Christmas Card Evolution

I've been mentally writing this post for a while now but ended up missing the mark on timeliness because the holidays refused to slow down. So before you proceed, I ask that you dial your mental calendar back a day or seven.

I love Christmas mail. (On the other hand, I don't like post Christmas mail at all.) Not only am I sure to be collecting packages from my online Christmas shopping, but there's also the cards. Christmas cars are exciting because it's mail that's not a bill. With email and texting and social media, we don't use "snail mail" much anymore. But I've noticed a certain pattern with card sending and I think it directly corresponds to age.

See, when you're first starting out, maybe single, or maybe newly married, the process goes like this:

The day after Thanksgiving: Prepare list of card recipients.
Two days after Thanksgiving: Buy cards and postage stamps.
Three days after Thanksgiving: Fill out cards, including a small, personal note in each one. Address and stamp envelopes. Place in mailbox the next day. The whole procedure is completed by the first of December.

Having a child might change this scenario, but not by much. It might now include making personalized photo Christmas cards to show off your super special progeny and also, it might cause the timeline to be off by about a week. So now the entire process is completed by the end of the first week of December.

Now adding another kid can either put this timeline off by another week if you're super organized or, if you're like me, it could mean you only manage to get the cards out every other year. You have good intentions, but they get buried under school concerts, baking for parties, and trying to wrap presents in the 35 minutes between your kid's bedtime and you passing out in an exhausted heap.

Anything after those two kids though and you're entering serious fairy tale land. "Once upon a time, Mommy had more than three brain cells and used to mail magical cards of Christmas joy to her friends and family. Then youse guyses was borned and hooked on phonics stopped working for me. The end."

This becomes the new card sending process:

Thanksgiving: I should send cards early this year and get ahead of the game this year. I'll take a picture of the kids tomorrow.
Four days after Thanksgiving: Crap, I forgot to take a picture of the kids.
December 3rd: Sh*t! I still haven't taken a picture of the kids. I really want to send picture cards because I forgot to send them last year. And the year before.
December 8th: Oh. My. God. Are you kidding me? I need to get those cards ordered. Where's my camera?
December 15th: Are you %@$*# serious right now? I might as well just buy some cards at Target at this rate. If I buy them tonight I can get them to the post office tomorrow and they'll arrive before Christmas.
December 16th: Ugh, I forgot cards last night. How did I still walk out of there with $78 of crap?
December 20th: Holy crap, how did it get to be 5 days before Christmas? Maybe I can still sneak some cards out. There's still 4 mail days until Christmas after all.
December 26th: F**k. I forgot cards again this year. Maybe I'll take a picture right now and start on next year's right now. No, I'm sure I'll get them out on time next year.

Of course, I now manage to complete the whole "card trick" every third year. And only because Walmart has a cool function that allows you to order and pay online and stop by the store to pick them up. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure my card days would have been long over. Of course, once I'm retired and have all that time on my hands, I'll have the ability to be organized and prepared again. Too bad that's still 20 years away.

In My Honest and Clearly Superior Opinion

Do you know what “IMO” stands for? It stands for in my opinion. (Yes, I’m that hip to know popular acronyms. Without having to ask my kids first!) Opinions remind me of a funny saying I once read: Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one. (I’d like to give credit for whoever coined that phrase but sadly, I don’t know. I could Google it or just tell you some really wise person with a good sense of humor made up a funny saying.) 

Sometimes we disguise our opinions and call them “advice”. Because really, advice is just one person telling you something they think you should do. For some reason, advice is rarely received well and the hardest to swallow usually involves parenting. Because parenting seems to be some super competitive sport with everyone trying to come in first place. And if you’re doing it “wrong”, you should try it *my* way instead.

Now, I’d like to be on my high horse and say I've NEVER been guilty of passing along unsolicited parenting tips. I’d like to. But it would be a big, fat, juicy lie. Because I think all parents have that one, crowning glory that makes them feel like they've mastered the whole parenting gig. Face it, if we didn't get one of those moments, we’d all be drooling, straight-jacket wearing messes in the parking lot from trying to raise our kids. It’s probably God’s way of giving us a self-esteem boost and saying, “You can do this.” So we share our achievements and try to make all those who use our non-working, obviously not as important method of potty training/sleep training/teething relief conform to our ways. Come to the dark side. We have cookies. (I love this line. This is either from another really clever person or a t-shirt. Or maybe a movie. I forget which. Some files were deleted the last time my brain crashed.)

