THIS year, THIS Christmas will be a bit different - - by "different" I mean it will be 100% traditional. REUBEN is coming home at Christmas. Now, for the rest of the world a traditional Christmas is probably somewhat ordinary, average, the norm, and certainly from time to time predictable, but in our family - - well, it's OUR family.
Reuben was born under the Sun sign of Aries, so he really should be (and most of the time is) gregarious, happy, fun-loving, giving, and above all friendly - -right? NOT when it comes to traditions. This man is a hard-ass about every tiny detail right down to the FACT that you can't eat Little Smokey sausages before or after the holiday season - - I don't eat them at all, as I am a vegetarian and that FACT pisses my traditionally traditional son off as well. I can't say he's ever held me down and forced me to eat meat; but I would NEVER put it past him to think about it. I think I hear him now - - screaming from Iraq, what, what is it son? "WE WILL BE A TRADITIONAL FAMILY MOM...and we'll love it! You hear me, we're going to have FUN AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT!"
This is the kid that used to come into my room and stomp his foot until I looked up from my iPod-induced trance and demand that not only do I turn the music down so I can hear him ranting about his sisters; I had also apparently forgotten that the Christmas SEASON does not start before Thanksgiving. Baby Boy called me from Iraq on my birthday (November 22) last year to bitch...he'd called his sisters first and found out they'd pulled the Christmas tree down from the attic early. EARLY. (I didn't know there was a TIME for that sort of thing.) He wanted to know "WHY IN HELL" did I pull the tree down from the attic? WHY IN HELL did I allow the girls to plug in the lights - - even if it's just to see if they work? WHY? WHY? Because Target has their lights on sale NOW and if the ones we used last year aren't working I want to save $1.00 if I can, is that such a bad thing? It was. It was a bad thing. That ONE dollar of savings cost me hours of lecturing, listening to the reasons why I can't have Pumpkin Spice coffee in the summer - it's not to be drunken until the first Monday Night Football Game! NO Preseason games get the Pumpkin Spice, that's a FALL drink Mom, a FALL drink. (WHERE did this kid come from?)
His father and I weren't this way - - his father invented the Christmas light game in JUNE - - we played it just before...yeah, OK...never mind. Reuben comes from outer space, not his dad.
Maybe because Reuben came into this world under NON-traditional Christmas activities he feels the need to re-track and get me back in line or something. Wow, does he have a ways to go. I was 24 years old before he came around! What did I do without him? I know I had to have survived somehow! LOL Kids can be so freaking demanding - - He'll come up with "Mom, I'm really a simple man. Very simple man. Just feed me, give me a job -- I do it. Why can't you get that through your head? Put the damn lawnmower back in the garage Mom, it's February! GOD will kill the grass, you don't need to cut it." That's when I explained to him I was going to sell the mower at the garage sale Saturday morning - and then I actually ASKED MY SON if that was OK. I did! I asked my son for permission to sell MY lawnmower - - well, that's OK really. He's been the man of the house for more than 12 years now; he's been a Christmas-Nazi longer - - but this year - - this YEAR....HE IS THE MAN!!! The BEST present God could ever ever ever give us was HIS Son, this year, He's giving me back MINE. If that means I have to keep my clothes on and turn the iPod down, hang the wreath with a red bow on the door - and drink PEPPERMINT MOCHA, well, BY GOD and all things HOLY I will do it! (and fall on my knees thanking my Lord for His grace and his mercy for protecting that hard-headed, narrow-minded, in-the-box thinking man I call my Baby Boy!)
Merry Christmas!!! MERRY MERRY MERRY EVERY DAY!
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