I Felt Your Presents

Let me ask you a question, my lovelies. When do you think Christmas starts? First of December? Twenty-fifth of December?

Optimistic.

Try mid August. Ish. In truth you can't tell exactly when its going to start. All you know is that it will start during an advert break with the words

"Ooh... I would like one of those!"

And you're off and running. From this point you'll find yourself saying; "If you're good then maybe we'll get you <insert toy name here>." Unfortunately, its not quite that easy. The Kids change their mind like they change their underwear (with the Girl, that's several times a day). The Boy has been doing a lot of Ooh-ing this year. Initially it started with the sort of things you might expect; Hot Wheels, Nintendo, Hexbugs... After a couple of days he started to say it about pretty much every advert. This led to

"Ooh... I would like one of those!"
"Really?"
"Yes! What are they?"
"They're tampons."

Fun? Yes. But six months of this can get a bit dreary. When it finally gets to the time of the year I'm given Christmas cards by people I sit next to at work (WHY???) I'm all strung out with it. Don't get me wrong,
I love Christmas. However... at the risk of sounding peevish, this will be the twenty fifth year running that I don't get an Optimus Prime. So despite loving Christmas, I also find it all rather irksome.

Before I had Kids, Christmas felt (to paraphrase the late, great Douglas Adams) like having my brains smashed out by a bit of tinsel wrapped around a large, gold brick. Too many hours in the pub, too much alcohol, too much Slade, too many drunken headlocks telling people I'd just met "I love you!"

Not that I've finished drinking at Christmas. This weekend the Wife and I found time (and willing babysitters) to go out for drinks and dancing. This ended with the Wife blowing her groceries in the taxi rank and me spending several hours getting intimate with the toilet bowl at home. At one point I woke the Boy up because I was crying "Why won't it stop?" and (bless him) he asked me if I was okay.

That's some great parenting right there.

I woke up with a bruise on my chest from falling into the toilet and when the Boy said "Good morning" I accidentally replied "Armitage Shanks." He then told me that I needed drink hot water for my tummy and trundled off to get me a glass.

"Dad? Is the hot water on the left?"
"Yes."
"Okay! Which way is left?"

This is one of the difficulties of Christmas with the Kids - you just can't afford to drink that much. It's testament to what great children I have that they were content to watch Cbeebies whilst I dozed on the sofa. They even tried to get rid of my hangover, although they did this by riding their scooters over bubble wrap. Which made me a bit shouty.

So the one thing that I used to do at Christmas - drinking - has to stop. Instead Christmas has become all about making sure the Kids have a magical time. Partly through Christingle services and nativity plays which I've covered before, and trips to see Father Christmas. Those personalised videos you can set up from Father Christmas are brilliant too. But the most important thing is to make sure you get the right present.  Now before you say kids are too materialistic these days

"Daddy, can I go in your bedroom?"
"No yet, your Christmas present is in there and its not wrapped."
"Pleeeeeeaaaase???"
"Not until its wrapped!"
"BUT DAD!"
"Look, you can't see your present until Christmas!"
"I KNOW! I WANT TO JUMP ON YOUR BED!"

They're not. I'm an optimist, so I've argued against people who claim people don't understand the spirit of Christmas. Last year I took the Kids to my mum's on Christmas Eve and on the way over...

"You're going to sleep in the big bed at nan's tonight, Boy."
"Yeah, and the Girl can sleep in the car."

Actually, that rather disproves my point...

What I mean is, its nice to see their faces light up, but that's not the main reason to buy the right present. Lets be honest, within five minutes the toy will be lying in the corner of the room whilst you're forced into pushing the Kids around the floor in a box. Or at the very least the Boy will be dressing up the Girl's new doll whilst she chases the cat with his remote controlled car.

No, its important to get the right present because the more they want something, the more able you are to blackmail them with it. And the blackmail game starts in about October, which means we get about two months of relatively good behaviour before filling the house with all manner of noisy, god-awful crap.

Anyway, as a Christmas present I'm going to leave you with a quote from the Boy I've been holding back thus far. Its pretty much my favourite one. It was while we were on a camping holiday about eighteen months ago.

"Daddy, why are you chasing that kite?"
"Because its our tent!"


Merry Christmas everyone!

From the Wife, the Boy, the Girl and Me.