Here are some of my favorite (sarcasm font) scenarios where parents get, ahem, “positive feedback” from others:

The Great Sleep Debate. 

Okay, yes, I mentioned I was tired because my ten month old baby started teething and gets me up twice a night again. It was probably an attempt to warn you not to expect any great surges of brainpower because I’m not sure all units are functioning. I don’t need a fix. I don’t want to let the baby “cry it out”. What kind of monster am I here? This little creature’s been on this planet less than a year and I’m supposed to say, “Suck it up kid, mama’s gotta work in the morning.”? Hey, how about, “You’re cramping my style kid, mom needs a solid 7 in order to get through the work day without stabbing someone at the water cooler.” (That one might be a bit violent for the under 40 crowd.) I’m sure this is temporary and at some point the kid will realize how awesome sleeping is. If he’s 5 still sleeping in a porta-crib in my bedroom, please start the intervention. Until then, I’m gonna snuggle this one before he gets too old for such things.

Food Issues, numbers 1-429. (This is a conservative estimate.)

Kids are odd little things when it comes to food. They don’t eat green foods, things can’t touch on their plate, they only eat grilled cheese and pickles for a 6 month stretch…..and on and on. If you have a picky eater, meals outside your home suck. And because other people are present for this, they feel obliged to point out your parental deficiencies because their child loves all vegetables and only eats organic foods. They can hardly believe that their precocious palated child is hobnobbing with your processed food loving chicken nugget and mac and cheese covered kid. Never mind the fact that they aren't the ones who have to deal with the nightly dinner torture of a whiny, crying, stubborn kid who fights about eating foods other than his safe 5: mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza-but-not-the-square-kind-only-the-triangle-kind, string cheese, and Lucky Charms. Never mind the fact that at least you’re feeding your kid and while you’re pretty sure he’s only getting 37% of his daily nutritional requirements, you've found handy things like gummy vitamins and that Pediasure junk to make sure he grows up and doesn't have rickets or bone stuntedness. While I’d love to get my kid to drink kale smoothies and eat tofu burgers instead of that evil red meat, I can’t even pretend that I’d like that crap. I’m not up for drinking anything green on purpose and if you made me switch my red meat to tofu I’d react VERY badly. So let’s just congratulate each other on making it through another day where we found enough food groups that didn't offend that 3 ½ foot tyrant of ours and that he isn't going to bed hungry. Can we just do that?

Developmental issues. (You know, those annoying milestones and whatnot.)

Oh. My. God. Yes, you are clearly raising a genius who was potty trained at 18 months, spoke in full grammatically correct sentences by 2, and could do a 100 piece puzzle in 48 seconds at age 3. Thank you for sharing. Meanwhile, I’m struggling to stop myself from rushing out and buying him a sturdy helmet to protect his head since he’s starting to pull himself to a standing position and falls and smacks his head about 10 times a day. He has the perfect knack for finding sharp corners with his noggin and it’s stressing me out. And God save me when the why phase comes into play because I barely made it through the first three times with my sanity intact. (Actually, it’s debatable if it truly is intact but that’s a story for another day.) While I’m proud of your sweet lil’ dumpling for her accomplishments, please shut your pie hole, you’re making the rest of us sleep deprived, thought lacking, slobbering parental units feel like we’re lacking. Which we really are and what we’re lacking is brain cells. Because our kids ganged up on us and systematically snuffed out every single iota of intelligence we used to possess and replaced it with lost shoe whereabouts, favorite foods, and the lyrics to half a dozen kid’s shows theme songs. We need a new slogan moms and dads. How about this “Parenthood: It’s really not a competition!”

So the next time those golden words of wisdom are poised on the tip of your tongue, ready to take flight and nestle into someone else’s subconscious, maybe you should just swallow them instead. We can all become card carrying members of the “A-OK Parents Club” where our children aren't perfect, but they ARE breathing and beating on their siblings, so we must be A-OK!