The SO has a Christmas requirement that I absolutely hate. His ex has decreed that he needs to be at her house when Z wakes up on Christmas morning. I say that if she wanted him there to play happy families then she shouldn’t have thrown him out in the first place. I’ve voiced this loudly for each of our three Christmases together. I think I’m getting through slowly. At least now he admits that it is stupid and he’s saying that as soon as she stops believing in Santa he’s out of there. Hopefully, that will be next year. So he left at 5:30 this morning for the hour drive to the house to try to be there before a hyped up seven year old wakes up. Then after she opens her presents he’ll bring her back here. Then he has to take her back this afternoon. Yep, that adds up to four hours of driving back and forth.
I realized last night that we didn’t put anything in her stocking. Of course nothing is open on Christmas day to get anything so I started scrounging. Her stocking consists of 2 candy bars that I bought to use in cookies that I never got around to making, some hard candy, an apple, two 100 calorie packs of cookies, and two books that were already wrapped for her and happen to be small enough to fit in the stocking.
I’m making dinner today. I usually don’t get to because we go to my parents’ house. But, Christmas on a weekend is totally horrible to schedule. All of my family consists of teachers so the idea that we have jobs on Friday and Monday confounds them to no end. My brother is the only non-teacher and he works for a church so he can barely get away at all on any weekend, let alone Christmas. Then you have to schedule around my sister in law’s family gatherings. We are going to go up there next weekend instead.
Dinner today is hard core traditional – dead bird, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. With a household containing sesame allergies and a vegetarian the stuffing has to be homemade. It makes me feel very Martha-esque but it is truly self defense. Most bread crumbs contain sesame. I never knew that until I had to start looking for it. I don’t want to spend Christmas in the emergency room. I’m also making a tofu based chocolate mousse. If everything turns out edible I’ll post recipes later.
Z is a weird kid when it comes to presents. I keep saying that we should keep all the receipts and return her presents when she is done opening them. She wouldn’t notice. I never see her play with anything she gets ever, even if she asked for it. This year she is getting mostly books. There are a few new wii games that she might play a few times. Other than that she spends her time wandering around and wanting to do what you are doing. Hopefully she’ll like the books. She found a series that she likes so we got several of those. This is a kid who screamed and cried if you offered to read a story to her and begged you to not read to her. But she is starting to like to read a little. Strange kid.
I know what I’m getting. How do I know this? Because I told the SO exactly what Santa could get me including where to get it and how much it costs because apparently Santa needs explicit directions. The SO called me two days ago to tell me that the item was $50 more than I said but he got it anyway. I was dumbfounded. I asked him if he was calling for any other reason than to ruin any Christmas surprise. He said that I was bad and wasn’t getting it then. But he already bought it and he said that now Santa was confused but I was probably getting coal. He’s weird too. I guess there was never any hope for Z to turn out normal.
Merry Christmas everybody!
