This weekend’s been busy for my family. We attended an Indiana Pacers game Friday night to support a friend who was performing in the pre-game show and sat with her friends and family. Yesterday afternoon, we went to a farewell party for my former boss and saw many of former co-workers I hadn’t seen in ages. Last night, my husband took me out to dinner for my birthday. Since we didn’t have to pick the kids up for a while, we spent about an hour in the restaurant bar, talking to a couple of other patrons and the very funny bartender.

None of this is extraordinary, except that during these various events, people once again made the assumption that I was, of course, politically conservative. With Super Tuesday looming, the conversations seemed to turn toward politics – nationalized health care, the environment, foreign policy, and the Iraq War which the Bush administration has done such a complete job of spinning, it HAD to be accompanied by talk of 9/11.

Since these were all social events and I was surrounded by people whom I like very much, I held my tongue most of the time. I politely smiled and nodded while my very sweet husband, who is far more conservative than I am in most ways, tried to come to my defense, pointing out the more egregious flaws in their assertions as kindly as he could

The long and short of it is – I’ve spent the whole weekend silently mulling over all this crap. And today, as I was doing the breakfast dishes and preparing for tonight’s Super Bowl party, I found myself singing an old George Michael song. All his silly antics aside, Michael’s a pretty good musician, and this song is one of my favorites. It took me a while to realize that this song has been stuck in my head all weekend, and it says all the stuff I wanted to say in a beautiful and kind way that I would never have been able to manage. The song is off his “Listen Without Prejudice” CD from 1990. Even almost 20 years later, the lyrics are hauntingly relevant:

These are the days of the open hand
They will not be the last
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars and the choosers

This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past
Hand in hand with ignorance
And legitimate excuses

The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we’ll take our chances
Because God’s stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all God’s children
Crept out the back door

And it’s hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much, much too late
Well maybe we should all be praying for time

These are the days of the empty hand
Oh, you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year

This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here

So you scream from behind your door
Say “What’s mine is mine and not yours.
I may have too much but I’ll take my chances
Because God’s stopped keeping score.”

And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That he can’t come back
Because he has no children to come back for?

It’s hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time

-         “Praying for Time” by George Michael 1990

Amen.

When I was a kid, there was only one holiday. THE holiday. Christmas. Presents. Santa. Presents. Food. Presents. Parties. Presents. It was all about December 25th.

Then I grew up, got married and had kids of my own.

Christmas is now one of my least favorite holidays. It’s just way too hard. All the decorating, the baking, the shopping, the wrapping, the get-togethers. And it’s all gotta sparkle magically. Argh.
At this point in my life, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Think about it. It’s the perfect holiday.

1. No decorating required. Now I do a bit of autumn/Thanksgiving decorating, but it’s not a lot. Takes me about 15 minutes to change my dining room tablecloth and centerpiece, add some turkey, corn, pumpkin and scarecrow decorations to my living room, and we’re appropriately festive.

2.  No gifts to select, hunt down, purchase, hide and wrap. No e-mails back and forth to find out what Uncle Joe wants this year. No Amazon wish lists. No breaking the family budget to buy little Timmy the X-Box he’ll die without. No racing out at some ridiculous hour to fight psychotic shoppers over the last X-Box at Wal-Mart at the fabulous sale price that will save you $20.

3. No insanely long list of holiday activities that we must complete or risk breaking ages-old family tradition, thus emotionally scarring little Timmy and Janie for their lives.

4. No exclusion. I can wish anyone and everyone a happy Thanksgiving 100% worry-free. Anybody I encounter anywhere can participate if they want. Thanksgiving’s not a Christian holiday, a Jewish holiday, a Muslim holiday, a black or white or lovers’ or Irish-American or anything else. Even my foreign students enjoy the time off and seem to regard Thanksgiving as a quaint, harmless tradition.

A few of my non-American students were curious about my family’s customs and seemed bemused by my answers. They wanted to know what we do on this day of giving thanks. That’s what made me realize why I love this holiday so much. What do we do?  Well, we cook, we eat, we watch football and nap. What could be better than that?

If you think Christmas is better, more power to you. Enjoy the beginning of your season, marked by the doorbuster, pre-dawn sales at department stores around the country. I’ll be in bed, sleeping off my turkey binge.

Happy Thanksgiving!

1. Compared to before you had children, it will take you twice as long to get out the door to go somewhere. The time increases exponentially with additional children.

2. You will have one-tenth as many opportunities for sex, and you’ll be too tired or irritated to take advantage of most of them.

3. Your house will never be completely clean again because the minute you finish cleaning one room and move on to another, your children will go into the first room and spill juice or Cheerios, get out a game or puzzle with 1000 pieces, or, better yet, throw up.

