April Fools!

I have a confession to make: April Fools’ Day turns me into a bit of a conniving goofball. There’s just something delightful about a holiday that’s all about embracing silliness and childish pranks, especially when the rest of the year I’m locked into the role of Responsible Adult. I make the appointments and organize the bedroom cleaning and help the boys with their homework. I replace torn socks and and make sure the pantry and fridge are stocked with sensible and nourishing staples. I am The Mom.

But once a year I get a little goofy. I plan silly surprises and “gotcha!” moments for the boys in my world (well, except for the dog… I don’t think he’d understand). This year’s holiday tributes looked like this:

• Last night, I sneaked into my 14-year-old’s room and discovered, to my delight, that his alarm clock has an “alarm 2” switch. So without disturbing his usual morning settings, I was able to program a surprise pre-dawn awakening by the Spanish language station set to full volume. ("Bueno, los campistas, la subida y el brillo, y no se olvide de traer sus botas. Es cooooold hacia fuera allí hoy!")*
  

• Every year I find at least one fabulously freaky item while I’m surfing the web for Christmas gifts in the fall (check out sites like thinkgeek.com). Last year, it was a toilet monster. This year, it was this fabulous shower curtain (see photo). The shadowy figure is a permanent feature! I see it as a perfect cross between Psycho and Poltergeist.

• I switched the hand soap in the kitchen and the boys’ bathroom with canola oil, thinking the smeary experience would at least elicit some grudging boyish respect because of the grossness factor. The joke was on me, though, because nobody noticed. The boys just smeared oil on their hands and went about their business nicely moisturized. [Note: backfiring tricks are not unprecedented. When Caden was five or six, I tucked a second-hand Barbie into bed with each of my sleeping sons on the night of March 31st. When Caden came downstairs the next morning, he was stroking her hair and calling her Stephanie.]

• Not wanting to leave Eric out of the fun, I sneaked out in the night and tucked bubble wrap under his rear tires, hoping that the resulting noise would give him a jolt as he wondered what he-of-the-perfect-driving-record had hit. It would probably have been more startling if the bubble wrap hadn’t been bright pink and the morning paper hadn’t landed right next to the rear of the car. Ah, well, at least he felt included.

• While the boys slept, I covered the top part of their bedroom doors with newspaper and filled the resulting pocket with packing peanuts. When they opened their doors in the morning, each boy was greeted with a snowy avalanche. That was a short-lived triumph, however, since “Responsible Mom” is the one who had to clean up all of that drifting Styrofoam (that, and my older son returned the favor by covering my bed in the flighty stuff). Note to self: no messy pranks next year.

• Caden’s lunch contained a “candy” surprise. I carefully opened the end of a bag of M-n-Ms and poured out (and enjoyed) the candy, refilling the package with dried kidney beans and gluing the end closed. The prank was perfectly undetectable! I think his friends at lunch were more amused than my M-n-M-less ten-year-old, though. I had to pony up an actual treat after school to make peace with the jilted candy-craver.

• While the boys were at school, I changed the home page on their web browser to bieberfever.com. I mean, what 14-year-old boy doesn’t want to gaze at Justin Beiber as soon as he logs on?

• The final twist to the day was the dinner, which I always try to make as “April Foolish” as possible. This year’s menu was a sort of course reversal. The “fish sticks” and “peas and carrots” on their dinner plates were actually cereal-coated wafer cookies and hand-shaped Jolly Rancher chews and Starburst candies. The “cupcakes”, on the other hand, were made of meat loaf topped with pink-tinted mashed potatoes. Yummy! 

How does the rest of the family respond to this annual frivolity from Mom? My ten-year-old looks forward to April Fools’ Day almost like it’s Christmas. He giggles his way through the day, glancing suspiciously around door frames and asking frequently if there are more tricks on the way. My older son—at least this year—suddenly finds the whole thing embarrassing and mildly contemptible. (“Oh great, Mom, ‘April Fools’. That’s hilarious.”) But I persist. I’m hoping that when my kids are older, they’ll remember that once a year (at least) Mom was more than just that person who made them brush their teeth.

