I’m into day four of my vacation and the girls are off school today. What we are supposed to be doing is decorating for Christmas. What we ARE doing is all sitting around in our PJ’s, watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. At any moment, I’m certain we will jump into action and start carting boxes upon boxes of festive paraphernalia into the house.

And yet I resist. Not for any heavy reason, like it brings back memories of my mom or something. No, it’s because I have teenagers. And while today is supposed to go something like: Rudolph on the DVD, Christmas carols in the background, hot chocolate from the Keurig …. The reality is going to be much closer to me yelling at the girls to stop being assholes to one another and insisting that they get into the Christmas spirit, damnit!!!

This is that moment when I have to invoke all the psych nurse adultness that I can muster. I WILL BE POSITIVE! I WILL BE CHEERFUL! I WILL BE GRATEFUL! I WILL BE SANTA FUCKING CLAUS INCARNATE!

If I do my job masterfully, I will drag these teenagers kicking and screaming into making a memory. If I learned anything from my mom, this is it: with enough abject goofiness and laughter, teens become confused and join in, albeit reluctantly. The good news is that I’m pretty good at doing “goofy.”

Wish me well.

More importantly, send peppermint schnapps.

And marshmallow fluff.

 

Happy Advent!