Sometimes a distraction is exactly what you need!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready for Christmas. I’m always thankful for the reason behind the season, I am, but these days that doesn’t seem to be what Christmas is all about. “Oh my goodness, I sound like my mom!”

Let’s see, it started with the request for flat screens, laptops and IPhones. This one’s new, at least to me, Beats (apparently a new type of headphone) and it would seem high on the list for pre-teens this year, a horse and clothes. I’m a buyer, not a shopper (hate shopping), so I appreciate the list but this list is daunting!

Trying to be a good parent I tried reasoning with my kids; surely they didn’t think Santa was bringing all of that, did they? “Pick your favorite,” I said. “You don’t expect Santa to bring you all of those things, do you?” It didn’t go well; according to my kids, I’m a mean parent and it ended ugly. I felt guilty. What? I know…. What? I know that I’m right, but how do they manage to make me feel as if I’m not???? 

My husband interceded as best as he could, a distraction is exactly what we needed, he’d said. It came in the form of a suggestion, followed by a question. “Why don’t we put up the tree, shouldn’t we put up the tree?” My daughters and me stopped arguing (just being honest), and stared at where the tree was supposed to be. I’m actually horrified to say that it hadn’t occurred to me to put up the tree, yet. What was the date?

Like most people, the day after Thanksgiving is when our tree usually goes up, except for this year. Writing, shopping, wrapping, entertaining, deadlines (granted some self imposed and some not), companies, submissions, children, children, children, husband and dogs, seemed to preoccupy my mind. Tree?

We brought in the tree. It was hideous and I mean hideous! My husband did his best to try and make us feel better about the tree. He fluffed and repositioned it, but it didn’t work. He could clearly tell, by the look on our faces, that the tree had to go. He sighed, never said a word, and during a Dallas Cowboy’s game at that, left Aledo, drove to Fort Worth, in order to buy a Christmas tree (I am thankful that he did that J).

Needless to say we decorated the tree, it’s not our best tree, but it is up. I have started Christmas shopping, not happy about it, but like everybody else, I’m getting over it. My kids will not receive everything on their list, but they’ll get over that too, at least I hope so. I have decided not to feel guilty or to try and reason with my kids anymore, I am after all still the parent, (am I not?), though at times I feel as if they win in this thing called parenting!

Sometimes you just need a distraction…