Jesse finally wrote a letter to Santa late Saturday.

So let me do some extrapolating and interpreting on your behalf, dear reader, in bullet point format:

-It slays me that the first item on Jesse’s list isn’t even something she wants. Nick wants Clone Wars figurines, but he can’t write yet. I love that Jesse put this first, without even tooting her own horn about being nice for her brother. Bonus points for Jesse.

-Next Jesse wants a “small night fury dragon that can fly too.” In conversation with me, she admitted that she’s hoping for a remote control robotic night fury. Wouldn’t you know. This year, Santa’s elves didn’t make one.

-Brain Quiz card sets for age 8-9?? One part of me is thinking, cooool, my little dork! The other part of me is thinking that this request is driven by anxiety over school performance and is sad, very sad.

-Underwear and dark-colored clothing? WTF?

-bicycle. Not. I told her Santa is unlikely to bring her a bike because she already has a brand new one. Yeah, she chuckled and shrugged. She’ll still have a go at one.

-Hot wheels. An odd request for an American girl, but apparently it’s a tradition between Jesse and Santa. Hot Wheels at Christmas, and only at —-

ALL STOP. The kids are coming down the stairs. I allegedly put this letter in the mail to Santa Saturday night. I’ll hide it in this drawer right here at the computer desk, no one will look there. I’ll be back later.

* * * * * *

GAAAAAH. Total disaster. Jesse decided now was the time to type up her poem about Grandma’s house, so she was sitting here typing while I played some stupid game with Nick nearby, when suddenly she was coming at me with a grim look on her face. “What. Is. This. Doing. Here.” She was carrying a red card.

I thought fast. I did what came naturally. I acted stupid. “Why is what where.”

“My letter to Santa! Why is it in your drawer??”

“What drawer.”

“THE DRAWER. Why didn’t you mail it??”

“I did. I don’t know why it’s in the drawer. What drawer. Are you sure it’s your letter. Where’s the envelope.”

And so on. As it turns out, some time this morning Jesse spotted a nasty-looking grey heap at the edge of the woods in our back yard. It appears that some time during the night, the elves came into our house and cleaned an enormous pile of ashes out of our fireplace, dumping them in an unsightly mound in plain view. I never clean out the fireplace, and Daddy would never ever ever do something so sloppy. So we speculated that the elves were getting the fireplace ready for Santa’s visitation. Now, this afternoon in the face of the letter to Santa, I hypothesized that perhaps the elves left the letter behind. They’re always causing mischief of one kind or another.

This apparently was good enough. Jesse has written a follow-up note to go with the original. She’s leaving both notes on the hearth tonight.

Also she put some cookies up there. Hopefully the elves will stop by tonight.

* * * * *

So back to the letter. Jesse also wants a stuffed animal dog just like ours, which means a 6-pound white poodle. Wouldn’t you know that when I — I’m sorry, when Santa went hunting for a stuffed animal dog, he found in The Workshop every possible breed of dog that has ever been bred, EXCEPT white poodles. No white poodles this year. The elves apparently went on white poodle strike. But Santa found a white sheep about the same size as Madeline, so it’ll have to do. And no bike. As for everything else, the orders have been filled.

Jesse accepts the idea that Santa won’t bring everything she asks for, or that he may make modifications to her requests. She has frequently been heard to say things like, “I don’t need to write a letter to Santa. I trust him to get things for me that I’ll love. He always does.”

I was apparently not so forgiving as a child. One year I chastised Santa for his failure in the prior year to bring me anything I had actually asked for, and impolitely directed him to do better. I would post the letter here for you to see, except it’s in a box in California somewhere, and I’m in Wisconsin. It’s one of the grumpiest letters to Santa I’ve ever seen. Belligerent, bossy, and oozing with disappointment and seething anger.

I wonder why my mom kept that letter. It’s a good thing I’ve changed so much since then.

