‘Tis the season. Yep, it is that time of year when we finally stop complaining that Walmart has had their Christmas decorations out for over a month and begin browsing to see how we can outdo our neighbors to be the envy of all. I can recall a time when Christmas officially started the day after Thanksgiving. But that day is long gone. Wait, what? Thanksgiving? I seem to recall something about that. Thanksgiving, hmmmm… Oh yeah, Thanksgiving is the practice run for Christmas dinner. But, did you know Thanksgiving is the day we focus on all the things we are thankful for in our lives? Well, that is the archaic version of the holiday. It has evolved into an excuse to have an early gigantic lunch so we can fuel up for a no holds barred shopping marathon that once started the day after.
From reading this, you are probably assuming I am bitter when it comes to the holidays. Well, yes and no. No in that when I was a child, Christmas was the only time of the year when magic actually existed. Each day brought mind numbing anticipation. Am I going to get that power wheel? Will that Nintendo be under the tree? Actually, those two examples were in the late stages of my magical Christmas years. I didn’t want to show my age by saying I wanted an Atari 2600. But even back then it was still all about the magic. Oh yeah, and there was something about Jesus too, I think.
Yes, I am sort of bitter because I have survived 7 Christmas’ at Toys R Us. You want to see the ugly side of the holidays, take on a seasonal job at any retailer. I have looked into the face of the beast and spat in his eye repeatedly. If you are wondering what the beast looks like, it is an amalgamation of a Furby, Tickle Me Elmo, and Nicki Minaj on a good day. Yes, under the beautiful guise of magic and religious celebration beats a shriveled and smoldering heart of greed. And before you deny it, I have actually experienced this numerous times. So, I think I have plenty of evidence.
Exhibit A: go to any store on Black Friday. If you are like me and refuse to do so, search Youtube for Black Friday videos. They should actually be called Red Friday videos due to the amount of blood and carnage. It is disgusting what people are willing to do to get “stuff”.
From reading this, you are probably assuming I am bitter when it comes to the holidays. Well, yes and no. No in that when I was a child, Christmas was the only time of the year when magic actually existed. Each day brought mind numbing anticipation. Am I going to get that power wheel? Will that Nintendo be under the tree? Actually, those two examples were in the late stages of my magical Christmas years. I didn’t want to show my age by saying I wanted an Atari 2600. But even back then it was still all about the magic. Oh yeah, and there was something about Jesus too, I think.
Yes, I am sort of bitter because I have survived 7 Christmas’ at Toys R Us. You want to see the ugly side of the holidays, take on a seasonal job at any retailer. I have looked into the face of the beast and spat in his eye repeatedly. If you are wondering what the beast looks like, it is an amalgamation of a Furby, Tickle Me Elmo, and Nicki Minaj on a good day. Yes, under the beautiful guise of magic and religious celebration beats a shriveled and smoldering heart of greed. And before you deny it, I have actually experienced this numerous times. So, I think I have plenty of evidence.
Exhibit A: go to any store on Black Friday. If you are like me and refuse to do so, search Youtube for Black Friday videos. They should actually be called Red Friday videos due to the amount of blood and carnage. It is disgusting what people are willing to do to get “stuff”.
Fun fact: Since 2006 there have been 7 deaths and 90 serious injuries due to Black Friday shopping.
Exhibit B: I have personally witnessed a tug-o-war/slap fight between two elderly women. Show me where the magic is in this scene. Picture it. The late 1990’s. Power Rangers are all the rage. With the introduction of Tommy the White Ranger, the public goes nuts. In an attempt to create peace and harmony, Bandai (the figure distributor) put 2 white rangers in a case. You can imagine how that helped to make sure every kid got the figure they wanted. That was sarcasm, by the way. I was working my normal shift when a customer asked me if there were any more figures in the back room. Some lady had taken the last Tommy. Policy dictated that we had to be able to put out an entire case or none at all. I glanced at the shelf and saw we could easily put out two cases. As I returned from the storeroom, I turn the corner to witness two elderly women fighting over the stupid figure. I mean physically fighting as much as faulty hips would allow. The lady who had the last Tommy set it in her cart. The other lady figured she deserved to have it and reached in and took it. What did I do? I did what any sane toy store employee deep in the heart of the Christmas season would do. I stood there with my brand new cases of Power Ranger action figures and watched. I wish I could say I was a better man and took bets, but I didn’t have the capital to back them up. So, when the lady who rightfully got the last Tommy back was victorious, I gave the rest of the Tommys to everyone but the lady who tried to steel it. Christmas Justice (that should be said in a Christian Bale Batman voice). This is actually a 100% true story.
