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Answering Life’s Biggest Questions
Stop the
holiday madness
By Abigail Fischer and Katie DeLand
Dear A+K:
I guess I am new to this mom thing, and I've noticed that every holiday
seems to be out-of-control. I don't remember my mom ever sprinkling
glitter on the floor or baking elaborate treats for school.
Am I missing something or do I need to step up my celebration game?
Sincerely,
Apparent Party Pooper
Dear Apparent Pooper:
We are fresh off St. Patrick's Day and looking straight into the face
of Easter. We got yo' back on this one.
Back in our day (...circa the 1980s), we celebrated exactly two
holidays that required accessing attic storage: Christmas and
Easter. Lights up in December and a potential Easter egg tree in
April (Ohio weather contingent). That about wrapped up the festivities
for the year. Today, you can walk into any local convenience
store on any given day and every aisle is exploding with the next "big"
event: Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, the Summer Solstice and
Cat-in-the-Hat Day. Whaaaaa? When did society begin shelling out
the bucks for cheap window cling-ons proclaiming our love for Dr. Seuss
and his slightly-annoying and UNNECESSARILY LONG rhyming books?
We love the man and all, but "just let us be!"
The expectations out of the kids is the worst. As pretty
straight-up Germans living in pretty straight-up Ohio, March 17th was a
day to find a green shirt and chase around the kid in your class that
forgot. Today, every child is decked out in all sorts of green
gauze and sparkles, comes equipped with green-tinted frosted treats and
carries dioramas of elaborate Leprachuan Traps. There's only one
trap that has been set, ladies and gentlemen, and the consumers have
lost-- hook, line and sinker.
Let's not even venture into the world of Elf on the Shelf. We
can't. Ever. Go there. Pinterest has ruined a lot of
things, and the Advent season is one of them. This little monster
has hijacked Baby Jesus and made it all about himself and his nightly
convertible rides with Barbie, escapades with GI Joe and creative
messes with your sugar container. Our poor kids will never know
about these fun December mornings, because we are too busy screaming at
them to pick up their own toys and spills, let alone the
deliberately-staged.
We don't even know exactly where to point the finger on this one.
It's always a safe bet to blame Walmart, but it more than likely starts
with one far more evil than that: Pinterest. Behind every
good pin is an overzealous Hobby Lobbyist with wayyyyy too much time on
her hands. In this alternative universe comes Easter baskets
filled to the brim with crazy toys, gallons of bubbles and an entire
summer wardrobe. Whatever happened to simple jellybeans and a
chocolate bunny? How will kids ever discover the absolute horror of
black licorice and the fact that those little rabbits are, in fact,
just hollow shells of milk chocolate? Stop the madness.
A pact: let's all promise to rewind and go back go the days when
a foil-wrapped soda and Little Debbie in your backpack was enough for a
2nd-grade party. Throw in a good old holiday word search and Flag
Day is complete.
Sincerely,
A+K
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