Jesse has been champing at the bit for the new Annie movie to come out. So we went to an afternoon show today. In the magic of the 21st century, I ordered tickets and selected seats via the theater’s iPhone app. That is crazy.

We made it to the theater on time with cheerful children (Christmas miracles abound in my life), so I bought snacks for the kids. We got a soda for dad (yes, he counts as a kid in this setting), sno-caps, skittles, a bottle of water, and popcorn. I took out a small loan to pay for the unholy cost of these items, putting up my car as collateral.

Aren’t there any original ideas in the movie industry? The snacks are exactly the same as what was available when I was a kid. Even the movies are the same. The previews were for a new live-action Cinderella, yet another Peter Pan movie (creatively entitled “Pan”), Minions (from Despicable Me), and a Mall Cop sequel. All do-overs and lifts. The only new thing was Home, about a trouble-making space alien who’s terribly unpopular on his own planet, befriended by a little girl on earth… Wait, nope. That’s Lilo and Stitch. It’s been done.

It’s disappointing that Hollywood has been reduced to this, but the previews set me up good for Annie. I haven’t read a single review of the movie, so I have no idea how it’s being received. But I went with a 5- and a 9-year-old as a winter-break Christmasy treat, so let me give you my holiday mommy review.

It didn’t suck. Actually, it exceeded “didn’t suck” by a long mile. The actress playing Annie is sassy and talented. The story modernization, song makeovers, new music, and updated dancing are fun and workable. There are obvious and sneaky references back to the first movie. There’s some tear-jerking action. Jamie Foxx is actually kind of hot, unlike Albert Finney’s strange and creepy Daddy Warbucks from the first movie.

And then there’s Cameron Diaz, who delivers an amazing, over-the-top send-up of a drunken washed-up woman trapped in the late ’80s. She stole the show for me.

I could go into detail but I won’t. Bottom line is this. You got kids who like song and dance? You’ll enjoy Annie. And it’ll give you a chance to talk about foster care and the plight of parentless children, poverty and wealth, generosity and selfishness. All good topics for the holiday season, when many of us are busy giving and receiving expensive gifts and enjoying a lot of familial love — commodities not everyone is blessed with.

Did I just get on a soap box there for a second? I think I did. Ugh. Well then. Never mind.

Today my loving family went out en masse to get me Christmas gifts. It was so unpleasant. Jesse’s still grumpy from being sick all week, and Nick was whiny, and now Anthony’s sick so he’s going to be grumpy for a couple days and speak to me in monosyllabic grunts between weak coughs and gross-sounding snuffles.

(Don’t tell him I just said that. Recipe for some maximum grumpy.)

(Anthony, if you’re reading this: I love you anyway. You rock my world. Even when you’re grumpy.)

It took at least a half hour of random whining and noise making for Anthony to get the kids out of the house, and there was much debate and emotion about iPads and what I want and socks and allowance money. I had to help, which turned the whole “yay gifts for mommy!” ju ju into “this sucks and I don’t want any Christmas gifts from you annoying maniacs because it’s starting to feel like another miserable CHORE just like doing laundry and wiping your tiny asses after you poop” ju ju.

But they finally left, my miserable sick husband and his irritating spawn, and I was happy to be alone. Doing intellectually enriching chores. My peeps eventually returned and announced I wasn’t allowed in the basement for a while, la la la, except I had to answer several questions about where the wrapping paper was stashed, and Nick came up the stairs pushing the giant Pilates ball in front of him to get a pen to write with, and he refused to take the ball back to the basement even though I had just cleaned a bunch of his crap out of the living room.

Oh well. Eventually a collection of wrapped packages were carried proudly to the Christmas tree, and my home was populated with much more cheerful people than before.

I’m still shell-shocked by the morning antics, so I haven’t inspected any packages. I’ll give them a good shake tomorrow. Just five more days until I get to open them! I wonder what an economist, a five-year-old boy, and a nine-year-old girl will come up with?

