Just When I Needed Santa

The first of the 3,000 Christmas gift catalogs arrived chez nous yesterday and let me tell you, that's almost as exciting as Christmas itself. Mini-Husband and The Princess were quick to grab that thing and begin the endless chant of, "Oh, I want that!" All three of the big kids were out of bed a 7am this morning, not to watch cartoons or jump on my bed, but to look at those freaking catalogues.

I know it really is too early to start thinking about Christmas, but I have to admit that I'm glad to see this catalog. Not at 7am, granted, but seeing these suckers means my arsenal in the form of a "parental bag of punishment ticks" has been refilled when I really needed it to be.

The summer is long gone, the weather is quickly becoming too cold to play outside for long periods of time, and the house seems to have shrunk all of the sudden. There aren't enough rooms, Matchbox cars, or DVDs to keep them happy and away from each other. The constant fighting and yelling is a cacophony that makes me cringe, want to curl up into a ball, and cry. Or start drinking at 10am, which is nuts since most days they are at school and I'm only thinking of suicide between 4:30pm and bedtime.

Here's where the Christmas catalog saves me.

We normally get two catalogs in the mailbox and after I beg Grandma Française for her copy, each child gets a pair of scissors and an envelope. And off they go. Cutting, choosing, and dreaming about what Santa will bring this Christmas. The tattered carcasses of those catalogs, spread all over the dining room table and floor. A mess I'm happy to live with because after they've made that mess and stuffed their envelopes full of pictures of plastic, each of those magic envelopes becomes mine.

"Bubba-Love, stop hitting your sister or I take a toy out of the envelope."

"Mini-Husband, go take a shower or I take a toy out of the envelope."

"Princess, homework. Do it or I take a toy out of the envelope."

We start the season with about 20+ toys in there. But by the beginning of December, they might be lucky to have 5 left. At that point, hopefully the "fluff" toys have gone and Hubster and I can really figure out what to get them for Christmas.

This may be the last year that Mini-Husband still believes in Santa Claus so I'm going to try and use him as my trump card as best I can. It is incredible how an imaginary Santa seems to make getting in trouble less exciting. "Heck, if it's only mom getting mad, who cares! But don't piss of Santa!"

Now that I think of it, perhaps I ought to get Hubster to do the same thing with the power tool catalog from Gedimat. Every time he does something bad, I can take out a sander, a drill, or a buzz saw. He could do the same with me too. I'll clip out pictures of huskies from various dog books and every time I'm naughty, that's one less dog for my imaginary team.

It's a well known fact that the apples at the B&B don't fall too far from this tree. Hence no way I'll be that good either so the risk of actually getting more dogs is (for Hubster, fortunately) slight.

"Dig, You bought another pair of running shoes!?! Baff! There goes your Malamute puppy!"