Today's To Do List On This, My Last Day Off Work Before Christmas. UPDATED!

1. Get off the computer.
2. Bake my infamous Lemon Drop Cake for RJ's Christmas party.
3. Bake my infamous Rum Cake for RJ's Christmas party.
4. Drink.
5. Make my infamous potato salad for RJ's Christmas party (recipes to come, someday). 
6. Finish my shopping.
7. Take zj shopping so he can choose a gift for cj.
8. Wrap my presents.
9. Laundry, 4 loads.
10. Drink.
11. Feed the children, probably more than once.  Pesky little buggers just HAVE to eat ALL THE FLIPPIN' TIME.
12. Bathe the children.
13. Clean the house.
14. Shop for Christmas dinner (I'm thinking sandwiches).
15. Drink.
16. Pay some bills, so my house does not get repossessed.  Do they repossess houses?  How does that work?  Do they just come and un-build it?
17. Sleep.

I may never see you again.  After I finish all this and resurface, I expect it will be sometime in 2012, and since the world is ending then anyway, what's the point.  Goodbye, cruel world.

OK FOLKS - IT IS AFTER 7PM.  HERE'S WHERE WE STAND:

1. Get off the computer. Did that, but I'm back on.  I'll give that one a half a point.
2. Bake my infamous Lemon Drop Cake for RJ's Christmas party. Check.
3. Bake my infamous Rum Cake for RJ's Christmas party. Check.
4. Drink. Check.
5. Make my infamous potato salad for RJ's Christmas party (recipes to come, someday).  Check.
6. Finish my shopping. Oh, good grief.  Who made this unreasonable list anyway?
7. Take zj shopping so he can choose a gift for cj. Done.  Great story.  Somehow he talked me into a variety of things. He promised me all his money to pay for them, someday when he is a grownup.
8. Wrap my presents.  Not.  But I have procured RJ's promise of help on this later.
9. Laundry, 4 loads. Laundry, 2 loads.
10. Drink. Done.
11. Feed the children, probably more than once.  Pesky little buggers just HAVE to eat ALL THE FLIPPIN' TIME.  Does in count that Zackie picked some old popcorn up off the floor at Target and ate it?  If so, check.
12. Bathe the children.  Done.
13. Clean the house. Well, RJ vacuumed the entire house, but I did nothing.  Plus it sort of freaked me out that he vacuumed before I dusted, because EVERYBODY knows you dust first.  Ok, we'll give that one half a point.
14. Shop for Christmas dinner (I'm thinking sandwiches). Ok, I'm thinking Papa John's.
15. Drink. All set here.
16. Pay some bills, so my house does not get repossessed.  Do they repossess houses.  How does that work?  Do they just come and un-build it?  I've never really liked this house anyway.
17. Sleep. Someday...

She's a mean one... Mrs. Grinch.

I'm not really a festive holiday kind of gal.

I don't HATE holidays, exactly, I just am not really that fond of them.  When I was a single girl with cats, I never could be bothered to put up a Christmas tree.  I was usually too drunk too busy with work and other projects, plus it just seems like a whole lot of work.  Put it up. Decorate it.  Put presents under it.  Undecorate it.  Take it down.   Rinse.  Repeat.

Some holidays are ok.  I like New Year's ok.  New Year's Eve is my best friend's birthday, and New Year's Day marks another retail Christmas that I survived.  I like the Fourth of July, too.  I mean really, who doesn't like blowing things up?  But Easter eggs stain my hands, trick or treating seems a little too much like soliciting and/or begging for food, and Valentines Day is just a made up day to try to see who loves you, I mean loves you enough to BUY you something.  The thought of a kid's birthday party makes me want to drink gin straight from the cat dish.

But the year zj was born, I thought I should at least TRY to participate in the holiday festivities, and by participate I mean I told RJ that he needed to procure and decorate a tree for us.  So, one Friday night at around midnight, RJ stumbles into the house with the biggest damn tree I've ever seen, complete with lights, decorations, etc.  See, Friday is poker night, and after swindling some poor fools out of their lunch money, he went to Wal-Mart and bought a tree for us.  What a good provider my husband is...

Anyway, back to me.  Not that zj is getting older, and watches enough tv that it's getting harder to lie to him about things wiser, we have to really go to greater lengths to celebrate the holidays.  So yesterday, on one of my two days off work between now and Christmas, we did this:

There were many questions for Santa, along with some talk of reindeer poop.  RJ also put up the tree and decorated it while I was busy with pretty much anything I could think of laundry and dinner.

See, I'm not a terrible Mama.

Really.

Retail Therapy.

I am a retail clerk.

Always have been, probably always will be.  You can fancy it up with other names: bookseller, manager, supervisor, whatever.  But the truth is that my main job is to try to sell as much stuff to as many people as possible, and to do it every day.  And most days, I'm pretty good at it.

