I’ve gotten interested in birds. I suggested to Paul that we should get a bird guide so we’d know what they were.

When I hear about a problem with teenagers parked in cars, I side with the police and the parents and the nearby homeowners.

I have lines like a child’s drawing of a sunshine coming from the outer corners of my eyes.

I wish people wouldn’t walk on our lawn.

I hate cars blasting music as they drive by.

I call it “blasting.”

Cars full of teenagers make me nervous.

The Boxcar Children now seems scary to me (those kids are ON THEIR OWN!! OH NO!!”) rather than thrilling.

The skin on my upper arms is starting to look…different.

Snow Days are bad news.

Some of the people in celebrity magazines look like children to me. Silly, full-of-themselves children, preening and damaging their characters by hearing about how “hot” they are.

I think about people’s characters.

I’m nearly the age my high school boyfriend’s mother was when I was dating him.

If I’d had a baby at 16, the baby would be able to vote in this year’s election.

If I had a baby next year, I’d be high-risk because of “advanced maternal age.”

Ug, you are all TOTALLY RIGHT: it is AWFUL to bring up some sort of huge emotional issue and then be a complete TEASE about it. I would HATE it if someone else did that. I’d be like, “Either spill it or shut it, sister!”

I’m sorry I ever brought it up at all! But trust me when I say it is the kind of thing where if you knew what it was, you’d just be like, “Oh. That.” It’s just one of a number of well-known issues people fight about and kill each other over: @b0rti0n, h0m0sexu@lity, what should be done about the envir0nment, cry-it-0ut p@renting.

It falls into that category of topics that pretty much everyone has a strong opinion on, and even if everyone loves each other and swears to be nice about opposing points of view, it’s basically impossible. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just a topic people really, really care about, and I myself have been known to hit the ceiling if I read even one of the “nice” remarks that tries to be diplomatic. It’s such a dividing topic, people THINK they’re being fair and understanding about it, when actually they are demonstrating a TOTAL LACK OF UNDERSTANDING ABOUT EVEN THE MOST BAS—–

Sorry.

I will TRY not to tease anymore. I know it’s dreadful, and I hate when other people do it.

I’m so angry, I have a horrible adrenaline feeling in my throat, and my hands are cold and trembling, and my mouth is dry. And part of me would love to vent about it, but it’s on my (short) list of topics to never, ever talk about. Every time I slip and talk about it anyway, I’m very, very sorry. It’s one of my own Too Hot Issues.

Do you know how to find your own Too Hot Issues? I’ll tell you how. It’s when everyone on the other side of the issue seems like a raving, drooling moron, and you want to strangle every single one of them.

That’s not compatible with my usual life outlook, which is that it’s fine and natural for people to have different opinions, and that different lives are right for different people. Do I think you should be married, have five children, live in a raised ranch, and drive a minivan? Only if you want to, and there are a zillion other good lives if that life doesn’t appeal to you. But do I think you should be on the same side of the Too Hot Issue as me? YES YES YES AND IF YOU’RE NOT I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT. See? Incompatible. I can’t even tell you what the Too Hot Issue IS, because you might tell me where YOU stand–and even if you don’t, I’ll IMAGINE you telling me. It’s TOO HOT for me to touch.

This leaves me with a problem. Usually, talking things out is one of my best tools for getting over a grouse. I was a roiling mass of acid over the Target Christmas tree until I told you about it, and after that I felt released from it: I went and cheerfully deleted all the correspondence I’d been keeping for my imaginary lawsuit, and I stopped thinking about it every time I thought of Christmas, and I stopped composing mental scripts for my imaginary service desk confrontation, and I just felt BETTER, you know? It was as if I did $25 worth of venting, and now I could let the wasted $25 go. I mean, I still resent it, but I can see it as a blip rather than as THE END OF ALL JOY.

Well, you know what ELSE helped with the Christmas tree crabbiness was shopping the 75% off section at Target. Which is what I did to try to deal with today’s useless rage, especially since I’m not talking it out—even with PAUL, who is on THE SAME SIDE (but he draws the line at strangling the opposition, and if you are not FOR me you are AGAINST me). Anyway. I got something new at Target. Want to see? I finally found a Countdown to Christmas Calendar thingie I like, and it was 75% off:

Many such calendars are one-time-use, or they have not taken into account that a person might need adequate storage for FIVE little surprises each night before Christmas. This unit is of iffy quality (I found seven of them at two different Targets, and four of the seven had missing doors), but there’s room in each little cupboard for more than one item.

One of my favorite tasks between Christmas and New Year’s is choosing a calendar. I wait until they’re 50% off, and then I choose whatever appeals most. This year it was Beatrix Potter. Last year, it was Patience Brewster. The year before that, Fun with Dick & Jane.

For this coming year, it’s a mistake: I bought what I thought was a vintage ads calendar, but what I failed to notice is that the ads are actually inspirational messages. I don’t like inspirational messages. Inspirational messages make me want to HIT the person who wrote them, then give him a screaming baby and a toilet brush and stand over him hitting him some more and demanding to know how he feels NOW about “cherishing every moment.”

I would be interested to know how you choose your calendar each year, and what you’ve got lined up for 2008. I seem to be back in the market.

You guys = hilarious. I felt so much better reading all your funny remarks about my boyfriend.

For this year, we used our old, non-pre-lit fake tree, which fortunately I had not yet donated as I’d planned. The old tree is much smaller and didn’t have room for all my ornaments. Also, it had to have lights put on it, which fortunately Paul handled, perhaps remembering last year’s weeping and swearing.

For next year, I don’t know. I suppose my heart will heal with time. Especially if I see a nice fake tree at 90% off, as I did last year. I wish I’d bought my tree THEN, since then I would have lost only $10 instead of $25. But there is no sense dwelling on the past.

Today my boyfriend brought over a big old heart-shaped box of 75%-off clearance prices. (Which one is better: the one I used, or “held over his head a stereo of 75%-off clearance prices”?) My mom and I went shopping at TWO Targets, and I couldn’t help but be mollified. I bought:

Some pretty ornaments. The fluffy one clips to a branch.

A baby’s-first-Christmas ornament for Henry. Could I photograph it without it reflecting my GREEN SHIRT and PINK HAND and GREY CAMERA and BLACK CAMERA STRAP? No. The ornament is actually plain silver, and the bow and shoes are light blue. The child is not mine; her photograph came with the ornament.

Pretty tissue paper, gift tags, and a bag.

A box of chocolate peppermint cookies. Oh dear, an entire stack of cookies is missing! I, um, should have checked more carefully before buying them!

Two rolls of wrapping paper. Usually I wait for 90% on wrapping paper (because there’s usually plenty left, and because I already have too much), but I was feeling feisty.

Some cloth ribbon, in case I want to try the idea I saw EVERYWHERE this year about wrapping presents in reusable pieces of fabric. (My friend Mairzy thinks the idea was in Family Fun magazine.)

I also bought some paper plates with Christmas birds on them, but I forgot to take a photo of them before storing them in the little cabinet over the refrigerator, which is so difficult to get to it might as well not even count as a cabinet. And I bought some tape, but I thought you could take a pass on seeing that.

Different Target stores do their markdowns on different days, so yours might still be at 50%. I’m planning to keep checking for 90%, which is the best serenading-outside-my-window of all.

Considering how often I speak of my love for Target (to the point of saying “Oh my Target” when I want to avoid taking names in vain), and considering how often I speak of their clearances and urge you to partake of them also, and considering I thought I might name one of my children “Target” in Target’s honor, and considering the way I call their competitor Suckmart/Hellmart/Lamemart and am willing to pay more money to shop at Target because I hate the alternative so much, and considering how often I have talked about going there for the therapy and the soothing Target-scented air—considering all these things I say that may have given you the idea that Target is perfect in every way, I think it is only fair that I should tell you about a bad experience I just had with them. Plus, I’m crabby about it and want to vent. And it’s the weekend, so there’s nothing else for you to read anyway.

I bought a Target brand Christmas tree last year, on clearance. I set it up this year and it gave me two vibrating electric shocks (the vibrating kind are the dangerous kind) that left me patting my hair to see if it had Einsteined. I took it the hell down (the tree, not my hair, which absorbed the shock in the same way it absorbs all light and color, pulling them down deep below the surface where they will never be seen again), and I contacted Target (remember Target? that was what I meant to talk about, not my hair), saying that I wanted to find out what my refund/replacement options were.

At first I thought Target was being their usual wonderful self, because I had an email back from them within a few hours (and this was on the weekend), begging me for more information and asking me to get back to them as soon as I could so they could help me. I had the box and everything, so I could give them every scrap of information they asked for. UPC? DCPI? Dimensions? Got it! (It’s a Target brand 7.5-foot clear-lighted pre-lit Slim Cashmere Pine, in case you were wondering.)

