Jolly old Fat Man

Please make sure your children under the age of …well whatever the age is when Santa is no longer part of their lives.   I don’t want to ruin anyone’s Christmas.

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Let me just say that I love Christmas first and foremost.  Christmas music is blaring in my car whenever I am in it, still not helping with the road range thanks to the “SPEICAL” drivers out there. Christmas music plays on my radio at home, ABC’s 25 days of Christmas is usually running unless Lifetime has a better – usually a little depressing Christmas Special (I do see why my husband has threatened to ban this channel for women.) I am excited, I live for the holidays, I live for the cold weather where I can nestle into the couch with a cup of hot cocoa (for roughly 10 minutes until afore mentioned child wants to do something else).  I love my Christmas village and my Christmas Tree and even love my lights outside-which pale in comparison to the Griswold’s down the street. I really should post a picture of the house that lights up the ENTIRE street.  Who knew there were so many varieties of decorations one could cram into a tiny little yard and not blow a circuit.

Did I mention I love my Christmas village? I love pretending that I live there…dare I admit I have an ongoing virtual town running in my head.  When no one is looking my village has a life – IN MY HEAD – so I can’t be too nuts since it is in my head.  But I am dying to know weather or not Lizzy Price and Homer Wilson get married (my two little characters that sit on the bench year after year have a thing going I just know it).  I know someone is judging me right now – well you know what I DON”T CARE because once you have a kid people just stop saying anything, people just look at you with that smile “Oh she has a child so its okay, we will let it go”. 

IN FACT – When you have a kid it suddenly makes sense why it was ok for your mother or grandmother to wear those UGLY holiday sweatshirts and sweaters.  Suddenly it doesn’t seem so tacky – no I am not going to start wearing them but honestly you can get away with it when you are a parent, no one judges you anymore.  Holy Cow have a kid and you literally can walk around in sweatpants and a shirt that could make any pre child fashonista (which according to Microsoft is not a word) cringe and go running for the nearest mall.  Lets be honest there are days when I think some people could make a homeless person look like they have better fashion sense then a parent.  So now down to what brought on my holiday excitement -

My holiday rant.  So what is the deal – “Lying is bad” except for Santa and the Easter Bunny and … well anything around the holidays. Don’t get me wrong my children will grow up with the same old farce as everyone else but why?  Why is this ok?  Why do we think that its ok to teach our children that a Jolly old fat man is delivering toys, heck some gifts are so good I want the credit for crying out loud?  Why do we say its bad to break and enter except for said Jolly Old Fat man.  Why do we teach them that obesity is the cause of all that is bad in our lives – except for the Jolly Old Fat man who really should have a bunch of heart issues since he is so “Jolly” aka Fat.  I just don’t know when it became ok to lie to our youth about this, strange and creepy really.  How dumb do we think our children are – when do we actually admit that we lied to them for the past so many years.  They either start to realize the man doesn’t exist or they start to think the fat guy discriminates since “Joe whoever” got an Ipad and they only got a book –yeah yeah I know who gives books anymore but you get the picture. Like I said I am just curious why these lies – in our parenting minds are fine- and when do we admit to our children that we have-GASP-been lying to them.  I realize that sometimes breaching the subject earlier then later is forced on us since there is no parental agreement that everyone should lie to their kids and that you always wait until age whatever before telling your child there is not Jolly Fat man, unless Grandpa happens to be sitting in the lazy boy then I guess you have to change your wording for fear of a disastrous miscommunication.

So Holy Cow Moment #:  Parents no longer are held at the same standards as the rest of society when it comes to fashion.  I suddenly understand the ugly sweater/sweatshirt for the holidays my mother/grandmother/aunt wore.  And we outwardly lie to our children knowing at some point we will get caught.  Ahh how the holidays just break the rules.