Christmas letters, blogs and other nuisances...

The BLOG has now become the dreaded Christmas letter - without the cost of postage and with the happy option of ignoring it without adding to your local landfill. I never like those chatty letters about everyone else's perfect life - with photos their immaculately groomed children grinning almost insanely, wearing matching Christmas outfits. You just know some people have been waiting all year to brag about their kids, their good fortune, etc. Of course, if my 8 year old had been to 7 countries in the past year or my 5 year old spoke fluent Mandarin I might be tempted to brag, too.

We all have a web presence now. Many of us have moved beyond what my father deemed the "narcissism" of Facebook into the admittedly more narcissistic Blog.

Now I think you want to know not just what I'm making for dinner or my thoughts at the moment, but details about these things! Hilarious, I admit. On the other hand, if you've read any of my blogs I'm NOT bragging. Bitching, maybe; but bragging, never!

We've had lots of happy moments this year, but there have been trials and tragedies as well. Let's see this blog started with the failure of our sewage ejector pump and continued through a broken hip, hospitalizations and my frustrations with Medicaid. To not acknowledge the bad times minimizes the moments of pure joy that we share. Life, like marriage, is "for better or worse."

My blog started as a way to earn a free trip to Walt Disney World - write 100 posts and get admitted into the MomBloggers club which gets me an inside track to free trips (as long as I blog about them....)  I'm at 59 posts. To my amazement my most recent stats have me at 4,651 "views" - paltry compared to a friend that got 25,000 in  day! However I am proud of my modest success. I think I have to abandon the free Disney dream.  I enjoy writing. As I have admitted, this is the "online diary of a middle aged Mom." However, I can't write about why you should buy all of your gifts through Amazon.com or subscribe to an online shopping service.

Sometimes I'm maudlin, self-pitying or angry. Sometimes I'm introspective or even funny. But, I'm never for sale so bye-bye free trip to Disney. Hello, 2012! Wonder what I'll write about next year...

The Santa Claus Syndrome

What is it about a mall Santa Claus that turns parents into idiots?  We've all seen it - the crying children with the parents desperately pleading for a smile.  One of the funniest Christmas cards I've ever received was from my friend Kerrianne. It featured her adorable twin girls sitting on Santa's lap - each lunging in opposite directions with looks of terror on their faces. Fall on the floor funny. However, the kids will probably be in therapy some day.

Just Google "santa with scared children" and you'll come up with hundreds of images.  Here are some of the funniest I've found. http://www.bite.ca/bitedaily/2010/12/top-10-photos-of-traumatized-kids-on-santas-lap/

Have you ever seen the famous Santa Claus scene in the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story? If you haven't seen it, spend three minutes to watch this YouTube clip. It sums up the basic insanity of lining children up to sit on a strange man's lap. Any other time of year we'd drag our kids away as quickly as possible.

Santa arrived at our local mall on Sunday. I accidentally witnessed it. I was on the second level with Danielle & one of her little friends so we could look down as Santa rode a tiny train through the mall. I thought it was charming. The two kids were terrified. The literally covered their ears and hid behind me. So much for photos with Santa this year - guess I just saved 20 bucks.

Other, less emotionally volatile kids, were lined up to be among the first to see Santa. I was horrified by how some of them were dressed. I wished I'd been able to sneak out my camera phone so you could see some of the hideous things these poor children were forced into. Kevin said I should have boldly walked up and said,"Your daughter's outfit is so distinct, unique (substitute your own superlative...) Do you mind if I take a picture to show my Mom?"

I'm torn between which was worse - the 3 or 4 year old boy forced to wear a green velvet little Lord Fauntleroy suit (cringe) or the 7 or  8 year old girl who was apparently wearing her mother's vintage 1970s Christmas outfit complete with white leather jazz oxfords. This poor unfortunate child was dressed in nifty black and white checked overalls with a large Santa applique and a red turtleneck.  I'm hoping that there was a family tradition or at least a funny story to explain this sartorial disaster. At five Danielle has enough fashion sense to fight her way out of such an atrocious outfit. Honestly, people, these were bad looks way back when. Trust me, they have not improved with time.

My thought for the day," Going to see Santa is scary enough,

don't add to the horror by dressing your children like demented elves."