4. The kitchen will become your prison; the moment you have all the dishes in the dishwasher, the floor swept and the counters wiped, your child will announce that he’s hungry.

5. You will no longer eat hot food because whenever you sit down to eat, your child will need a new diaper, a refill on juice, or help cutting their food. Very often, they will need all of the above at the same time. If you have more than one child, you may not eat at all.

6. Even if you do manage to lose all your baby weight, you will not look the same as you did before you had children. You will have no time to do your hair or put on makeup; your clothes will all have stains of various hues. Many days, you will not even have time to take a shower.

7. Forget sleep. One of your children will be sick or experiencing nightmares almost every night. And if they do manage to sleep through the night, you won’t sleep anyway because you’ll be waiting for them to wake up, and you’ll be worrying about all the things you didn’t get done for tomorrow.

8. You will no longer be able to just watch the news. Every violent crime or natural disaster that is reported will send you into an emotional tailspin as you start worrying about the safety and well-being of your own children.

9. However many children you have, multiply it by two. That is how many children will be in your home at any one time once they start school and start having friends over.

10. You know how you can’t wait for your kids to be in school full-time so that you’ll have more free time? Forget it. Having kids in school means doing homework (yes, you too), chaperoning field trips, packing lunches, dealing with fundraisers, attending open houses and parent-teacher conferences, going through backpacks every night, and managing mountains of papers that get sent home daily.

11. You will reach levels of frustration of which you did not even know were capable as your little one’s favorite word becomes “NO!”

12. You will receive loads of advice, especially from people who do not have children.

13. You will need to go back to school to get a degree in engineering so you can figure out how to extricate their toys from the “childproof” packaging, how to set up their stroller, and how to put their car seat in correctly.

14. Every “expert” will give you a different opinion on every aspect of your child’s life. No matter what you feed your kids, how you put them to sleep, what toys you give them, you’ll be doing it all wrong.

15. You will become an expert on poop.

16. You will know more about Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer and Buzz Lightyear than about fashion, sports or current events.

17. You will be able to recite “Green Eggs and Ham” (or some other Dr. Seuss masterpiece) by heart.

18. The old saying, “Father works ‘til set of sun, but Mother’s work is never done,” is pure, unadulterated truth.

19. Remember those grandparents who were so excited about having grandbabies?  They’ll have plans every Friday and Saturday night and will, therefore, be sadly unavailable to babysit.

20. You’ll adore your children, but you’ll constantly wonder, “What would life have been like if we hadn’t had any?!”

I’ve been awake for just over 1 hour, and already I’m sympathizing with Andrea Yates.

It’s a school day, so I had to get up and get my kids ready. No problem. I tossed on some workout pants, a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and my flip-flops, and I was the picture of fashion. I headed downstairs to put my son’s lunch into his lunchbox (he refuses to eat the school lunches) and found his homework, undone, sitting on the counter. Realizing I needed some extra time to help him finish that, I raced through the kitchen, making hot chocolate, grabbing Pop-Tarts, and pouring cereal into car-friendly containers. Then I ran upstairs, turned the corner, hooked my hip on the corner of the stairwell and knocked a bag off the shelf. I rubbed my hip and snatched the bag off the floor. Just looking at this particular bag made me mad: it contains cargo pants that I bought for my husband; they were too long, so I exchanged them. Then they were too tight. I told my husband he can take them back, and he was irritated and told me not to bother buying him clothes anymore. I won’t. At least until he starts complaining again about his pants having holes in them.

I went in to wake up my son. My son’s a very good kid but not in the morning. He’s just not a morning person; he gets that from me. This morning, however, he was particularly whiny, especially when I told him we needed to do his homework. He started kicking every unfortunate piece of furniture in his path until he stubbed his toe. Then he began to cry in earnest. I managed to get him dressed and brushed and installed him downstairs with his breakfast and homework.

My baby girl’s not all that fussed about mornings either. Plus, she’s been coughing all night the past few nights. So when I walked into her room to get her up, she immediately started crying, “no, no, no.” I wrestled her into her clothes, wetted down her unruly curls and took her downstairs.

At that point, our neighbor girl popped in to ride with us to school. I noticed she was wearing a jacket and asked her about the weather. She said it wasn’t cold, but I asked my son if he wanted his jacket. No, he said, he didn’t want it. I checked his homework and threw it into his bookbag, then started herding the three kids into the van. We’d taken four steps outside when my son started whining about being cold. Of course, my little girl had to chime in, “Jacket! Jacket!” I told them I’d get their jackets once they were all in the car and buckled up. My son also announced that he had a headache and needed some Tylenol. Fine.

I got them into the van, then ran in and grabbed jackets, a Tylenol and a cup of soda. The microwave clock said we were supposed to be leaving…NOW! I raced back outside, tossed the jackets to the kids, and handed the soda and Tylenol to my son. I shut the door and got into my seat just in time to hear my daughter start a coughing fit. She coughed so hard, she threw up all over herself. Cheerios and hot chocolate. It smelled great. My son and his friend started gagging.

I ran back into the garage and grabbed an old towel out of a box of rags. I cleaned her up as best I could, trying to calm the two older kids down so they wouldn’t throw up too. Then I jumped back into the driver’s seat and promptly backed up over the trash cans that the garbage men had so kindly put right behind the corner of my van. I got out for the third time, tossed the cans into the yard and proceeded to drive the kids to school. We were a couple minutes later than usual, but we were still in the middle of the drop-off line.

When we pulled around in front of the doors, I jumped out and let the kids out. Our neighbor girl hopped out and bopped away, but my son took his sweet time getting out, then announced that he wanted his jacket on. So I’m trying to get his jacket on him and hand him his backpack, which is rather heavy today since it’s full of library books because it’s library day. He’s whining about being cold and his heavy backpack, and we’re holding up the entire line of cars, and one of the teachers hurries over to help. I was mortified. The very sweet teacher hustled him off so I could get back in the car and pull forward. I’ve never been so happy to get rid of my son.

The instant we pulled away, my daughter started crying for her brother. I was so busy trying to calm her down that I nearly blew a stop sign and got flipped off by a lady driving one of those short buses for one of the daycare centers. Classy. I’m glad my kids don’t go to daycare.

My little girl’s going through this cute little phase where she asks for something, you give it to her, she screams, you take it away, she screams again. During our 8-minute trip back home, she pulled this stunt three times - with her sippy cup, a blinking ice cube toy, and a piece of gum. We got into the house and I gratefully abandoned her to Blue’s Clues. Thank God for Joe and Blue.

Did I mention I haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet?

Every year around this time, I start rethinking my choice of religion.

It actually begins around Halloween when sadistic retailers begin putting out Christmas decorations in an attempt to entice shoppers into boosting lagging October sales. Seeing Christmas trees in October sends me into a panic attack. As a type-A person, I am always sure that I’ve forgotten something, that I’m missing something, that I’m behind. When all those yuletide trimmings start popping up, I am in an instant tizzy: Has everyone else started their shopping already?!

It just gets worse from there. My children see the trees and pictures of Santa and television commercials advertising holiday sales, and they start their Christmas begging. My parents and in-laws begin sending me e-mails and calling me to find out what is on everyone’s wish lists. Every friend and acquaintance I have suddenly needs to put an event on my calendar. There are decorations to be hung, cards to be sent, parties to attend, cookies to bake, and dinners to prepare.

And there’s all the silly little things that shouldn’t matter, but they do because Christmas comes only once a year. See, we have all this stuff, and it’s stuff that we have to use in the month of December because using it in May or June would be weird and/or depressing. First, there’s clothes and jewelry - Santa sweatshirts, snowflake sweaters, red and green plaid skirts and blazers, jingle bell earrings. I have to go through my closet and pull out all these items to make sure I wear them or they’ll just sit for another year, collecting dust. Then there are books to read, especially Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” my all-time favorite book that I have read every year since I was about 10. 

Finally, there are CD’s, MP3’s, videos and DVD’s. I have to hunt down all my music and movies that we must listen to or watch now or wait another year. And the collection is getting ridiculous, especially the movies: “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “White Christmas,” “A Christmas Story,” “Elf,” “Mickey’s Christmas Carol,” “Rudolph,” “Frosty,” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

There’s just one other thing that makes my Christmas less than merry. The imbalance between what my female friends and I are doing and what my husband, my father and their guy friends are doing to prepare for the holidays. Don’t get me wrong: my husband and my dad are both wonderful men, and I adore them. But when they say, “Why are you so stressed? Everything will be fine even if you don’t get all that stuff done,” I want to scream! They do little, if any, shopping, wrapping and cooking. If it were up to them, no cards would be sent, no decorations would be hung (except maybe the outside lights which is their responsibility, but they have to be hounded into putting them up). Christmas would be like any other day. So how can they wonder why I’m stressed? Do they really think everything would be just fine even if all their women did nothing to prepare? Argh.

So now it’s two weeks before Christmas, and I’m only about a third done with shopping. I have two dinners I have to attend tonight, so I’ll be leaving one early to get to the other one late. My son is attending two parties and throwing another one at our house. We ordered our Christmas cards online two weeks ago, but they haven’t arrived yet, so I’ll be rushing to get those out the minute they come in. Yet another joyful, peaceful, relaxing holiday season.

If it weren’t for Jesus being such a great guy who deserves a really great birthday, I think I’d go Buddhist. At least for the month of December.