Whew. Both kids went to school today for the first time this week. I feel better too. I actually cleaned up the living room. I managed to get gifts to the right people at school. I remembered to get gift cards for my nieces and I even mailed them to California in time. I washed the dishes. I hid some gifts better than I had before. I went grocery shopping.

I am ON FIRE.

The kids felt well enough to go to this after-school party thing, from 4:30 to 7:00. Anthony actually came home from work early so we hit the post office and now we’re at a Mexican joint drinking ‘ritas and eating something that came in a lava bowl.

All hell will no doubt break loose tomorrow, but for now — aaaaaaah….

UPS delivered a big set of boxes today. It was the full trap set and a bass and amp, which is our big gift to the kids this year. Unfortunately, when the UPS guys rang the kitchen door bell and ran off, the kids were sitting in the kitchen eating lunch. I thought for sure the secret would be out.

Thank goodness for kids who were (a) sick, and (b) lobotomized by the stupid cartoon show they were watching on an iPad. Nick has discovered Transformers Beasthunters. It suuuuuucks. Normally I wouldn’t let him watch it anymore, but hey, it’s the holidays. Anyway, thanks to T.B., this is what I observed from the kitchen door.

They didn’t even bother to turn around. The stairs to the basement are right at the kitchen entrance, so I thought I’d try to sneak down the boxes right away instead of hiding them in the ice cold garage. The two boxes containing the drum set were at least 40 pounds each, and almost too big for my 5th percentile wing span. They were hard to fit through the door, and I made a racket. There was also a box almost as tall as me (I assume that’s the bass) and a small box for the amp.

The kids never looked once. As far as I can tell, they have no idea what I dragged down the stairs. I’ve secreted everything in plain view.

I think it’ll work, unless they inspect closely and see this little picture peaking out:

But I’m hoping they’ll mistake the whole thing for one of my bulk orders of furnace filters, and just ignore it for six more days.

I do 90 percent of my retail shopping on-line. As a result, my kids aren’t excited by UPS and Fed Ex deliveries. Boxes inevitably contain things I say are great, but the minions say are boring — shoes and clothes, books, Korean dry food staples, kid-ish art and office supplies, you name it. So they aren’t curious about box arrivals anymore, and I never fess up that most of their Christmas booty comes via delivery as well.

But once in a while a box arrives that just cries out for attention. Last week an enormous box arrived from Amazon. I thought for sure the kids would question its contents, but no. I emptied it under their noses and spirited away the AWESOME stuff in it to a secret place, and then they attacked the vacant box before I could take it out to the garage. The love affair juvenile mammals have with empty boxes is a banal universal constant, like the speed of light or the smell of a bad fart.

Jesse wanted to get in the box and beat it with her fists and feet until it was flat like a pancake, which is a hostile reaction I can’t really explain. I didn’t let her do that, because Nick had already filled it with sofa pillows and a blanket. Box Dog came to be.

For nigh on 10 days, I’ve been in constant communication with Box Dog. He was born in the box, he hangs out in the box, he sleeps in the box. He likes his privacy in the box. He likes the box closed. Today he asked for a box cover.

Hello? Hello? Is anybody home? Arise, Box Dog, and face a new dawn! Your enemy, fluffy white Poodle Dog, is at your gates!

Fluffy white Poodle Dog is sorely troubled by Box Dog and often attacks him. Box Dog is fearless and always prevails.

But who is Box Dog, and what does he look like? Aha! Just as he descends back into his private universe, Box Dog reveals his true identity. He uses his control over the Force to mess with this observer’s camera, so that the pictures come out all blurry.

Box Dog asked me  to put his darkening blanket back on. He wanted some head room and  decided to keep the flap open for a bit.

Hey, I’m on sick day number 3 with the kids. This is what I’m reduced to. If people can post pictures of cats in containers all day long, I can feel good about posting pictures of my beloved Box Dog. Good times, good times.