So... what should I do next year?

 

* Apologies to actual Spanish speakers if Google Translate mangled the DJ's line from Groundhog’s Day. My son, a first-year Spanish student, couldn't help me on this one.

The Post-Holiday Exhale

Even this tree is slumping from the stress of the season.

It’s over.

I mean, I still haven’t taken down the tree, and ours are the only house lights left up on our street (hey, it’s cold out there!), but Christmas has definitely come and gone for another year. On the one hand, I’m a little sad that my very favorite annual event—the one that involves so much planning and preparation and anticipation—has passed by already. On the other hand [ahhhhh], the time has come to just breathe, arms splayed wide, body collapsed on the couch with a steaming peppermint hot cocoa by my side.

The holiday season, for me, feels a little like running in a weighted snowsuit up a mountain, alone. The end of the journey promises a Norman Rockwell experience filled with family love, twinkling lights, and the smell of fresh pine needles. When I finally get there, though, what I mainly feel is exhausted from the climb. The hubby and kids? They’re already at the top, waiting in a snug cabin with their feet held to the fire.

My husband and I have very different views on the “right” way to celebrate Christmas. While I happily embrace all the sparkle and hustle and traditions of the holiday, his perfect Christmas would involve a long nap, a rousing pick-up hoop game, and plenty of time to read the paper. (Dream on, couch-king!) Our reality, though, is filled to the brim with family gatherings (his, mine, and—modern families being what they are—mine again with the other parent), lots of gifts given and received, hugs, chaos, and mounds of shredded paper.

I am married to an economist who sees the world as a series of cost-benefit analyses. Exchanging presents just doesn’t make sense to a guy like him. Oh, he’ll participate in the family gift exchanges (and will smile and say thank-you like he should), but he’s never going to be the recipient who lights up the room with his delight at your thoughtfulness. The way my husband sees it, if he needs or wants something, he should just buy it himself (and vice versa). That way, everyone will get exactly the right thing without the hassle of a return. The appeal of trying to guess what someone else needs or wants simply escapes him.

My economist husband is married to—I guess you could call me an emotionalist. I don’t think gift giving can be placed on the same scale as other types of purchases. That sort of thinking leaves out very real non-tangible benefits for both the giver and the receiver. I get so excited when I find just the right gift for someone on my list (like these goofy "Road Rage" signs that went in Hubby’s Christmas stocking). Often, I find myself awake in the wee hours of Christmas morning, more excited than even the kids to see how each person likes what I chose.

This Christmas, my mother bought me a beautiful new buttery-soft brand-name leather purse. It’s the type of splurge I would never dream of buying for myself, but now it's one of my most cherished possessions. A simple economic view of the transaction leaves out all of the joy she felt when I gasped after tearing away the paper, and the extra warmth I feel when I use it knowing it was a gift from my mom. To put all of that emotional goodness in economic terms, we both derive more utility from the purchase this way than we would have if I had simply bought it myself.

So (surprise!), the gift buying is not really a shared experience around here. His primary contribution to the holiday—and this is not to belittle the very real effort he makes in this regard—is to try to ignore all of the time and money I spend to find just the right gifts for everybody on our list. Even though I know his economist inner self is cringing, he never says a word, no matter how ridiculously overstuffed the kids’ stockings get each year. My job, then, is to decorate the tree (and the rest of the house), buy and wrap the gifts for our boys and extended family, stuff the stockings, cook Christmas dinner (and the deviled eggs for Christmas morning at Grandma's), create & send the Christmas cards, and rally the troops for all of the many holiday gatherings with our two extended families.

Like I said, when I finally get to the Norman Rockwell moment, I’m often too exhausted (and, let’s face it, a little grumpy) to enjoy it quite as much as I feel I should.

I have about eleven months to figure out how to make the holidays easier and better and more fun for both of us next year, but the solutions—as always—elude me. (Which branch of the family should we cut out to make time for the hoop game?) I do have a few tiny seeds of ideas that I may float out there, though (additional suggestions are definitely welcome).