So, these experiences have not actually made me bitter so much as opened my eyes to the reality of the season. This sort of gives me the upper hand when it comes to this season of firsts little Hugh is about to experience. My wife and I are not exactly sentimental people. We don’t cry at the beauty of a situation. We don’t build things up to be what we want them to be. We see things as they are.
There are many traditions families have for the holidays. They are different from family to family. But there are universal traditions. Making a spectacle of your kid’s first Halloween, Christmas, and birthday are some of them. Let us take a look at these.
Baby’s first Halloween.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret. My wife and I are living on student income. We can’t really spare too much money for this sort of thing. So, when we couldn’t go all out and make super awesome family costumes, we opted to get creative. I present the invisible boy.
Exhibit B: I have personally witnessed a tug-o-war/slap fight between two elderly women. Show me where the magic is in this scene. Picture it. The late 1990’s. Power Rangers are all the rage. With the introduction of Tommy the White Ranger, the public goes nuts. In an attempt to create peace and harmony, Bandai (the figure distributor) put 2 white rangers in a case. You can imagine how that helped to make sure every kid got the figure they wanted. That was sarcasm, by the way. I was working my normal shift when a customer asked me if there were any more figures in the back room. Some lady had taken the last Tommy. Policy dictated that we had to be able to put out an entire case or none at all. I glanced at the shelf and saw we could easily put out two cases. As I returned from the storeroom, I turn the corner to witness two elderly women fighting over the stupid figure. I mean physically fighting as much as faulty hips would allow. The lady who had the last Tommy set it in her cart. The other lady figured she deserved to have it and reached in and took it. What did I do? I did what any sane toy store employee deep in the heart of the Christmas season would do. I stood there with my brand new cases of Power Ranger action figures and watched. I wish I could say I was a better man and took bets, but I didn’t have the capital to back them up. So, when the lady who rightfully got the last Tommy back was victorious, I gave the rest of the Tommys to everyone but the lady who tried to steel it. Christmas Justice (that should be said in a Christian Bale Batman voice). This is actually a 100% true story.
So, these experiences have not actually made me bitter so much as opened my eyes to the reality of the season. This sort of gives me the upper hand when it comes to this season of firsts little Hugh is about to experience. My wife and I are not exactly sentimental people. We don’t cry at the beauty of a situation. We don’t build things up to be what we want them to be. We see things as they are.
There are many traditions families have for the holidays. They are different from family to family. But there are universal traditions. Making a spectacle of your kid’s first Halloween, Christmas, and birthday are some of them. Let us take a look at these.
Baby’s first Halloween.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret. My wife and I are living on student income. We can’t really spare too much money for this sort of thing. So, when we couldn’t go all out and make super awesome family costumes, we opted to get creative. I present the invisible boy.
Creativity is about all we have right now. This costume is the best costume ever.
Baby’s first Thanksgiving
Let’s face it. Thanksgiving is the forgotten holiday. If you see a Thanksgiving section in the store, it is mostly just left over Halloween stuff that looks sort of fall like. The real Thanksgiving section is in the grocery section where you are encouraged to buy lots of food that mysteriously has gone way up in price but is now marked down to just over the original price to help save you money. Look for pumpkin spice and you know it is officially Thanksgiving approved.
Additionally, Thanksgiving has less original meaning than the year before. I predict that Thanksgiving will be officially called Gray Thursday in the very near future. This is due to the fact that stores are no longer content to make enough money to keep the store running for an entire year in one day. They now have to open on Gray Thursday so that people do not have to spend all that time connecting with their families and eating a wonderful meal together. Calling it Gray Thursday also makes it easier for people to feel good about forcing others to sacrifice their family time by running out on theirs to get the pure junk they need at a price they can’t resist but actually end up spending 20 times more than intended. But none of this has anything to do with baby’s first Thanksgiving. To celebrate this, we are going to do what we do every day.
Baby’s first Christmas
Baby’s first Thanksgiving
Let’s face it. Thanksgiving is the forgotten holiday. If you see a Thanksgiving section in the store, it is mostly just left over Halloween stuff that looks sort of fall like. The real Thanksgiving section is in the grocery section where you are encouraged to buy lots of food that mysteriously has gone way up in price but is now marked down to just over the original price to help save you money. Look for pumpkin spice and you know it is officially Thanksgiving approved.
