You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

So...yeah.  I officially hate Christmas.  I'm done with it.  And I know that makes me the Grinch.  What can I say, I'm extra grinchy.  Here is the recipe for making a grinch out of someone who generally loved this time of year for her whole life:

Start with my package to the Mos in beautiful CA getting manhandled in the post.  Probably my fault but I thought the word "fragile" meant something.  I think it's an illusion that the postal service grants us to make us feel better.  It really means something like "please drop kick this package all the way from Ohio to California, oh and make sure you run it over with a vehicle at least twice as well", exactly the opposite of what I thought it meant.  Strange.  I guess sometimes you use a word for years and no one ever tells you that the word doesn't mean what you think it means. 

Add to that the fact that we end up traveling to five different places to do Christmas at each one.  Seriously, I did Christmas for four days straight.  I'm so tired.  The kids are tired.  Asher looked at Ryan on actual xmas (our last day of running around doing the whole condensed 12 days of xmas skit that is our yearly ritual) and said he was tired of opening presents, that he just wanted to go home and play.  My child, tired of opening presents.  That has to speak more loudly than anything I can bitch about on here...

Stir in a heaping helping of gifts.  So many gifts.  Please don't take this the wrong way.  I appreciate that all the grandparents love their grandchildren and want to make them happy.  But more isn't always better. Seriously.  They don't each need more gifts than we gave them at home from each grandparent.  I've been trying to get the grandparents to cut down on the gifts and they pretty much just laugh at me.  We have more toys than my children will ever play with in their entire lives.  I don't have the time to figure out where everything came from and return it, and if I were to ask the grandparents to return stuff, then feelings get hurt.  When I was a kid my grandparents got us one article of clothing and maybe a book or a toy.  Those were the good old days.  I really don't mean to bitch about presents but...it's just too much from the grandparents.  Also, it makes me feel like shit that they give my kids more than they open under the tree at home.  Oh, and of course I don't want my children to turn into self entitled little assholes, too. 

Shake up vigorously with all the trash and children's toy packaging and mountains of junk. 

Add a dash of too many people smoking around me and my family. 

Just a pinch of too much driving with a screaming, teething baby.

3/4 a cup of little to no sleep.

2 TBS of general holiday stress combined with exhaustion due to the fact that I absolutly hate the consumeristic-ness of the holiday.  Yeah, I made that word up, deal with it.  I'm adding it the English lexicon. 

Bake for 4 days of christmas travel and  you get the perfect grinch recipe.

Oh, and add to all of that...the first present I got for xmas...was my period.  Thanks world.  Thanks a lot. 

I officially hate the holidays.

Hello, it's me. I've thought about us for a long long time

So, yeah.  I missed two months of blogging.  What a bad girl.  I've really thought about blogging a lot.  But...I take for granted that you're always there, I take for granted that you just don't care. 

Thanksgiving was par for the course.  I liked the food.  Got to see my Korea cousin briefly.  The fink was supposed to come hang out with me but was too busy with her friends from Kent, understandably so, I mean, she was  only here for such a short time...but it was a little sad for me anyway.  Now it will be a whole nother year before she comes back and I'm sure I'll only see her for 15 minutes then, too.

Oh well.  It is what it is.  And I never want to make you change for me. 

Someone had Todd on the mind...

Asher had the flu, like the real official flu last weekend.  It was rough.  Half of his class was out with it.  Seiry didn't get it, thankfully. 

I ordered this thing from foodie cleveland, it's a coupon book for a bunch of local restaruants.  JJ suggested I blog about it, and I think that's a great idea, so I'm going to try really hard to do that. 

I need a hobby.  I need to feel like a real person again.  All I feel like is a care robot.  And it's my own fault. I know this.  But I still can't stop myself.  So I need a "non" parent thing to do, something for me.  Maybe after we get through the holidays. 

I'm feeling disillusioned with the holidays this year.  I'm not sure why.  I just can't find the holiday spirit.  I hate the consumerism of the holiday and yet I feel dragged into it and responsible for the commercial happiness of my children.  How do you get out of that?  Also, how do you make the grandparents stick to a 1-2 gift limit for their grandchildren?  I'm tired of the grandparents giving my kids 50 presents at each holiday, it's sick.  It's too much.  It makes them expect shit all the time.  And I don't want my kids to be self entitled assholes.  I mean, any more than most 3 year olds already are naturally...

Sorry, this is a bummer blog post.  I'll work on it...