I Am So Popular: If You Simply Can't Resist the GD Holiday

The first is the memory of all those fucking Christmases where I was so torn about the whole thing. When Henry was little, I was wildly opposed to allowing the concept of Santa Claus into our lives. To me, Santa is the embodiment of the long string of lies adults tell children. And then later they wonder why kids don’t trust adults. I still remember how freaked out I was when I figured out Santa was a load of crap and I did not want to pass that onto my child.

This led to some major parenting errors on my part. First of all, after resisting the pressure to buy, buy, buy at the holidays, invariably I would crack on Christmas Eve and, while not going so far as to say there was a Santa after all, I would run over to the Bubba HEB down on Oltorf and buy a bunch of useless plastic crap to heap upon the kid so he wouldn’t feel left out.

One year—I’m guessing he was three—he actually came to me and said, calmly, Look, Mom, I know there’s no Santa Claus but just this year do you think you could get your shit together, acknowledge the fact I am a child full of wonder, and just fake it for a few hours? Another year, not understanding that even my brilliant toddler couldn’t grasp irony (or sarcasm), I told him—because he slept in and wouldn’t rush downstairs to unwrap the plastic HEB crap—that he’d missed Christmas. I think he cried for six hours. That is one I will never, ever live down.

Hen and I came up with a nice compromise starting maybe six years ago when we started running away to the most Catholic place in the world—Mexico—for the stupid holiday. We don’t speak Spanish so they could Feliz Navidad their butts off around us and we could remain somewhat oblivious. But this year, I’m skipping the Mexico trip. And somehow I got it in my head I might try to make the holiday nice and enjoyable for the kid.

Which brings me to point two of my inspiration. God bless Toy Joy for putting up a Fake Christmas Tree lot, which nearly caused me to pee my pantalones when I drove by it recently. It looks remarkably like a real tree lot, except the offerings are utterly garish—shiny fake trees in all sorts of hurts-the-eyes-to-look-at shades of pink and purple and blue, etc. When I spotted a black tree, I was unable to resist. I brought it home, set it up, dragged the Guatemalan nativity set out of the box it had been shoved in for five years, consoled the little clay baby Jesus for only having one leg, and then presented the whole picture of ironic Christmas to my boy.

Frankly, I expected him to take one look at this, wheel around, and say, You bitch. NOW you have Christmas? Now that my precious toddlerhood, the one you filled with holiday trauma, is behind me? Now that I’m 18?

Instead, he grinned like a five year-old.

This helps me so much—not just his happiness, but his willingness to forgive or at least understand some of my more blatant parenting gaffes.

Okay, now you’ve heard the story and I shall reward you by letting you in on some ideas for shopping if, in fact, you simply must shop. I am begging you to please do that shopping locally because even though it might cost a little more than going big box or the Amazon route, I so fear we are going to lose our cool little shops if we don’t support them especially in this sucks-major-donkey-cock economy of ours.

First, Let’s Talk About Giving

Oh, and literally, as I began writing this, I received an email from one of the kid’s all time favorite teachers. She is asking for help—a 31 year-old woman in her congregation just lost her husband to sickle cell anemia. The young widow has four kids, the mortgage is in arrears, and she cannot afford a funeral for her husband, let alone gifts. I’m trying to get the word out to raise some dough for a proper burial, and to gather some new or gently used presents for the kids. I am beseeching you to help me in this effort. Please email me at spike@spikeg.com if you can help—even just a buck or two or a gently used gift gathered from enough of you can make a huge difference.

Okay, Now Let’s Talk About Shopping

Books, books, books:
BookPeople is SpikePeople. I love that place so so so much. And I’m pretty sure that the string of crucifix lights that Baby Daddy gave me came from there—boy they look shiny and bright on my black tree. Open Christmas Day if you want someplace to go and escape the holiday. Workers will accept homemade cookies.

BookWoman is a big reason I moved to Austin. They recently moved and expanded to include a bunch of art and jewelry from Bali. They also have a badass collection of funny feminist t-shirts including my favorite, which reads UTERUS but looks like U TEXAS. And they have free events all the time.

Frugal Media opened recently and operates much like Half Price Books. Some of you might recall I sold my Gutenberg Bible at ½ Price for $1.50 recently so I decided to sell my recent batch of books to Frugal. You won’t get rich over there but it is an alternative and, at least for now, the wait is a whole lot shorter.

Local Arts & Crafts: