Take that cookie and shove it!

I can hardly wait to visit my children when they are grown. This Christmas season as I look around my house I find myself planning the wonderful times we’ll have together.

I’ll arrive a few weeks before Christmas so I can help decorate. First, I’ll take the lights outside and bang them on the side of the house. After I’ve broken half the strand and tied it into knots I’ll toss it on the roof and exclaim, “That is soooooo beautiful!”.

I’ll beg, plead, cry and argue about whose turn it is to put the star on top of the tree. Then I’ll insist it’s my turn and would my children please hoist me up to the top so I won’t break a hip?

I’ll look appreciatively at the nativity scene then hide Baby Jesus in the toy chest, pop the head off one of the Wisemen and glue it back on with cranberry sauce.

I’ll volunteer to make sugar cookies. I’ll leave bits of dough under the sink, in the pantry and I’ll use some to make a Santa face on the oven door. When I clean up, I’ll thoroughly dust the kitchen with flour before taking a wet rag to wipe down the surfaces leaving behind a nice crusty haze. Then I’ll eat all the cookies.

I’ll want to make crafts. Lots and lots of crafts that require large amounts of glitter, glue and tiny pieces of paper. I’ll set up my crafting on the dining room table. I’ll get tired after building several three dimensional glitter-glue-paper objects and need to take a nap on my children’s bed where I’ll shed all the glitter, glue and paper off my clothes.

I’ll eat nothing but candy for three days then vomit piles of chocolate-peppermint-cinnamon-orange on every rug, pillow, blanket and shoe they own. When they offer me a plastic bucket, I’ll refuse and tell them, “No thanks, I feel much better now.”

I’ll use three rolls of wrapping paper to wrap a gift card.

I’ll hide the scotch tape in my car and put the scissors in the dryer.

I’ll violently shake all the packages under the tree and repeatedly say, “THIS BETTER NOT BE CLOTHES!!!”

Right before we leave for Christmas Eve services at church I’ll spill juice on the kids’ new outfits, pour mud in their shoes and hide them outside.

When Christmas dinner is served I’ll heap my plate with mashed potatoes and bread then tell my children how bad everything smells and I’m not very hungry.

On my way out the door I’ll give them all a hug, tell them how much I love spending Christmas with them, then smash six ornaments, just because.