But then there are those days.

It's retail.  it's Christmas.

Nothing puts fear and loathing in my heart as much as this phrase:  "Someone wants to speak to the manager."

Oh dear God.

I have taken complaints for everything from gum on the sidewalk (there really was) to "the cashier called me a bitch and tried to steal my money" (she didn't - at least not out loud).  I usually do a lot of smiling and nodding, and I often make the same low pitched humming sound that I use when I am trying to get cj to sleep (it seems to soothe the crazies for some reason).

So today, when I got the call, I steeled myself, took a swig of gin, which by the way, cannot be smelled on your breath, then bravely walked up to the cashier's desk.

It was obvious as I approached who was waiting for me.  There stood a lady, if lady is a word that can be used loosely, dressed in a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, an elf hat (which is sort of like a Santa hat, except for the creepy fake elf ears glued to the side, cut off jeans and some sort of high heeled flip flop contraptions.  Did I mention that this was yesterday, when it was 37 degrees and raining all day?

This was NOT going to be good.

She sort of looked like the kind of person who maybe at one time been well-kept, but who had come up on hard times recently...  You know the "hooker with a heart of gold who takes all the new hookers under her wing to teach them the ways of the world" look.

Did I mention that this was NOT going to be good?

Anyway, I bravely walked up to her, smiled vaguely somewhere in the general direction of her left ear (the real one, not the fake elf one), introduced myself and asked how I could help her today.

"You're the manager." A statement, not a question.

"Yes" I replied, still not QUITE making true eye contact.  When I walked up, it was immediately obvious that she had the crazy eyes.  It is a proven fact that if you stare into the crazy eyes, you get a touch of the crazy yourself.  

"Hrrrmuph."  (Her, not me.)  It was like she was somehow displeased that I was not somehow more... IMPRESSIVE, or taller, or something.

"I decided this mornin' that I was gonna do all my shoppin' today for Christmas.  I ain't never been in this store before today, but my son, he likes to read them comic books, and I thought I'd come here to see what you people had.  This is about the tenth store I've been in today.  I'm real tired and I'm real tired of spendin' money, and I just want to go home."

Ok, here it comes, I think.

"And I just wanted to tell you that everybody here was real nice to me.  That one lady helped me find something for my son, and this other lady at the registers, she was real nice too.  And it smells real good in here, like cookies or somethin'.  I wanted to tell you that I WILL BE BACK."   This was delivered like the warning that I'm sure it really was.

I thanked her profusely, hoping that I would be put in the "real nice" category, too, and invited her to come shop with us any time.

As she was walking away, almost as an afterthought, she turned back to me and said "Ya know, it sure would be nice if you people would get something in here to sell besides books, though. "

Thanks crazy elf hat lady.  I'll get right on it.

Paranoia.

An elf has come to live at 154 Hidden Court.

He's not just any elf, he's one of the infamous elves from The Elf on The Shelf.  And I'm pretty sure he's out to get  us.

See, it's supposed to be this fun Christmas tradition for your kids, complete with storybook, Elf magic, and intrigue.  Instead, at the J house, it's become a source of constant stress for all of us.

Here's how it's supposed to work.  You get your delightful little elf and read your kids the story about how naming him gives him his magic, and how he goes home to visit Santa at the North Pole every night to let Santa know if you've been naughty or nice, then each morning, your elf is magically waiting for you in a different spot than he was when you went to bed the night before.

Sounds pretty fun, right?

Right?

Even I thought it sounds like fun, and normally I choose not to participate in holiday festivities of any kind.  I thought to myself, "Self - surely you can manage to read a picture book to your kid and move a stuffed elf around the house a few times.  Even YOU can do that, self."

And I've failed miserably.

Here's what happened.

I sat down with zj to read the story.  He was very interested and paid close attention.  At the end of the story, we decided on a name for elf - Ironman - started talking about how Ironman would lose his magic if he was touched.

At this point, it started going to the South Pole in a handbasket.

Zj grabbed Ironman and held on to him as tightly as possible.

"He's not going to tell Santa I've been naughty.  He's NOT!!!"

Mmmmkay...

So much for the magic.  I was still determined to make this work somehow.  I pried cajoled Ironman out of zj's tightly clenched fists and convinced zj that Ironman would want to stick around the first night, you know, just to get the lay of the land.

When I went back into zj's room after he was asleep, guess what?  No Ironman the Elf to be found.

Since then, zj has taken great delight at hiding Ironman the Elf from me, and I have spend most of my waking hours trying to find the damn thing delightful critter.  It's become a competition of sorts, and it's one I am losing.

Badly.

So much for my first and last attempt at a festive holiday tradition.