Ahh the holiday season.  The weather is crisp (usually).  Football is in high gear.  The aroma of  fattening treats fills the air.  Francine, our Elf On The Shelf, makes his annual pilgrimage from the North Pole to play a month-long game of cat and mouse with our children.  Described in this manner, the holidays sound like a fun, stress-free time with Santa, Frosty, and the gang.  However most of you already know how cruel the holidays can be at times.  Here are a few super happy fun holiday tales from my family.  Hopefully, I have not pulled the trigger to the shotgun in my mouth by the time you have finished reading…

Holiday Decorating: Other than the actual putting up and taking down of holiday decorations, I do not mind a little festive decor.  I rather enjoy seeing the lights that adorn the neighborhood homes and businesses.  This being said, try decorating a Christmas tree with a 4-year old and a 16-month old.  I drag the decorations in from the garage one excruciating box at a time.   Meanwhile the wife and kiddos destroy the den unpacking the boxes.  Despite the mess, the initial setup of our tree looks normal.  Within 3 hours of hanging the ornaments the bottom two feet of the tree are as bare as the tree had been in the woods…before it was sacrificed in the name of baby santa jesus.  We must have collected the wayward ornaments from around the house and replaced them only two or three times, when we succumbed to having a bottomless tree this year.

Francine: Let me start by singing high praise to Carol Aebersold and Chandra Bell, the creators of the Elf on the Shelf.  Without our little Francine, the holiday season headaches would be ten fold.  The relief that comes along with threatening your child with no Christmas if they misbehave is truly a gift in itself.  I cannot tell you the joy that I feel when M acts up and I get to use the F word (Francine) to put her back in check.  Ahh the delightful sounds of M fanatically crying, “NO! NO! NO!” as I pretend to call Francine on my cell (yes, he is sitting right on the shelf in front of me, but the phone adds a dramatic flare).  However, I am not sure what the long-term side effects of using the EOTS might be.  We have noticed M having a conversation with Francine on  multiple occasions.  I am talking full-blown two-way conversation.  I just hope that she is not actually hearing Francine talk back to her or we will have a schizophrenic on our shelf.

Marshmallow B vs. Barbie House

Toy Assembly: Is there any activity in the world that is more painful than assembling toys on Christmas Eve?  I almost wish that fat ass Santa was real so that he and his fairy posse could fight through toy assembly while I watch internet porn, er I mean bake Christmas cookies for homeless kids.  This year we are tabbed with the assembly of the Barbie Dream House.  This “toy” is almost large enough to house Lil B and as you might have guessed, it comes in 4000 pieces.  Approximately 2 hours and 2/3 of a bottle of Crown Royal are down when we place the finishing touches on Barbie’s new crib.  All the work (and hangover) was worth it to see M’s face Christmas morning, and more importantly to see Lil B doing his best Godzilla as he destroys Barbieville.  He is eerily reminiscent of the giant marshmallow man on Ghostbusters…

Bishop Hills

Christmas Light Viewing: One of my favorite childhood memories of the holidays is when we all piled into the family truckster and headed out to Bishop Hills or Southwest Park to look at the Christmas lights.  We mention seeing lights with M in an area of Plano that is known for its Christmas light display and naturally, she seems excited so we plan the event.  We shuffle dinner around so that we are eating along with the Senior Citizens, we bathe the kids in the speedy dual bath,  slap some PJ’s on them and then just as darkness falls, we are off to see some lights.  A quick stop at Starbucks for mom and dad suddenly turns ugly when they inform us that they are out of Pumpkin Spice.  Mom had to be subdued by a chop to the throat while I order us a peppermint mocha in place of our normal latte.  This is not good and should be taken as a sign of things to come.  As you can imagine, the traffic flowing through a neighborhood that is well-known for its light display is similar to rush hour traffic.  Once you enter the subdivision, you don’t leave until the subdivision is says you can leave.  We take our place in the car line and crawl down the first street filled with lights.  I am unimpressed, but holding faith that the good stuff is further back in the maze of overpriced houses.  Apparently M is unimpressed as well.  Approximately 3 houses in she wants to go home and does not stop whining until we pull out of that subdivision some 30 minutes later.  Lil B enjoys the lights so much that he instantly falls asleep.  I am thoroughly underwhelmed by the “famous” display and Bishop Hills sounds pretty good right about now. 

Lil Sloth

This & That: Lil B has officially entered the biting stage.  He shows no pattern for how he selects his victims and certainly shows no remorse.  Mark my words, if that little punk bites me again he is going to be looking like Sloth from the Goonies when I finish with him.

M & Lil B are starting to play together and this is such a wonderful time.  We are trying to soak it in before the fighting begins and the years of tattling and brawling ensue.  Speaking of playing, Lil B is quite the Barbie fan.  He particularly enjoys Ken in his sleeveless tuxedo…pink tuxedo…I am thinking that if Ken were real, he would look more like Perez Hilton…

Perez Barbie

For any of you guys out there that are looking to escape the fam for just a bit from time to time, I have a solution for you.  Install an outdoor TV.  I have done this and it is quite possibly my greatest accomplishment (other than the creation of the two kids…which led to the outdoor escape TV…hmm).  Seriously, if your patio accommodates, get the escape TV or forever risk your sanity.