• My Christmas gift from Mr. Hates-to-shop could be one day of professional housecleaning and one spa massage, to take place at the same time a couple of days before the holiday. I’m thinking that would go a long way toward bringing more peace on earth to our little celebration.
• I should really loosen up my “package prettiness” standards and let the wrapping job fall to the boys and their all-thumbs dad. [Gulp] The wrapped gifts were only under the tree for about ten minutes this year anyway because of our chews-everything fluffy mutt (last year’s best gift ever).
• Maybe—and this would be a big change for others, too, so it’ll take some discussion—family could come to our (new!) house this year, reducing the number of trips we make over the river and through the woods. Hey, and since the house would already be clean, Hubby might even get that nap!

 How do you handle the balance between multiple extended families and different celebrating styles at your house?

Re-Killing the Turkey

Most of you were done on Thursday, but I just waved goodbye to the biggest feast of the season after having twenty in-laws over for a belated Thanksgiving meal last night.

That shriek you hear is the song to my crazed morning-after happy dance.

I am not an entertainer. I want to be. I try. But while some people are born to lay out lavish dinners for multitudes with nary a batted eyelash, I was born to be the rolls and veggie tray girl. It’s not really that I’m such a bad cook (although the facts of last night may point that way). It’s more that I’m a worrier who frets for weeks leading up to the event, and then lets pots boil over onto the stove while the guests arrive. And no matter how much planning I do ahead of time (in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping), I always seem to find myself driving to the store thirty minutes before go time to pick up that one last ingredient that will somehow lift the party from stressed-out mayhem to Martha Stewart perfection.

Last night’s meal involved a turkey—well, a turkey and a ham, because I was sick of turkey after eating leftovers since Thursday, but some of the guests were averse to ham. Ham’s easy (hel-lo, you can get them already cooked and sliced), but I had prepared precisely one turkey in my lifetime, and I think it was about eight years ago (or, roughly, the last time I couldn’t somehow escape hosting duties on Thanksgiving).

Now, you may be thinking that turkey is easy, too, but I beg to differ. Cooking a turkey involves wrestling eighteen pounds of cold, rubbery raw bird flesh onto a pan (brand new, since—duh—I didn’t actually own a roasting pan, which you don’t need for rolls or a veggie tray). First you have to fish out the neck (thanks for including that, Butterball!), and then you need to stand there for ten minutes or so with your arm swirling around the slimy innards while you frantically search for the bag of giblets. I knew they must be there somewhere—I have actually cooked poultry before—but nobody warned me that I should be looking in the turkey’s butt!

Finally (and you might be able to skip this step), I needed to run to the computer to Google how to insert a meat thermometer into “the meatiest part of the thigh.” I’ve eaten chicken thighs, but I wasn’t even sure where to find one on that nasty raw-meat monstrosity. (I think this experience may actually be the tipping point that turns me vegetarian.)

With the thermometer in according to the package directions and the wisdom of the Internet, I set the bird in the oven to cook for the promised four hours while I finished making the rest of the food and setting three tables. (Hubby was away working hard at his very important coaching job and picking up Danger Boy from basketball practice, so it was all on me—yippee!). Forty-five minutes early, the temperature alarm beeped, and I took the now-golden bird out to rest. It looked pretty good! On a whim, though, I decided to check the temp of the suspiciously firm-looking turkey breasts. I know that “firm” and “breasts” can be good in some situations, but I don’t think Thanksgiving dinner is one of those. When I inserted the probe, the meat let out the barest dusty sigh as I discovered with the rapidly rising temperature gauge that I had indeed killed the bird (again!). Damn.

“Gravy, people, you should definitely throw on some gravy. Or try the ham. The ham is great!”

Finally, the work was done, the house cleaned, the borrowed chairs in place, and the food laid out for the hungry masses. My older son looked at the food spread out before him and, sagely, made the observation of the night:

 “The problem with Thanksgiving is that the food isn’t even all that good. We have a whole day centered around turkey. Why don’t we have a day centered around something that tastes good, like hamburgers?”

Now that would be my kind of Thanksgiving! I’ll bring the buns.

Two of three tables... the top one still waiting on the BYOC (bring your own chairs)