Boy to the World

How was your weekend?” the daycare office manager asked me.

“Not that great,” I replied with a sigh. It was first thing Monday morning.

Raised eyebrows.

“My children are like a small band of monkeys.” (I have three boys six and under).

“Oh, well…it’s that time of year…”

“I suppose…”

I was recovering from the second weekend in Advent.

I had arranged my work schedule and decreased my commitments in an effort to enjoy the holiday season this year. But that wasn’t happening yet.

I had envisioned that the kids and I would put up the tree and decorate it during Thanksgiving weekend while listening to Christmas music. Then over the course of the next several weeks, we’d bake cookies, and make peppermint bark and other treats together, including our traditional gingerbread structures. We’d talk about the story of Jesus’ birth while we set up our nativity scene under the tree. We’d watch some Christmas movies, make wish lists for Santa, and observe Advent every Sunday. That meant I’d have to plan a lesson and an activity and a treat, but that would be okay. After all, I was only working four-day weeks in December. We’d count down the days with our Advent calendar. Yeah, right.

What it’s really like in my house…

I put up the tree. The boys lost interest in decorating it after hanging a few ornaments each, after which they proceeded to use them as missiles and other weapons. A couple of weeks later, our tree is mostly decorated on the top half, as is the tree of any family that includes an eighteen-month old. (Though, one day recently, I did find a pair of dirty socks draped across some of the lower branches.)

The boys would rather watch Power Rangers reruns than any of my favorite Christmas specials like “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” or “Frosty The Snowman.” I insist they do that upstairs. So much for togetherness.

Creating our gingerbread house was extravagantly messy affair. Not only because the pastry bag sprung a few leaks but also because I can never keep those things twisted closed, and the icing always squeezes out the back way, we all used our hands to smear the royal icing “mortar” on the gingerbread pieces before we stuck them together. It was decimated nearly as soon as it was built. The kids picked the candy off of it and then the older two reduced it to rubble with their fists. And more than a week later, I am still finding crusted icing on various knobs, dials, switches, and faucets.

I considered briefly the “Pajama Run,” an event one of my colleagues includes in her holiday celebration, which consists of driving around in your PJs with hot cocoa to look at Christmas lights. I discarded it just as quickly. Until someone invents soundproof, Plexiglas units that fit over booster seats, we’ll observe holiday lights on our regular, utilitarian routes. Youngest is just as happy to look at the “moom.”

Speaking of the youngest, he can’t keep his hands off the electronics and quashes every single Christmas CD I put on. Because I play them in the DVD player attached to the TV, he can’t understand why there’s sound, but no picture. “Show?” he asks plaintively as he hands me the fingerprint-covered CD he’s just divested from the DVD player. So much for the Christmas music.

Instead, I am frequently serenaded by the older boys belting out “Jingle bells, Batman smells, the Joker learned ballet…hee hee hee snicker snicker snort!” Another very special musical number is “Who Let the Dogs Out?” rendered on percussion instruments.

The older boys fought over the Advent calendar. Oldest figured out if he’s odds, then he’d not only get more days, but he’d get the day. Youngest wasn’t participating in this yet other than to examine and then discard on the floor every day’s felt-and-Velcro nativity-scene characters, much to the chagrin of the two rules-based, school-aged kids, who tried in vain to keep the characters in sequential order beginning with the star, angel, and shepherds and ending with the wisemen, gifts, and Jesus. I moved the calendar upstairs into the big boys’ room and now we’re nearly a week behind. Oh, well.

I’m on overload, as I’m essentially trying to cram five days worth of work into four days on top of all the added holiday hoopla. This results in my sampling far too many cookies and chocolates, and drinking too much coffee. And I won’t go into detail about why I needed to replace both my laptop and cell phone within a two week period, but suffice it to say that the loss of data was a major setback for me.

The big boys made a battle scene out of the nativity set and launched baby Jesus off the roof of the crèche. That we still have tiny baby Jesus and his little straw bed after four seasons is, in itself, one of the miracles of Christmas. Compounding their irreverence is the extent of their interest in our Advent celebration. “Fire. Heh-Heh. Heh-Heh. That’s cool,” about sums it up.

“It’s chaos at my house,” I concluded to the office manager.

“C’mon, that’s part of the fun!” she nudged me.

“Uh huh.”

As I drove off that morning, I thought a lot about our conversation. I really didn’t want to be a grinch, but I was sure that’s how I sounded! I reminded myself to align my vision and my reality – that is the real key to how to enjoy the holidays.

So, as I typed the first draft of this story, the youngest was pulling pine cones, bells, and candy canes off the tree (the only things left on the bottom half). The bigger boys were saying potty words and scrapping like a couple of puppies. They quit jumping up and down on the couch because I threatened to banish them to the one-and-a-half-season porch (you could easily see daylight from under the floor boards if there was any way light could get under there – it’s really cold). Instead, they’d pulled all the cushions, pillows, and throws off the couch, piled them on the floor, and were taking turns shoving each other off, with their feet.

I can’t say I wasn’t annoyed, but I knew that reminders of Santa Claus seeing them when they’re sleeping, knowing when they’re awake, knowing if they’ve been good or bad so be good for goodness sake would be in vain. So, I simply told them I expected the mess to be cleaned up before they watched Power Rangers. Hey, it’s all “part of the fun,” right? Boy to the world!