For the last few Christmases, my dear family unit has been experiencing a bit of a downward spiral. I am not someone who points fingers or lays blame at everyone else's feet, but saying that...my kids are totally at fault. My wife has fallen in with their general mindset, only because she's an awesome mother and has tons of empathy for them. Well, if they want to start sneering and shooting annoyed glances at one another every time the word "Christmas" is uttered, then that's as good as a declaration of war for me. My weapons of choice shall be humiliation and Christmas t-shirts.
To understand what an awful blow this recent attitude shift has been to the family unit as a whole, you first have to understand how crazy we've always been about Christmas. Even when the kids were really young, the wife and I would put boots in the fireplace ashes and make footsteps all around the Christmas tree to make the youngsters think that Santa had visited the night before. All of that giddy excitement is long gone now, dissipated into the wind of pubescent change. That's why these kids need some Christmas t-shirts with lots of kittens and angels and rhinestones.
I nailed up a cork bulletin board up next to the front door early in the morning, only explaining that it was for family announcements. No one suspected a thing. I asked my boy if he wanted to help put up decorations outside since Thanksgiving was only a week away, and we needed to get a jump on it before it got too busy. Just as I expected, I got some lame excuse and a huge roll of the eyes like I was a complete moron for expecting him to help. Bad move, buddy. It's humiliation time. I tossed him one of the Christmas t-shirts I had prepared for just such an occasion. He held it up in front of him. It had caroling snowmen all over it.
I informed him very calmly that we were instating a new policy that every time someone in the house went against the Christmas spirit, they would have their picture taken in one of our new Christmas t-shirts and it would be posted on the bulletin board until after New Year's. You should have seen the horror on his face. I told him that if he didn't want to comply, that would be fine...but he would lose his phone for a whole week. With as much reluctance as he could possibly muster, he put the shirt on...and then there was a picture of him on the bulletin board just minutes later and he was helping with the outside decorations.
Well, soon enough everyone made an appearance on the board of shame. Yes, even I have spent my time wearing Christmas t-shirts on the board. I may love Christmas, but I can get just as grumpy as anyone else. After a while, we all took it for the joke that it was, though, and had fun wearing these silly shirts and taking really outrageous photos. It stopped being an embarrassment and started being something funny we could show to guests. In fact, my son is in college now and may even have those picture on his Facebook page. The point is that everyone needs a reality check sometimes, even if it's with Christmas t-shirts.
To understand what an awful blow this recent attitude shift has been to the family unit as a whole, you first have to understand how crazy we've always been about Christmas. Even when the kids were really young, the wife and I would put boots in the fireplace ashes and make footsteps all around the Christmas tree to make the youngsters think that Santa had visited the night before. All of that giddy excitement is long gone now, dissipated into the wind of pubescent change. That's why these kids need some Christmas t-shirts with lots of kittens and angels and rhinestones.
I nailed up a cork bulletin board up next to the front door early in the morning, only explaining that it was for family announcements. No one suspected a thing. I asked my boy if he wanted to help put up decorations outside since Thanksgiving was only a week away, and we needed to get a jump on it before it got too busy. Just as I expected, I got some lame excuse and a huge roll of the eyes like I was a complete moron for expecting him to help. Bad move, buddy. It's humiliation time. I tossed him one of the Christmas t-shirts I had prepared for just such an occasion. He held it up in front of him. It had caroling snowmen all over it.
I informed him very calmly that we were instating a new policy that every time someone in the house went against the Christmas spirit, they would have their picture taken in one of our new Christmas t-shirts and it would be posted on the bulletin board until after New Year's. You should have seen the horror on his face. I told him that if he didn't want to comply, that would be fine...but he would lose his phone for a whole week. With as much reluctance as he could possibly muster, he put the shirt on...and then there was a picture of him on the bulletin board just minutes later and he was helping with the outside decorations.
Well, soon enough everyone made an appearance on the board of shame. Yes, even I have spent my time wearing Christmas t-shirts on the board. I may love Christmas, but I can get just as grumpy as anyone else. After a while, we all took it for the joke that it was, though, and had fun wearing these silly shirts and taking really outrageous photos. It stopped being an embarrassment and started being something funny we could show to guests. In fact, my son is in college now and may even have those picture on his Facebook page. The point is that everyone needs a reality check sometimes, even if it's with Christmas t-shirts.
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