Today is the kids’ second consecutive sick day. Yesterday (Monday) morning, Jesse complained vaguely about her brain and throat hurting, and it coincided with my desperate desire to avoid making her school lunch, so I let her stay home. The smile that covered her face when I announced this decision made me second-guess myself. Nick is in half-day K4, and it seemed like a bother to cart Jesse around as I delivered him to school and picked him up, so I kept Nick home too even though he seemed fine. Yay. More time with the kids.

By last night I realized Jesse really was sick, and Nick pooped his pants and also seemed unnaturally tired. Then in the evening we got a recorded message from the school superintendent. More than a hundred staff and students missed school Monday due to illness. Well then. That’s more than 10 percent of the relevant population. I hemmed and hawed about what to do, but Jesse woke up snotty and unwell this morning, so it was an easy decision to keep both kids home again. More time with the kids. Again. Not so yay.

I think I’m sick too, but not enough to justify feeling sorry for myself. I will anyway. I have a long list of retailers I intended to visit yesterday and today for things like gift cards for family and teachers, and toys for the kids, and I can’t do any of that with my minions hanging around dripping snot and whining about aches and pains. But staying at home all day when they’re sick leaves me addled. Things happen that can’t be explained. I was playing a tune on the piano this morning when Nick appeared at the top of the stairs, screaming incoherently and literally shaking in what appeared to be a state of terror. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

What, what could it be? I asked Nick to tell me what was wrong. “MOMMY!!! I was peeing and I tried to flush the toilet and I held the handle down and down and the water just kept going higher and higher and higher—”

As he said those last words his knife-edge hand moved from his tummy to his forehead in an excellent slo-mo approximation of a military salute.

“—and higher until it went OVER  THE TOP AND JUST KEPT GOING.”

GAH. I raced upstairs and discovered toilet water all over the floor. At least it didn’t contain any turds.

I ended up taking the kids to Whole Foods for lunch. I had to get out of the house, and I needed groceries anyway. We got home from shopping and I hadn’t done the breakfast dishes, and the kids wanted milkshakes and I said yes, and I decided to make a cranberry nut quick bread that’s a holiday favorite in our house.  I’m not sure what I was thinking.

I washed up the dishes. I got through about half the bread prep (zest and juice 3 oranges, chop up cranberries and nuts, mix up some egg replacer, cut fat into dry stuff…). Just then Jesse ran in and demanded a milkshake. Right. I also realized I forgot to put the groceries away. Yikes. Well, at least the ice cream I just bought was really, really soft from sitting out for so long. I put away the groceries quickly and mixed up a couple milkshakes for the kids. I turned back to the cake. I was moving fast by this point. Nick marched in. “Mommy, I need a STRAW!” Right. I was in the middle of a lot so I reached quickly into the back of the pantry shelf where the straws are, about 4 feet off the floor…  And my arm knocked Anthony’s ceramic tea-container off the shelf. It landed with a CRASH. I looked down and saw liquid spreading quickly across the floor. Then I saw the Martinelli’s gallon-size glass apple juice bottle. All of it was missing except the base.

That’s when I started keening.

Jesse giggled from the kitchen table. “Oh my God.”

You know the rest. I managed to shoo Nick and the dog out of the kitchen in a panic (“OUT! OUT!!! OUT!!!”). Jesse went and got a bath towel while I tried desperately to keep the juice from flowing under the refrigerator, and then there was all sorts of cleaning up and picking up broken glass and de-sticky-ing all the surfaces of things that were touched by exploding Martinelli’s apple juice. As I took deep breaths and tried to work my way through the incredible mess, Jesse sat peacefully and enjoyed her milkshake. “Wow Mom, this has been some bad days, huh? I’m sick, and Nick pooped in his pants three times, and all the broken glass, and Nick overflowed the toilet this morning–”

I took the opportunity to interrupt Jesse as I headed to the basement for a box of wet swiffers. I yelled back grimly as I stomped down the stairs, “I guess so, but it could have been worse, it could have been worse.”

