Merry Fucking Christmas

In December, we take the girls out to get the Christmas tree. Now my husband and I have done a lot of Christmases. This is one of the disadvantages to having kids later in life. Just about the time you are “over” the whole big stage production of the holidays, you have kids who care. Really care.

But we persevere. So we follow our annual tradition of taking the girls photo and turning it into a gorgeous Christmas card. They are so clean, and blow dried, with a bit of clear lipgloss. They look like little angels. (OK, so I shot a few hundred pics trying to get the “perfect shot” before they started weeping from the pressure of “Put you heads together and smile. Like you LIKE each other please!”)

We prepare for our annual Christmas party, which means we have to get a tree.

It’s a weeknight, cold out, and it has been a really long day. We load up and do our normal tree ritual, which consists of making pretend I am really considering the ridiculous and pathetic trees my daughters point out, and then making them VERY excited about the special tree which looks like it was “custom made just for us”!

On the way home they start going at each other in the back seat. Well, I’m not that tired, that I can’t put on my Good Mommy routine.
“Now girls, please stop yelling like that, and everyone, remember, keep your hands to yourself. Thank you!”
The silence doesn’t even last a full minute.
Stern Mommy says: “Girls, I have asked you nicely to quit screaming in the back seat. It is distracting while Daddy is driving. Please do what you are asked, and you’re your voices down and your hands to yourself.”
Sterner Mommy: “I mean it, knock it off you two. You are too loud. No TV tonight if you don’t pipe down.”
Angry Mommy: “What is is gonna take? I told you two to BE QUIET and KEEP YOUR DAMNED HANDS TO YOURSELF!!!”
Going off Mommy: “SHUT UP BACK THERE. I MEAN IT!!!”
After one more “episode” I reach around to the back seat, with the full intention of slapping some daughter. In my husband’s large, manly, oddly gangbanger-like Cadillac EXT, it turns out I can’t actually reach them. So while wildly flapping my arm around the back seat (where I indeed catch a little bit of knee skin under my nail) Mommy goes wild: “When I ask you to BE QUIET I mean BE QUIET, SHUT UP, STOP YELLING, STOP SPEAKING, STOP BREATHING, STOP TOUCHING EACH OTHER, STOP, STOP, STOP.”
Quiet.

Ah . . .Take a picture of THIS Christmas moment. You know the one where Mommy has a bit of spittle in the corner of her mouth, eyes somewhat bugged out, Angel Children retracting their feet, holding their little knees to their chest, a bit of Christmas tree branch, rolled up in the window. You know, the picture NOT on our Christmas card?

Say fucking “Ho Ho Ho” to that.