People Get Ready

Do you know why Grinch hated Christmas - "the whole Christmas season?"
It's probably because he had to spend it with kids.
Tonight we decorated the tree. Now I'm no Martha Stewart but there's an order to tree decorating and it's not icicles first, half the ornaments, and then the paper chains. The paper chains and the icicles have to go on last. I know this because I've lived for 40 years and decorated as many Christmas trees. Despite this knowledge, accumulated over the decades, my children refused to listen. They probably couldn't listen because freakin' visions of sugar plums were dancing in their wound up little heads and clouding whatever reason they might have had. Consequently every time they hung an ornament on the tree they knocked off at least two icicles. This eventually led to huge amounts of frustration, to which I wanted for all the world to say, "I told you so!" But good mothers almost never say that, so neither did I.
Instead I thought up some new Christmas carol titles based on the evening's events:
"He's knocking over the manger again"
"I saw Mommy Swilling Cabernet"
"Deck Your Brother"
"If you can't take turns with that Santa hat I'm taking it away"
and my favorite not-written-as-of-yet Christmas classic:
"Don't you dare stick your tongue out at Me."
After dinner I popped Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer in the DVD player to sedate them a bit. When it was over they were docile enough to lead up to bed but not without some running movie commentary from C.
"Why did the Elf want to be a dentist?"
"Why was the monster (the abominable snowman) mad at Rudolph?"
"Why did Rudolph go off and leave his friends?"
"How did Rudolph know to look for his family in the monster's cave?"
"Why didn't they show Santa going down any chimneys?"
Let's add "Rudolph the over-analyzed Reindeer" to the song list.

song: People Get Ready • artist: Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions