Surviving the Holidays, Part 2

This is a warning. This is your only warning. Today's blog post is not child-friendly. It's completely safe for work. But it's rated PG-13 for content that may be disturbing to people who are under the age of 13. That does not mean "parental guidance suggested if you're under 13." If you're under 13, go away. Now. This doesn't involve you.

Are the 13-year-olds and under gone yet?

How about now?

No, really.

Ok, here it is: There is no Santa, it's really your parents.

There, I said it. 

The biggest problem with that is that once you have kids, you become Santa. And when you have a kid like Mr. Genius that becomes an extra big challenge because you have to at least make a decent effort at the keeping the thing a secret conspiracy.

Most of our Santa Stuff we figured out around MG's third Christmas, the year he'd turned 2. Santa fills stockings with unwrapped trinkets. He wraps presents in special Santa Wrapping Paper and labels it with computerized labels. These are a compromise of the traditions that Doc and I grew up with, with a 21st Century twist thrown in.

At the beginning of the season, usually the day before Thanksgiving but sometimes the week after, DaddyDoc and I hire a babysitter and go on our "Annual Date." First, dinner, and then... Toys R Us, Cost Plus World Market and Le Tarjay - the Christmas Trifecta for Parents. Cost Plus World Market has the best stocking stuffer options anywhere, just to let you know.

We have our secret hiding spots. We have the special hidden wrapping paper that only Santa Uses. (Every few years it changes but we usually have enough to get through a few years.) And usually Santa gets to give the big gifts and we just give small token gifts.

Santa loves the Le Tarjay toy shaving kits. They come in Thomas the Tank engine and lots of popular Disney Characters. This year it's alllll about Lightning McQueen. I think it was last year, too. They come with a bath toy that looks like an electric razor, pretend shaving cream and shampoo or body gel. Too cute. It turns out they have big boy kits with the real stuff in them. Sometimes boys, even boys who are not yet old enough to shave, stink and need smelly stuff that is stronger than Lightning McQueen or Thomas the Tank Engine can deliver. I'm just saying.

Sometime in October, Toys R Us sends out their big marketing booklet and the boys grab it and mark up all of the goodies they want. they usually leave a couple of toys unmarked. They tend to leave the entire pink sections unmarked. We try to get them to put extra marks the toys they want the most, to help us, and Santa, prioritize.

This year we got our sitter and set out on our mission. We had a Toys R Us booklet but it just wasn't much help. The 4-year-old is a cake walk. I could shop for him all day long. Lightning McQueen Duplos, Crayola toys and crayons, Squishy Buzz (Lightyear) that he can sweep wif, Thomas the Tank Engine anything, puzzles, Disney/Pixar Leapster games - I could go on and on.

The big boys are tougher. They would like... Legos, K'nex and Marble Roller Coaster kits. There are just so many reasons that this isn't working for us. First off, we already have a million trillion Legos in this house. No really. We do. Here's what happens:

The boys build the amazing toy inside the box.

The boys look at the amazing toy they've built.

The boys disassemble the amazing toy.

The Legos go everywhere.

Some get put away in the tubs, plural, upstairs in the playroom/guest room. 

Others go on the floor. On the family room floor. On the kitchen floor. On the office floor. On the stairs. On the floor of their bedroom. On the floor of my car. On the floor of my garage.

And then they use them to build other things. 

Like small cars and small rockets or airplanes.

A million trillion Legos and they make small cars. I'm talking about things that use maybe 10 Legos max to build.

And so it also goes with K'Nex except that most of the K'Nex are missing because they get thrown away or sucked up in the vacuum. And it also goes with Marble building kits.

And that's how we found ourselves the day before Thanksgiving, wandering up and down the aisles of Toys R Us and trying to figure out what the heck were we possibly going to do for our boys this year.

Resistance Is Futile

We have fought it for so long. We actually have never purchase a video game system for our family. The closest we came was a little hand-held game for little kids. One relative gave our boys a little kid video game. Another close family friend gave us a "previously loved" Game Cube a few years ago. The boys have enjoyed it very much.

Since last spring two things have happened:

1- Another "friend" (can I still call him that after what he did to us?) loaned us his Wii for about six weeks. It started simply enough. He was coming over to spend the day with us and he thought the boys might enjoy playing with it while he was here. As he went to leave, he offered to leave it because he was going to be traveling for several weeks and would not be home to use it even if he wanted to.

That friend has since "switched." Hell hasn't frozen over but with his purchase of a MacBookPro I am seriously convinced it's at least a few degrees cooler than it once was. That's my only consolation.

This alone would have been enough to resist. DaddyDoc looked into the cost of a Wii. With the size of our family, we need four remotes and four nunchuks. The console, the controllers, the games, it all added up so quickly. We realistically looked at them and said "No. Way." 

Assimilation was diverted. For a while. But then strike 2 hit...

2- The Wii Music commercials.

I know I'm not the only person on Earth who gets unreasonably emotional from watching a commercial. And I have to say, that in the aftermath of the past few weeks, I don't get choked up like I used to. Here it is:

It's the little blonde girl at the end. That's what did it for me when I first saw the ad. I went back to last Spring. Captain Stubborn was twirling cows over his head by his tail and hurling them far distances. SBS was spiking watermelon volleyballs that would have impressed Misty and Kerri. And MG was rocking OUT to Satisfaction. CS regularly sits in the way back seat of the PerkyMommyMobile singing Satisfaction to himself as we run errands around town...

The Wii tugged at my heart. And in a moment of weakness the night before Thanksgiving, DaddyDoc and I looked at each other and said "Maybe we should just get the Wii and be done with it."

But the thing still cost way too much money and we had to figure out WHO would give it to the kids. Because when the school sends home notes that say "Dear Mrs. PerkyMommy, You forgot to turn in the paperwork for us to test SBS for genius identification purposes and if you don't turn it in, we're pretty much going to find a loophole and have him tested anyway." And your eldest is the school Science Fair AND Spelling Bee champ AND passed the test for the Math Field Day Team, figuring out the Santa Conspiracy isn't just a minor deal.

Next Up: Commit or Be Committed.