No, I Haven’t Done Any Christmas Shopping, I’m Still Recovering From Thanksgiving.
How was your Thanksgiving celebration? Fill in any of the Dysfunctional Family Bingo card squares? Hopefully not. I was happy to have gone a weekend without filling in a square. (I received at least one sarcastic comment about my Dysfunctional Bingo project from a family member who asked, “Which one did I inspire?” I declined to answer.)
All in all, I considered our Thanksgiving holiday week to have been a success because (I’ve been keeping my standards mighty low these days, a technique that has, thus far, worked for me):
– There were no arguments during Thanksgiving dinner, with the exception of a mild disagreement about the rules of the odious Yankee Swap of which I was not a participant.
– No one contracted food poisoning or the swine flu or the plague or mad cow disease (though that seems like such a dated ailment now, doesn’t it?).
– No one got into an accident or ran over anyone’s mailbox with their vehicle or with an errant Tiger Woods-mobile.
– The three Picket Fence Post children have all their limbs and health intact, though they did bicker and fight with one another so much that, at one point, I gave myself a ”Time Out” and fled to my bedroom so I wouldn’t have to listen to them squabble.
– My sisters-in-law, who ventured out at midnight on Black Friday to shop, were not trampled to death.
As for the remainder of the Thanksgiving holiday: The day after Thanksgiving, the Picket Fence Post family and the Picket Fence Post grandparents decided to brave the rain (a Nor’easter had been predicted but never happened) in order to see a balloon parade which seemed a bit, oh, what’s the word, uh, underwhelming, yeah, underwhelming is the right word for watching semi-inflated balloons being dragged down city streets. You couldn’t even see The Cat in the Hat’s face from where we were standing because it was slumping over as if the feline had had a rough Thanksgiving night at the pub. But at least the kids got to see Santa after the brief parade concluded and tell the big guy what they want for Christmas. (When I heard that The Girl asked Santa for an iPhone, I started banging my head against a wall.)
During the weekend, I celebrated Thanksgiving by partaking of another all-American tradition: I took the iPhone Girl Wanna-Be and a friend of hers to see a movie about a love triangle between a human, a vampire and a werewolf. (For those who’ve been living under a rock, I’m talking about the new installment of the Twilight series, New Moon. I wrote a column about why women my age are so obsessed with the series here.) I also got the chance to do a whole mess of reading.
Now that it’s the Monday after Thanksgiving (and the kids have another day off from school), I’ve already been asked how my Christmas shopping is going . . . an inquiry at which I scoffed. “Christmas shopping? I haven’t even thought about it yet.” That was kind of untrue, as I did ask the children to write Christmas lists so that The Spouse and I can start thinking about gifts, but we haven’t done anything about it yet beyond the contemplation point.
About the headless Pilgrim above: That’s the result of the kids playing in the dining room and knocking over the male Pilgrim that was decorating my table. I’ll play “Taps” for him a little later this afternoon.
Author and columnist Meredith O'Brien gives you a peek behind the picket fences of modern day life and parenting in the 'burbs. With humor and candor, it's her take on real parenting in the real world.
