tag archive: christmas

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do another Christmas post. It is December in the United States, of course, so it’s natural enough to talk about it, but…

(Wait: is it December in other parts of the world?)

(Wait: is it a natural topic of conversation? There’s a war on, you know.)

My uncertainty grew from a desire not to skew LoBloPoMo too much in any one direction. (Other than the obvious bias toward talking about LoBloPoMo.) And… I dunno. The idea I had… “War on Christmas?” People are either tired of this (most of us) or way too amped up about it (actors playing politicians and pundits on TV).

With 36 days, December is so long. Especially when you’ve said you want to post every day. And, when you’re not a Christmas shopper. There isn’t the threat of that deadline. The constant reminder of a dwindling number of “shopping days” doesn’t feel so much like the days of your life running out. That’s not totally true. My mom refuses to give up Christmas gift exchanges, and there are a few kids in the family to shop for. With just those few people, it’s worrisome enough.

We finally got a real (fake) tree after we had a human kid, but instead of letting the cats pursue their natural instincts, we established a perimeter of motion-activated sprayers to guard the tree and ornaments. They effectively deterred the cats and our daughter.

It had to be done. The orange cat had military training before joining our household, specializing in higgledy-piggledy ops.

I started to wonder if she was figuring it out. The fraud. Maybe she hasn’t yet completed her investigation, but she’s observant enough to see the signs. And savvy enough to understand it pays to keep buying into the delusion. It made me a little sad to think about how all this deceit might affect her. She trusts and relies on us, and we’re lying to her.