Simplifying

It's Christmastime!

This is actually one of my favorite times of the year.  I distinctly remember my father bringing down all of the decorations and getting the house all gussied up; the lights all on the outside.  I remember going to get the tree and decorating it while listening to Christmas Carols.  I remember having to put the goddamned tinsel on one piece at a time, which contributed to  my totally irrational fear of tinsel and why we never ever have any in my house.  I remember the seemingly endless nights of baking Christmas cookies and nut rolls and poppy seed rolls.

It was so magical when I was a kid.  It seemed so easy.  This was before I knew that Christmas could be a stressful time.  Before I knew what it cost.  The stresses of having to deal with family members that you don't really like.  Before I knew that there were people who did not have Christmas.  Before I knew that for some people, Christmas was a symbol of how they have failed according to the American Dream of having more and more.  Hell, before I was even aware that there were people who did not celebrate Christmas...

Given that I am now working as much as I am, I was forced this year to simplify our Christmas.  I never do Christmas cards, because even before this  year I refused to send them unless I was able to write a personal note in them (which of course, I was not.)  I don't do a Christmas letter because...well, it's probably good I don't.  I am not baking much of anything.  We decorated, but I did not go crazy.  I did almost all of my shopping online this year.  Send that shit right to my door without me having to leave my house, deal with people, or put pants on?  Fuck yeah!

I am still, however, room mom for Alexis's class party.  Even her teacher must have known I was simplifying because all I have to bring in is hot chocolate.  Score!  However, I am also in this purging stage of my life and I  have had up in my attic for a few years now a bunch of shit I bought on clearance one year...some Christmas cups, straws, erasers, stickers, and bouncy balls.  I decided that I was going to go ahead and throw some "goody cups" together for the kids using this stuff to get it out of the house.  Yes, I am *that* parent...not only am I going to give your kid cheap Christmas shit for you to have to smuggle out of your house but I am not going to give you any chocolate or candy to steal from them to make up for it.

So I was making these goody cups, all proud of myself that I was being health conscious AND simplifying at the same time, when I caught a glimpse of an elf eraser that I had tossed into one of the cups:

Yes, this is a decapitated elf eraser, in what appears to be the red tube of death, AKA, the red snowflake cup.

So not only am I simplifying this Christmas season, I am contributing to your third grader's psychological issues via inadvertent elf decapitation.  Merry Christmas, bitchez!  May all your dreams (but not your elf-related nightmares, which are apparently super creepy...) come true!