I heard Jesse answer from afar, an edge of comic skepticism in her voice, “It could have been worse?”

I hollered again as I headed into the storage closet. “Yes, it could have been worse.”

I got back upstairs and said it one last time, still trying to resign myself to this stupid shit. “It could have been worse.”

Jesse looked at me curiously, a twinkle in her eye. “I guess so, Mom. You mean like, the house could have blown up?”

Yes. Exactly.

In December 1985, I met my first English mini-mince pie. Anthony brought some back to Oberlin College with him after spending Thanksgiving with his family in New Jersey. He offered me one, which I now understand was like a parched man who’s been trapped in the desert for a week, offering me the last gulp of water in his canteen. At the time, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen or tasted, a little 3-inch-round pastry. I pulled the top crust off and nibbled it, while I stared suspiciously at the brown, mucky, unappetizing-looking filling.

Hm. I pulled most of that out with my finger and ate the crust.

Anthony was mortified, horrified, shocked, sorely disappointed in me. He chewed me out. I was not allowed to desecrate mince pies in that way. I was not allowed to eat any more mince pies, for a couple years to come. Hmp.

Anthony’s mom makes mince pies each year as a special Christmas treat. She won’t share her method or recipe, and she doles the wee pies out like scarce and costly commodities. I guess they’re HER THING. But now that we live far away, she doesn’t give Anthony mince pies anymore. I’ve been trying to emulate them for years, and I always fail. One year I made them too small, another year I made them too big. The filling is never quite right, plus sometimes I over-fill and sometimes I under-fill. And I always overcook them. The magic of Mum’s mince pies is that they’re ever so slightly undercooked. I think it must be like making kimchi, which is another beloved and generally unappealing ethnic specialty – either it comes naturally because you’ve been doing it all your life, or it doesn’t.

A few years ago Mum finally fessed up to me: she doesn’t make the filling herself. She uses a jar of Robertson’s mincemeat. I felt so special when she told me. I buy a couple jars each year around this time, and I give it a go. I try not to read the ingredient list too carefully. It includes things like suet, which I thought was for the birds. But my pies still don’t taste quite like Mum’s. I’m certain she enhances the jar ingredients somehow, but she’ll never tell.

Making bad mince pies year after year is hard for me to bear; I can usually work out how to make good food. Last year I finally made tasty mince pies — which means they passed muster with Anthony, who is a harsh and unrelenting critic. The trick was booze. I added some Cointreau to the brown muck that comes out of the Robertson’s jar, and also I undercooked the pies properly.

That was apparently a one-off. I tried to make mince pies yesterday. My crusts were tough instead of flaky or even tender. I forgot about the Cointreau and used some rye whiskey instead. I added too many currants to the mix, and I think I put too much filling in each wee pie. I over-baked them. Again. Meh. I must get bound up by performance anxiety.  But at least they look pretty-ish.

Good thing I bought two jars of Robertson’s mincemeat. You can never have too much suet in a diet, so I think in a couple days I’ll try to make some more pies. Hopefully I’ll do better.

Imagine a world in which I, a self-respecting helicopter parent, would allow my tiny child to sit in the lap of a man I’ve never met before. He’s wearing an enormous fake wig that hides his true identity. I can’t make out his facial features, and I don’t know if he’s in the sexual predator database. He puts his arms out and clasps my child, who whispers secrets in his ear, in exchange for which he promises to give my child toys and candy. Since I can’t get close to him, I don’t know if he smells like candy-canes, weed, or alcohol. Or lies. Mall Santa sits on a throne of lies, as Buddy the Elf so aptly put it.

