The holidays are upon us...and I don't really care

Another holiday season is upon us. It's the busiest, craziest time of the year and I don't particularly enjoy it. Thanksgiving is next week, followed closely by Pricklypants and my 5th anniversary, the twins' 4th birthday, Christmas and New Year's - those are all busy, happy celebrations...those are all celebrations the twins couldn't care less about.

They do enjoy food, but not many of their foods will be found at the Thanksgiving feasts we'll be attending - they'll eat some ham, some turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing...if there's macaroni n cheese, they might eat some of that. Meanwhile, I'll be stuffing my face with all the foods - because I love food, as does most of my family.

They've never been interested in seeing ALL the people; they don't tear open their presents; they don't even like icing on their cake. I can't put a Christmas tree up for safety reasons, any decorations have to stay out of the terrors' reach.

It's hard to get excited about Christmas, for me, because I don't get to get excited with my kids. I don't need to worry about how to break it to them that Santa's not real, because they haven't got a clue who the fat guy in the red suit is. Just like they didn't have a clue when they were 2, or last year, when they turned 3.

I don't intend to tell my kids about Santa, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy - I don't see the magic, it's not practical to fill their heads with beliefs that won't pan out because eventually, we're going to have to go through the battle of changing those beliefs, the heartache, the meltdowns...so no, I'm not going to tell them that a magical man invades our home each year to leave behind presents. I'm not going to tell them that a magical bunny delivers eggs and candy and goodies to little ones each year.

This sounds like I'm a Scrooge, like I hate the holidays, which isn't true. I just don't have the same reasons to get excited as most people. I still love the music, the cheer, the decorations - I love all of that, and I'll keep a board on Pinterest just to see all the pretty ideas, even if I'll never actually do any of them myself. I'll start a Christmas Pandora station to get my cheesy music fix. I'll eat the baked yummies and make more peanut brittle and send virtual Christmas cheer to my friends all around the world who do get excited about the holidays.

Of course, I'll try to share the joy and all the rest of the stuff that comes with the Christmas season with my boys, but frankly, I just don't think they'll care any more this year than they did last year, despite the steps forward that they've taken (which I'll be talking about in an upcoming post - probably following parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday).