It's the most wonderful time of the year

And I am off my rocker bat crazy.

It's true.

This past week I've been all bummed out about my oldest sons grinchiness. He feels the need to rain on his brothers parade constantly about Santa and elves and Christmas magic etc... He gets all snarky and tells them how it's all parents playing tricks etc... The biggest bummer about it is that he is clearly trying to make them feel bad and ruin my day.

Here's where my crazy kicks in.

I feel the need to deal with it. I mentally prepare a grinch resistant campaign that will win him over to the holly jolly side. Then I realize it will never work because it requires way too much effort on my part and i get tired just thinking about it. I debate talking to him like an adult and explaining that people believe different things and we shouldn't ruin it for them. This idea seems lame and obvious so I immediately scratch that. Plus my sister tried and ended up comparing believing in Santa to believing in Jesus and things got confusing for him.

Then I devise a plan to make him believe in Santa. I think about wrapping coal and writing him a letter explaining that kids who don't believe don't get presents. then I think how sad he'll be when he doesn't get his ukulele. Then I devise a plan where I write the mean letter but then put in a side note about how Santa loves everyone so he can have a present anyway. Then I'm back to square one because I've taught nothing.

Now comes the moment where I debate making him just grow up, after all he's 7 already, and taking away Christmas due to his snarky attitude.

As you can tell I am in the middle of a monstrous mental debate.

This is serious.

Then comes the moment where I ask why I have my kids believe in Santa anyways. I know he's not real, why would I want my kids to believe a lie? I come to the realization that I want to buy my kids more presents without them knowing that they are from me (so they won't seem spoiled) so I embrace Santa. This is probably not a good reason. Also they are probably still spoiled I'm just being shady about it.

As I am facing my Christmas conundrum several things occur, my five year old spews wisdom, they discuss Jesus on glee and my friend writes a very thoughtful blog.

My five year old has come home every day this week shouting in disbelief that kids don't know the real meaning of Christmas. He's upset that kids think its about Santa and presents. He tells me it's baby Jesus birthday. He tells me this everyday all week long.

Next I watched the glee Christmas show. In typical glee fashion I liked the music and didn't love the script. Except that they read the Christmas story from the bible and this silly group of teenagers said it was the best Christmas ever when they give their money to salvation army and ring the bell to help out.

Finally my friend wrote a blog about how she want her kids to focus on Jesus and not Santa at this time of the year. It was very heartfelt and thoughtful.

Thank you god, I got your message. Not very subtle ate you?

Not sure if I'm going to drop the whole "Santa is fake" bomb on my little believers but I am going to have a grown up talk with my grinch.

More importantly I am going to focus on explaining a little more about Christmas to them, we are going back to church and we are going to spend our holiday break enjoying family time and doing things for others. Thank you 5 yr old wisdom, blogging wisdom and glee wisdom.

If for some reason this plan doesn't work I will buy some coal and have it wrapped as a backup.

Wish me luck and pray for my sanity.

Did I really consider punishing my child for not believing a lie that I told him? (granted he did have a bad attitude)

Finally, how about you? What do your kids believe in? How do you make it all work during the holidays?

Most imortantly - Do you have an "elf on the shelf"? I'm pretty sure those things were created by the devil to personally attack me. Why did I ever think I could remember to move it everyday?!?!? Instead i just have to make up more lies to cover my forgetfulness. How is it that I am managing to sin more at this time of the year then the rest of the year combined? I REALLY need to get back to church!