Christmas Season is Akin to Jungle Warfare

Its been a while and rightly so. I had the Furious Five for three weeks straight while FFB did his year end push. The holidays have typically been a sore spot for me. In the past I’ve busted my big ass to make sure everyone gets what they want or need and put a lot of thought into gifts. I work my ass off to cook Thanksgiving and make sure that the food is delish. However, I would frequently end up eating cold food while tending to others needs and often found myself watching people open gifts while I drink my coffee and look at my plethora of gifts that were purchased from the Dollar Tree or Big Lots. Needless to say its tough getting into the spirit. And I’m noticing my ability for saying witty things is lacking. But that will change after the first of the year.

With the conclusion of Turkey Day was the FFB travel marathon in which we had some issues. One kid got kicked off the bus for the week so there was additional driving required for that. Between that and basketball and taekwondo, the weeks were busy. The day the Bus Pariah got to go back on the bus he remembered a parent or guardian needed to sign his form. Well I’m neither so I successfully taught the boy that its OK to tell a white lie to get what you want and signed my first name with their last name. In my defense, I’m corralling 5 children and taking them places. I have no time to get Bus Pariah to school and then try to make it 20 minutes to my house in another school district to get my kids to school. You do what you have to in order to survive. Jungle Warfare 101, baby. That afternoon I got a call that he had a choir concert. The day before I was handed a warning letter from the before school program his littlest one is in about many of the same complaints and observations I have about the child. By the time FFB came home I was tired and a tad frustrated.

In between I did get a chance to get away to San Francisco with my friend Coco Chanel for a few days in which I managed to drink way too much in Napa and hurl all over the beautiful bathrooms at the Coppola winery. A week later I got a text from Coco Chanel letting me know it just dawned on her that at that very moment in time the week earlier I was barfing. I love her. She makes me laugh at myself. I laugh at her sometimes too. Especially when we’re ripping through downtown San Francisco on Segways. Fucking awesome dude.

Now we’re in the Christmas crush where the kids are insisting on telling everyone what they’re getting from Santa. Similarly, my littlest one is afraid of being mean because when we saw Santa on Saturday he told him to be nice or Nick wasn’t getting any toys. My ex called me to tell me that he called the house to talk to Tyler and he can hear Nick and my mom going at it in the back ground. Nick’s pissed because mom turned the TV off so he’d eat. Therefore he didn’t want his pancake and he didn’t want to talk to his dad who can hear the two of them yelling at each other. So, I played on that little boys fear that Santa was going to take his presents away for being naughty –something he expressed concern about on Saturday after we saw the jolly red suit. I had a co-worker call the house and pretend to be Santa and tell Nick he heard he was not talking nice to Grandma and that he’s watching Nick very closely over the next few days to make sure he listens and uses his manners like Mr. Hurd (taekwondo teacher) told him and that if he continues to behave the way he was this morning Santa was not stopping by the house on Saturday night. Got a call from mom right after he hung up that there was an abrupt 180 from Nick, but Tyler was not happy because Santa didn’t talk to her. So, I told mom to tell her that Santa was only calling the kids on the naughty list this year and she bought it. Score one for mom and her ingenuity. And her apparent willingness to lie to children…..