Merry Christmas from the Family

(Here is an obligatory link to the song referenced in the title.)

Christmas is a-coming and I haven't even seriously begun dealing with it. I picked up a couple of items for Tuba Girl at a flea market sale and picked up some half-priced gummy creatures from the Halloween candy section yesterday. They'll make interesting stocking stuffers. Not as interesting as the cockroach clusters I picked up one year, but interesting.

The cockroach clusters were the most awesome thing ever. They were nicely detailed and had some sort of disgusting orange Tang sort of powder in between the layers that added to the grossness. They also had a nice heft to them. If I remember correctly, they were so gross the kids refused to eat them. They weren't bad. Crunchy and chewy at the same time.

I was talking to Tuba Girl yesterday about Christmas. I told her that, frankly, she wasn't going to get as much as the boys under the tree because I have spent a shitfuckingload of money on her band stuff and she's getting to go to Walt Disney World. Hell, I'm 33 years old and I've never been to WDW. At this point in my life, I don't think I'd want to go, but it was the big thing when I was growing up. It didn't help that my dad told us every year that he was taking us to Disney up until I was 25 years old. My dad's great on ideas and good intentions, but he's never made a lot of money and taking us to Disney would have seriously eaten into his pot budget.

Never tell a kid you're going to do something without a clear plan to actually make it happen. My kids get so pissed at me because I almost never commit to anything. Unless I can know without an absolute doubt that I can buy something, do something, or take them somewhere then I tell them quite honestly that I don't know. My dad is basically a good guy, but his word has never been very solid with me. He'd have made a better hang out buddy than a father.


Anyway, I told Tuba Girl not to be looking for a lot under the tree because I've basically spent 7% of my annual income on her band fees, shoes, lost gauntlets, band trips. I think I'm going to send her off with a couple of disposable cameras and make her a scrapbook from the trip. That's basically going to be her big present unless things change.

Being 15 (yet an often insanely irresponsible heathen) she should be old enough to respect what's going on and how much has been spent on her this year. She was cool with it - very calm and understanding. And then out of nowhere she demanded to know if "Santa" was still going to bring her a Christmas stocking. "I can do without presents, but I have to have a Santa stocking!"

So I see that my careful stocking shopping all these years has paid off in great memories. Enough memories that she wants her damned "Santa stocking."

Honestly, my stockings are a frugal person's nightmare. I can easily drop thirty or forty bucks per stocking. (I told you I wasn't necessarily better at handling my thousand or so dollars or month. I just wasn't going to spend my children's childhood letting them do without. I've read too much damned Rick Bragg for that kind of parenting. That dude has a such a huge chip on his shoulder you could stick him in a bowl for bithday parties and never run out of Shoulder Pringles.)

My stocking spending habits aren't liable to change since I tend to spend a good portion of the money on necessary items and try to put real consideration into what I'm buying for the stocking. Cheap dollar store toys are a rarity. Instead I try to buy something I know they will actually need, use and/or enjoy for a longer period of time than what a dollar store dealio is going to provide.

Things I always buy:

1. Toothbrushes
2. A tube of toothpaste
3. Sample sized shampoos, conditioners, body sprays, body washes or soap
4. Bubble bath 
5. Chapstick
   
6. Other HBA sort of things I can't remember
7. A Christmas ornament (Each child gets a Christmas ornament each and every year. They will have a nice collection to start their own Christmas trees when they grow up and move away. Of course, they have to be settled down and not living in some frat dorm where the ornaments are liable to get broken because they're very special to me, uh, them. The ornaments are very special to the kids. Dammit.)
   
8. An apple
9. An orange
10. A piece of interesting candy (think cockroach clusters)

I also include toothbrushes and toothpaste in their Easter baskets every year. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to buy new toothbrushes every three months so that helps me to remember to do that in the early part of the year. I buy kid specific toothbrushes and stuff, not the cheap Family Dollar 5-pack deals like I do the rest of the year.

Other things I've included in stockings over the year specific to the kid:

1. Small box of Legos
2. Wallets
3. Funky socks
4. Bon Belle nail polishes
5. Combs
6. mini hairbrush
7. E.L.F. make up
   
8. mini sized board games
9. pencils, pens, and/or crayons
10. Glue or other office supply things. 
    
11. mini tubs of play-doh
12. small craft supply sort of things like glitter or foam shapes
    
13. A tomigotchi (that's old school - something I remember from way back in the day when I just had the one kid.)
14. Cool ski hats and/or gloves
15. Fart in a bucket toy thing (That one was so cool and I had the best time with it.)
16. Neon bracelets
17. card games
18. Individual packs of Fruit by the Foot
19. Hair bows and shit
20. Temporary tattoos
21. Hot Wheels 
22. Collector cards like Pokemon
    
23. Batteries
24. $1 DVDs (I can't find these stupid things anymore. I miss them.)
    
25. A bit of whatever the particular child may be interested in. This year, DMan may get some math related things appropriate for his grade level since he's on the Math Team. Wild Boy loves animals, specifically snakes, so maybe some kind of interesting toy along those lines. Tuba Girl loves music so maybe interesting earrings or some shit with a musical slant to it. Oh, and I just realized I'm buying a phone card to stick in her stocking. It's something I'll need to buy anyway so I can kill two birds with one stone by making it a gift. I'm horribly devious at times.
    

So that's the Christmas stocking tradition. I'm sure I haven't provided a complete list of things that have been shoved into their stockings over the years, but that's the general idea. (And I mean really shoved in there. I artfully shove, cram, and wrangle things in there with a nice display poking out of the top.)