Additionally, Thanksgiving has less original meaning than the year before. I predict that Thanksgiving will be officially called Gray Thursday in the very near future. This is due to the fact that stores are no longer content to make enough money to keep the store running for an entire year in one day. They now have to open on Gray Thursday so that people do not have to spend all that time connecting with their families and eating a wonderful meal together. Calling it Gray Thursday also makes it easier for people to feel good about forcing others to sacrifice their family time by running out on theirs to get the pure junk they need at a price they can’t resist but actually end up spending 20 times more than intended. But none of this has anything to do with baby’s first Thanksgiving. To celebrate this, we are going to do what we do every day.
Baby’s first Christmas
This is the second largest first there is. This day is all about introducing your kid to the magic of Santa as well as getting free stuff. As I said, we are students, so we won’t be able to do much for Huberto this year. But that is okay because this leads into the overall point I am trying to make. How many of you remember your first Christmas? Your second or third? That is what I thought.
Baby isn’t going to know that this day is a day of wishes being fulfilled by parents who are desperate to please their children by bribing them. For the record, we will be those parents who try to please their children by bribing them once a year. Just not this year. And we are okay with that. Baby isn’t going to look back at his first Halloween and think, why didn’t you make me a better costume and why didn’t you take me around to get lots of candy I won’t be able to eat for a long time? They don’t have a clue what all of this is.
So, that leads me to believe that any baby first is for the parents. Mom, Dad, and all the family go nuts with buying things for baby’s first Christmas. They spend so much money on all this stuff and the kid crawls into the box and eats the wrapping paper. So, why not get your kid boxes and wrapping paper? That is what they are into. I am pretty sure we can swing that.
Baby's First Birthday
Going all out isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If it makes you happy and it doesn’t hurt the kid, go for it. It is important to make your family happy. We don’t plan on doing much until Hugh's first birthday. I think birthdays are different. Instead of supporting some big corporate driven holiday, you are celebrating the birth of your child. That is definitely worth going all out for. And even though your kid won’t remember, you will. And you are the one celebrating. Your kid just reaps the loot. Plus, smearing ones self with frosting while wearing only a diaper is a rite of passage. It is better done when they are young rather than when they turn 30.
So, in conclusion, as we are now officially entering the holiday season, I challenge you to think about what is most important to you. Concentrate on the things that you are thankful for. Contemplate what the season represents to you and strive to center your actions on that. Think about others. Are they sacrificing their holiday so that you can have the junk you want? Since stores are opening on Thanksgiving, is getting trivial nonsense more important than spending time with your family? Send stores a message this year and stay home. More importantly, send your family a message and stay home with them so others can do the same. Help your kids experience the magic that is Christmas by not dying or going to jail. And if you need more horror stories to convince you, I can get them for you.
As a side note, if you do not celebrate Christmas or any of the holidays, that is perfectly fine. Apply all of this to whatever you do or do not celebrate so that you too can enjoy a paid day off.
Baby isn’t going to know that this day is a day of wishes being fulfilled by parents who are desperate to please their children by bribing them. For the record, we will be those parents who try to please their children by bribing them once a year. Just not this year. And we are okay with that. Baby isn’t going to look back at his first Halloween and think, why didn’t you make me a better costume and why didn’t you take me around to get lots of candy I won’t be able to eat for a long time? They don’t have a clue what all of this is.
So, that leads me to believe that any baby first is for the parents. Mom, Dad, and all the family go nuts with buying things for baby’s first Christmas. They spend so much money on all this stuff and the kid crawls into the box and eats the wrapping paper. So, why not get your kid boxes and wrapping paper? That is what they are into. I am pretty sure we can swing that.
Baby's First Birthday
Going all out isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If it makes you happy and it doesn’t hurt the kid, go for it. It is important to make your family happy. We don’t plan on doing much until Hugh's first birthday. I think birthdays are different. Instead of supporting some big corporate driven holiday, you are celebrating the birth of your child. That is definitely worth going all out for. And even though your kid won’t remember, you will. And you are the one celebrating. Your kid just reaps the loot. Plus, smearing ones self with frosting while wearing only a diaper is a rite of passage. It is better done when they are young rather than when they turn 30.
So, in conclusion, as we are now officially entering the holiday season, I challenge you to think about what is most important to you. Concentrate on the things that you are thankful for. Contemplate what the season represents to you and strive to center your actions on that. Think about others. Are they sacrificing their holiday so that you can have the junk you want? Since stores are opening on Thanksgiving, is getting trivial nonsense more important than spending time with your family? Send stores a message this year and stay home. More importantly, send your family a message and stay home with them so others can do the same. Help your kids experience the magic that is Christmas by not dying or going to jail. And if you need more horror stories to convince you, I can get them for you.
As a side note, if you do not celebrate Christmas or any of the holidays, that is perfectly fine. Apply all of this to whatever you do or do not celebrate so that you too can enjoy a paid day off.