I gave them a choice.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am all about choices. I'll totally give choices all fucking day long. Do you want to stay up for five more minutes or three more minutes? Would you like peas or carrots for vegetable tonight? Do you want to take a bath or a shower? Do you want me to go bat shit crazy if you keep tossing your clothes directly in front of the hamper instead of into the hamper, or just slightly psycho?
In all of those instances, I am perfectly OK with either choice. That is what you are supposed to do. You never give a goddamned choice if you aren't OK with one of them them. They will sense your weakness and swoop down upon it like a vulture does to that little dead fox in the middle of the road. And they won't let up on it just as those fucking scavengers won't let up on that carcass, even though there's a semi barreling towards them at 60 MPH.
The choice was, "Do you want to use graham crackers or do you want actual gingerbread?"
The minute those words were out of my mouth I wanted to reach into the cosmos and pull them back and then box my own ears with them. The.Fuck.Was.I.Thinking. I don't work 7 days a week or anything. I don't already have to make a bunch of cookies for my family get together. I don't have three baskets of laundry downstairs and am rapidly running out of undies. Oh wait...
I held my breath, hoping that they did not hear me. That for once, that selective hearing they are so good at wielding would pay off for my benefit. That I was using up that bit of positive energy in the cosmos that was sure to be coming my way and they totally missed me asking.
Nope. Their faces lit up like Cheech and Chong on a day ending in "Y". They were going for the fucking actual gingerbread. And sucker that I am for those children, I'm making it happen.
So now I have to find a recipe for gingerbread because I have never made it before. It didn't occur to me to grab a mix from the store until I was on the second fucking batch. Because you know, I might have slipped and gave a choice that I did not want to, but I was not going to borrow trouble and make them decorate the same house. There is only so much alcohol one can consume in an evening and I did not particularly want to be hung over the next day, after all...
Let's not forget too, the whole making the cookies for the family thing. Now I actually enjoy baking, so this was not a big deal really. However, I also got struck with a streak of nostalgia for past Christmases and decided that I was going to make Mexican Swizzle sticks again. My mother used to have a Super Shooter, a fabulous cookie press thing from the 80's, that made those things nice and skinny bundles of chocolate and sprinkles. They don't make those things anymore and hers has since died a slow, agonizing death, so our Swizzle sticks were made using a cookie press and came out more like Swizzle Churros.
I also only had green and yellow sprinkles, so we are representing the Fighting Irish, I suppose. Or my nephew's high school. Either/or.
Then I decided to also make these cute little Olaf pretzels I had found on Pinterest. And ended up with Angry Olafs.
It's the eyebrows, I think. Move over Elf on the Shelf. Disney's got a new creepy character to stalk your children and frighten them into good behavior.
So we haven't decorated the houses yet, but based upon my roaring successes with the cookies this year, I imagine that they will be as awesome, if not more, than the hysterectomy cake. I will be sure to keep you all posted in what is sure to be a fabulous combination of train wreck and memory making with the children.
If I haven't gone completely crazy by then, that is. Which might make a good story in and of itself. Either way there will be hilarity ensuing.
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