I can’t imagine what’s gone wrong in this world. Parents beat themselves up over so many stupid things. Car seat! Is the seatbelt properly fastened? Make sure you take that kid’s coat off before you strap him in, or else if you tap the brakes too hard he will shoot out of the coat and through the front windshield. Cribs! Thou shalt not co-sleep or else your child will DIE, and also cribs are incredibly dangerous unless you place your baby flat on her back with no buntings or stuffed animals, in pajamas that are so tight her fingers turn purple by the morning. Rice! Rice cereal is the perfect first solid food. No. Rice cereal must be avoided because of arsenic; feed it to your baby and she will DIE. Vaccines! No vaccines or else your child will DIE. Yes vaccines or else your child will DIE. Electrical outlets! Put those plastic covers on or else your baby will stick a finger in that outlet and… DIE. No, wait. Make sure those plastic covers aren’t made of plastic but are instead made of some environmentally conscious product, or else the plastic will leach toxins into the air and your child will… DIE. God forbid you should fail to enroll your kids in 18 extracurriculars by the time they’re 5 (and in their 4th year of school). They will surely be intellectually stunted and NEVER understand Kierkegaard, let alone ever remember how to spell his bloody name. Stranger danger! Teach your children that strangers are potential predators, murderers, rapists, kidnappers, bad bad bad.  Never, ever, ever under any circumstances talk to a stranger, look sidewise at a stranger, nod at a stranger, or acknowledge a stranger’s existence.

Unless it’s Mall Santa. Then, you know, never mind. “Hi there, Mr. Fake Claus. I can’t imagine why you would want or need to take this job touching many children all day long, but hey, I offer up my child to sit on your red-panted leg, for you to hug and say sweet nothings to.”

I DON’T THINK SO.

Jesse once sat on a Santa’s lap in a Home Depot. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly, it’s like we were sucked into a Santa black hole. Jesse sat anxiously on that red lap, and Fake Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas. She was thoughtful, and she was skeptical about this guy. She answered finally. “A red car.” Okay then. We could have done that in a letter. No lap dance required.

Nick has never had the opportunity to sit on the lap of a Mall Santa. He never will, unless another black hole opens near me.

When I was little, I got my dad all grumpy one weekend over Mall Santa. Dad and I were running around doing stuff. I was 6 or 7, and arguably even more clueless than I am now. He was driving from here to there on the Eighth Army base in Seoul, probably shopping. I saw a Santa at two different locations, within minutes of each other. I interrogated Dad. How was this possible? How could Santa be in both places?? How come he looked different in each place??? Dad didn’t have the right answers, so I kept at him. Finally, he snapped in exasperation. “Aigoo, Carla!! He’s MAGIC. That’s how he’s in two places at the same time!!”

I may have explained this before, but “ai-go” is a Korean exclamatory sound that can be used to express many different feelings, from utter terror to absolute joy. A good modern American equivalency would be something like “oh” or “jeez” or “wow.” Dad used it primarily in a grumpy way to express irritation, and he pronounced it to sound exactly like this: “eye goo.” Dad could elongate these two syllables in the most annoying way, with a furrow in his brow and a grimace on his face, hanging his head over to the side and down a little as he shook it back and forth. It created a mood that was a combination of belligerent and broken-down. Brilliant.

Foiled again by my attentional issues. What was I saying about Santa?

Wait. Wait a second. Anthony just got home with the kids. He’s yelling, “Mommy we need you!” Bah. Oh. Nick crapped his pants. I’ll be right back.

* * * *

There’s nothing like fecal matter to transform a little boy’s cute little tooshy into a thing to be feared. Anthony and I have just finished a debate about whether it was worse for Anthony — who claims that he used his own hand (held up dramatically to show me the victim appendage) to reach down and scoop poop out of the “cavity of Nick’s butt” — or for me, since I had to bathe Nick’s poop-smeared butt and wash out his poopy clothes. The smell that arises when poop meets warm water… Just thinking about it is enough to make my eyes water.

