Saturday, December 26, 2009

The Day After

Oh.My.Gosh.

I can't believe that, in the days leading up to Christmas, I thought that perhaps I hadn't bought enough. Our family room looks like a picked over Walmart on Black Friday. One cannot walk without stepping on some form of molded plastic. And the batteries...my God the batteries. I keep thinking I need to own stock in Duracell. I own all the batteries they ever made. And I'll just keep on buying. And buying. And buying.

We spend a lot of time with our television. This is an important thing to know before you proceed here. This year we saw that AMC decided to air a "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" marathon--against TBS's "A Christmas Story". In my book Christmas Eve is about 2 things. Watching "It's a Wonderful Life" and then quickly switching the channel in time to see Ralphie nearly shoot his eye out for the first time in a twenty-four hour cycle. I love "NLCV" so much that I can very nearly recite it if the sound died on my tv, but my girls have started to enjoy "A Christmas Story" this year. I felt goosebumps when A recognized what movie it was! They keep asking what soap tastes like and why Ralphie's mom made him eat it. Hubby and I explained that since Ralphie was "sassy" he had to have his mouth washed out. **all the while praying that during the tire-changing scene they didn't ask any further questions!!

My point is that this movie, along with a host of other things (Stauffer's lasagna, Mom's egg casserole, socks with monkeys--or in this special case--socks without monkeys) has become part of the tightly woven fabric of our family Christmas. I have spent way too many brain cells on comparing my family's Christmas to others' celebrations that in some ways I've failed to see what really matters. We have a heck of a good time on Christmas. I really do dream of the day when Christmas dinner is served on fine china (and not dollar store paper plates) and the food on said China is a melt-in-your-mouth-beef-tenderloin (and not a frozen meal from aisle 7) but for now, I'll take it. TV and all.

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