that they HAD TO HAVE, and as you might expect, that did not come about easily or cheaply. There were a couple times in the middle of December where I actually felt nervous that I might seriously have to pay some jerk on ebay three times what Mario Karts would cost at Target (since I’d ignored the warnings of the electronics department guy back in October that if I waited til December I’d have better luck finding The Holy Grail). But I did make it happen, without having to sell my own plasma, and as you can imagine, the new video games have been a gigantic hit.

But an even bigger hit?
Sorry and Battleship, not the electronic versions but the old fashioned board game kind that cost me exactly $8 each.  The kind that I actually know how to play, although my brain is a little scrambled right now from all those crazy Sorry rules!  These games were actually kind of purchased as afterthoughts. They were on sale, I was desperate…you get the idea. And these $8 games, it is THEY that are the hit of the season.

Hmmm…

We flew home to Colorado on Christmas Day.  We enjoyed seeing friends and family, and my girls were thrilled to see snow (my girls are true Southerners?!!). On the 26th, my son decided he’d like to visit his dad.

About three years ago,  James realized that his dad would never be a loving, caring, parent, and that this failure of character wasn’t due to any fault of his.  I was relieved beyond belief when my son started to regain his feelings of self-worth, and to lose the guilt that his father had piled on him.  Per his request he hasn’t seen his father since that time .  

This summer, his dad was diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer.  James’s emotional progress was thrown out the window and a large stinky pile of feelings was pushed in:  Should he try to reconnect to his now dying father?  Why didn’t he feel worse about the situation?  Maybe his dad would change? Maybe?

After five months of treatment, my ex-husband’s cancer is gone, for now.  He’s lost weight and hair, and seems to have aged 20 years.  We dropped James off at his dad’s house Friday afternoon.  Five hours later, James was relieved to come back to his grandparents’ house, saying his dad hadn’t changed a bit.  He’s still short-tempered, sharp-tongued and just plain ill-natured.  He didn’t get his youngest son even a lump of coal for Christmas.  

Today, James is irritated with everyone.  He’s condescending, grumpy and rude, especially to me.  It reminds me of long ago visits.  He would come home to me in this same mood, acting sullen and withdrawn for days.      

He did receive a gift from his father after all, but this one isn’t returnable.