Right. SANTA. Because this is a grumpy about the HOLIDAYS blog series, not grumpy about POOP.

After the Home Depot Santa event with Jesse, I remembered my own run-in with multiple Santas, and my dad’s unsatisfying explanation. I realized that Jesse would see right through these false Santas too soon for her own good. That’s when we came clean and explained that Mall Santa is not actually Santa. The Santas you see around town are contractors. They dress like Santa for fun and receive requests from children, and then they report back to Real Santa. This explanation works perfectly well for my children.

If you ever see me walking past a Mall Santa, and if you hear my kids ask me if they can stop and see Santa, you will hear me reply with these very words: “No. That’s not Santa. That’s a contractor. You’re better off writing a letter.”

And if you happen to be a Mall Santa, please don’t be offended. Just know that, if you ever want my child to sit on your lap, I’m going to need your social security number, fingerprints, and permission to run a background check first.

Today was gingerbread house day. I can’t really buy kits because of Jesse’s egg allergy, so I bake the house pieces from scratch and we glue them together with frosting made from Crisco and powdered sugar. Yummy and totally disgusting at the same time. Last year the kids decorated the houses with their babysitter Sarah. It was a rousing success. I stocked them with much candy and frosting, and they got busy. Sarah is the best babysitter in the whole entire world. I know this because not only is she great with the kids and a very cool person and incredibly tolerant, but she also used the micro-grater to grate candy canes to make snow on the rooftop of her gingerbread house. She planted tiny candy canes next to her house as light poles, and glued little jelly beans on the underside of each hook to look like a light bulb. It was amazing.

So we repeated this year. I baked the house materials last night, and Anthony and I constructed the homes today.

 
Look at that. Anthony just had to put his house at an angle on the board. What a rebel. Also he used the construction adhesive in excess. Whatever. I’m not being anal or OCD about it or anything. Just… it seems like a lot of adhesive. Is all I’m saying.

So we left those house structures with the kids, and I got them all of these decorating materials:

That doesn’t seem like too much, does it? I think there are about 40,000 calories looking at you from that sideboard. I organized it in little containers for the little people:

I know, the photo is at a sort of funny angle. Here are close-ups.

Christmas gummy bears, berry-looking candy things, jellybeans, two types of candy canes, and some sort of Christmas candy and licorice mix that tastes like shit but should make for good decor —

Lego candy blocks, chocolate pretzels, sugary thingies in different colors, some more disgusting-tasting licorice-like candies, and candy raspberries and blackberries —

Chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (YUM), red hots, M&M thingies, butterscotch chips, white pearls, chocolate sprinkles…

The pee-ass day la rez-eez-stance — ribbon candy…

Maybe I overdid it.

Nah. Anthony and I went out and left the kids with Sarah. While Anthony and I played Santa at Toys R Us, and then drank and ate dinner, and then drank some more and saw the latest Hunger Games movie (long title, decent flick), the peeps at home got creative. Sarah made a very understated house.

There are candy lights on the eaves! D’OH! Candy cane chimney! And she made a piping bag out of one of the empty baggies the candies came in. So practical!

Look at the structural beam over the house’s front door, and the shrubberies:

So cool.

Jesse didn’t finish her house, but she got a good start. She’s less orderly than Sarah, and slightly more demented. But overall, I think she did a really nice job.

Yes, that’s a little snowman in her yard, and here’s the Dali-inspired front entrance:

And finally, Nick. At five years of age, I’m not sure how he filters the world. But now I know how he decorates gingerbread houses. He was very understated, really. Here’s his front entrance — 2 windows, door. Simple and classy.

Oh wait. here are the other elevations. That’s more like it.

I like the candy-cane detritus in the yard as well. Maybe that’s supposed to be firewood?

I know it’s a disgusting amount of candy and sugar, and a total waste of the earth’s resources, but gingerbread houses make me feel so Christmasy and cheery. I love them.