How To Completely Stress Out This Christmas

How to Completely Stress Out This Christmas…

November 29, 2007: We just had Thanksgiving! I’m not in the Christmas spirit yet. Procrastinate. As the song goes, there are twelve days, I’ve still got time. Week one passes, and I pat myself on the back for breaking out the lights and putting up three Christmas displays.

December 8, 2007: Felt Virtuous. Bought Christmas Cards today! However, I also was wanting to be frugal so I only bought two boxes. Our Christmas card list easily tops four boxes…oh well, I’ll get them later. Looking at the cards that have already come in, impulsively, I decide I want a picture this year. Assemble everyone. We can’t find good Christmas pj’s because I haven’t hit the mall for fear it would hit back. Oldest is in Dad’s robe, middle one is wearing pink, youngest is hidden in a Christmas blanket because she spit up before we finished setting up. Say Cheese. Three year old son doesn’t look so good. Six shots into the Christmas shoot, he throws up.

Decide we’ll finish the roll with the season and get them developed then, but two weeks pass and we keep forgetting to bring the camera.

December 15, 2007: Panic sets in, impulsively surf the net and ring up a tidy sum online. Feeling subsides although there is still a lot to do, and I only got a few things….

December 18, 2007: Husband’s panic attack takes place, credit card is warm to the touch.

December 20, 2007: Still have not sent card one. We haven’t taken pictures at the Christmas Concert, Christmas Party or the Cub Scouts’ Christmas award ceremony. Couldn’t find the camera. In a random search for a box of diaper wipes, I find the camera under a National’s baseball cap, under the bed. There are still fifteen shots left. In desperation, I grab the thing and shoot random shots of everyone to finish the 36 exposure film. Take the next day for double prints. Every shot has werewolf eyes on someone, except the one where my son is turning a funny shade of green.

December 21, 2007: Go to Christmas program for end of school. Missed first half because of triple diaper change in the car. Very bad. Make it to wave at kindergartener, so I’m thinking “That counts!” until my oldest daughter gives a bracing hug and says, “Did you see me?” “I made it.” I say with a smile. She reads through it and slumps away. “I stink.” I think. She is now happily chattering with friends. “Maybe not.” I think hopefully. She gives me a “I forgive you but you’re in the doghouse look.” I’ll make it up to her when we go shopping for teacher gifts that afternoon.

My toddler is trying to drink the Mississippi’s worth of water out of the fountain. As I remove her from the fountain, she fights, she screams, she drops. She hurts her hand. Bad. I take her to the school nurse.

“It’s either a sprain or a broken wrist.” She explains.
Four hours at the emergency room later, I joyfully call my husband and fork over the $75 co pay for an emergency visit, “It’s only a sprain.” We get home, it’s eight o’clock, they haven’t done homework, they haven’t eaten. We finally get the last one to bed and realize…

The Kids get out of school tomorrow and I don’t have teacher gifts! Husband obliges by producing chocolates originally intended for me. Feeling deep resentment. Not in the right mood, can’t wrap the boxes that have come, going to bed.

December 22, 2007: What do you mean we're hosting Christmas Dinner? No one briefed me on this…Call Crisis Cleaners and beg to get on the schedule…eat chocolate preallocated for teacher gifts out of stress. Swing through the Starbucks to purchase gift cards for six teachers. They only have five. Decide the one I know the least will get a different certificate. Guilt manages to nag me into stopping at a second Starbucks and getting a better bigger gift certificate for her.

December 23, 2007: I have the cards. I have the stamps. I have the pictures. I never bought the second two sets. Just as that starts to melt me down, something else does. What’s Christmas without an appliance breakdown? The Dryer is on fire. I call 911. I throw the three diaper sets in jackets and lock them in the car in their car seats. The Fire department comes and declares the infernal contraption dead. Appliance man can come in January. Using a different man would invalidate Home Warranty plan. Too stressed to write cards. We’re doing Epiphany Cards this year. Husband agrees and produces Christmas wine, also originally intended for me. There won’t be much under the tree…he starts to explain. “Yes there will, I’m getting a new Dryer.” We drink the wine. "We’ll wrap things up tomorrow night."

December 25, 5:30 a.m. Time for bed.

Merry Christmas!

Halloween Hangover

Some kids can eat one or two pieces of Halloween candy a day to stretch it out until Christmas. Other kids impulsively eat all the good stuff the first and second night and spend the next week grumbling as they fish through the dregs of their stash to find and tolerate non-descript toffees. For the second group of people, of which I am one, making November 1st a holiday is the equivalent of fall back day light savings time. We need it!

November 1st should always be a day off, in deference to parents and children alike. Both groups suffer from the toxic combination of excessive sugar, marathon like scheduling, back to back party festivities and lack of sleep on October 31st. Even my toddler has a whiff of stale air about her, like she’s spent the day in a bus station. Getting dressed in normal clothing seems anti-climactic. No amount of caffine or morning chocolate or orange juice can compete with the brain coma brought on by too many Twix bars and Goo Goo Clusters the night before. Moving heavy equipment or for that matter,operating simple machines remains possibly unsafe. Until such time as the November 1st vacation extention becomes universally accepted, here is a worthwhile alternative to consider.

Faced with the social pressures of a major kid holiday, the Johnsons from our old neighborhood showed true class and restraint, the likes of which I've never exhibited. It seems their four year old fell asleep around six on Halloween and could not be roused. Unfazed by this turn of events, they settled down for a relaxing evening dinner, punctuated only by parents juggling flashlights, costumes and shepherding groups of children for trick or treating.

November 1st arrived. Her daughter woke up refreshed and happy. “Are we going trick or treating?” She asked. “Tonight honey.” Her mom replied.

That evening, the Johnsons dressed up with their daughter and knocked on doors, explaining as they went. The neighborhood parents were only too happy to provide the kid with some treats from their own kids’ Halloween stash, and the idea of Halloween week was born. They became neighbors to know, having shown charm, humility and wisdom about Holidays, children and parenting all in a single blow.

Wonder what they do for Thanksgiving?

How Not to Bring Your Children to Mass

Bringing small children to mass is always an adventure. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said “Suffer the little children to come to me.” Some days, even the bribe of donuts after church fails to secure a toddler’s cooperation. As a veteran of these faith trials, I offer the following suggestions to make the weekly obligation more child friendly and faith filled.

Don’t Pretend You aren’t going to mass. This means the kids shouldn’t be loaded up with such items as ipods, gameboys, multiple cars, blocks and barbies. Books can be a lifesaver, but even reading should be somewhat selective. Any child that can read, should follow along in the misselette. Any child that can’t read, might be diverted by a picture bible or Catholic oriented story, or by a quiet reading of the gospel to them privately. Toddlers may need a toy or two to keep them busy, such toys should be hard to lose, noiseless and ultimately, so toddler oriented that older children won’t be watching them play with envy in their hearts.

Feed them at home. Some parents walk into mass with a plan of throwing food at their children to keep them quiet. Armed with bags from the local fast food establishment containing anything from lollipops to pancakes, they figure as long as the kids are quiet, it doesn’t matter if they’re eating. Bringing food for health reasons is one thing, but Mass is a communal experience and every sane child that sees another child chowing down on food in the cry room is thinking the same thing. “I want some.”

Don't pretend they’re not kids. Expecting children to sit quietly, eyes front, silent and well behaved for an entire sixty minutes is not recognizing children are children. They will have moments of great reverence and in the next two seconds, have an elbow fight with their sibling over pew space. One will sing loudly to emphasize the fact that the other is not singing. Breaking the mass down into parts helps a child to cope with the length of the liturgy better. Opening song to Gospel is one part, homily to Offertory hymn is a second part, Offertory to Our Father, Kiss of Peace to Go in Peace.

Having a reward system for making it through each of these four sections of the mass helps a child to settle into the liturgy and anticipate what comes. Earning a star for each section of the mass warrants a trip to the park, a donut, or at the very least, public praise.

Don't pretend they’re not your kids. This technique doesn’t work well if you attend mass regularly at the parish. Besides, even at a strange parish, siblings will out you if you pretend you know nothing about the toddler that is screaming on the floor and that gets awkward.

Be present yourself. Being present to your children at mass will help them be present to others at mass. After all, as the parents, we’re the first example. Dress nicely. Be on time. Sing the songs. Read along with emerging reader. Explain what is happening at the Liturgy of the Word and in the Eucharistic Prayer. Encourage the older children to join the choir, altar serve or act as readers. Invest them in being part of the mass just as assertively as one would basketball or academics, to instill in them the idea that this is sacred. This is who we are. This is what we believe.

Finally, when mass is ended, and we say “Thanks be to God,” mean it not because you’ve survived another week of going to mass with a two year old, but because you welcome the week ahead, having received food for the journey.