It appears they were only worried about lawsuits. When they found out we had sustained no injuries, they thanked me for my helpful information and dropped out of touch—no answer to my question about a refund/replacement. If they had said, “Sorry, no,” I would have been disappointed but at least I could have moved on and bought a new tree. Instead, I was stuck waiting, not wanting to buy anything if I was going to have a replacement soon.

I got back in touch several times, asking. I got either no response or a “thank you for contacting us, now what was the situation again?”-type response.

Finally, after Christmas, I expressed my disappointment with the way they were handling things. I suggested that perhaps I should have specified that we wanted to find out about a replacement tree BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

I got an email back thanking me for my “feedback” (my theory: customer service has macros that automatically turn words such as “bitch fest” into words such as “feedback”) and saying there was nothing they could do for me, and that perhaps I would like to contact the manufacturer. Who is in Hong Kong. And has a non-loading web site. Oh, yes, I am QUITE SURE I will be getting a replacement tree mailed to me from Hong Kong any day now!

So now I have to take my brand-new tree to the dump, labeled DANGEROUS just in case anyone sees it and thinks, “Hey, Christmas tree! Score!” And Target gets to keep my money. And the manufacturer is safe in Hong Kong, where I cannot reach them to poke them with the pointy, shocky end of the tree as I would so enjoy doing.

Now I am in the market for a Christmas tree. I wonder how this experience will influence my purchasing decision? Target saved themselves $25, but bought themselves a heaping helping of bad feeling. And from their BEST GIRLFRIEND, too.

So I was all, “Wah wah, Christmas is over and I am glum,” and Emblita brought it to my attention that there is such a thing as THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS. And I totally think we should jump on that, don’t you?

I think that is practically the WHOLE reason we feel glum after Christmas: ALL that build-up, and then over in a flash. Twelve days—now that’s more like it.

So let’s see, today is The Fourth Day of Christmas, is that right, Emblita? And a little visit to Wikipedia does not reveal any particular traditions for each day, other than the exchanging of calling birds, French hens, etc., which I am fresh out of. (Rob, this morning: “Is a partridge a BIRD or a FRUIT?”)

This means we’re on our own. I’m open to anything, as long as we can have at least one “75% Off Target’s Christmas Stuff” Day.

Oh, you must go see Caley’s darling new Christmas Eve baby! And get this: she named him OLIVER! (If you go to the comment section of the Namer’s Remorse post, you can actually SEE her choosing it.) Oliver is my favorite boy name, and it has been my goal to talk someone into using it. Hmm…..should I choose a new name now, or just a new pregnant woman?

I’m sitting here in a daze, drinking coffee in an attempt to animate my pajama’d limbs. There’s a baby tiring of floor time. There are two toddlers who are going to leak through their nighttime diapers soon if I don’t do something about it. There’s a third-grader who will sleep late and then not be able to get to sleep tonight. There’s a first-grader who wants me to tell him what he should make out of Model Magic.

But Paul is at work and it’s the postpartum stage of Christmas. The “unpacking after the trip” stage of Christmas. The “morning after” of Christmas.

The presents are opened and must somehow be incorporated into the household. The glitter is back to looking tacky. The wrapping supplies must be packed up and put away. The house will look bare and plain, and the whole long winter stretches ahead.

I got a running start on this stage by feeling even as Christmas approached that the whole celebration was a little nuts. We hang little sparkly doodads on a TREE we bring into our HOUSE? We all go out and buy things for each other and hide them in decorated paper? The whole holiday is basically about swapping things? I felt like an anthropologist trying to puzzle out the strange ways of an ancient culture.

And indeed, that’s what most of our Christmas traditions are: the strange ways of an ancient culture. “Christmas” is just the most recent name for a longstanding idea that winter could use a little glitter and booze to give it some life and hope. The current name was chosen by Christians who couldn’t participate in the established pagan winter holiday but didn’t want to give up the fun, either. Rename it! Give it religious significance! Then you can celebrate it! It was a clever workaround and the name was catchier than Pagan Winter Holiday, and it stuck.

Well, whatevs. We are not a religious history blog, nor are we truly anthropologists. Nor are we entirely sure when the word “anthropologist” can stand alone and when it needs an adjective such as “cultural” or “nutritional” in front of it. All we know (and can we drop the plural pronoun now? thanks) is that after Christmas is over, it seems like we still need glitter and booze.

The happy anticipation? Gone. The excuse to bake and eat? Gone. The pretty paper, the pretty ornaments, the pretty Christmas lights? Gone. The excuse to spend a little more? GONE GONE GONE. Now is the season for bills and for clean-up, and for commitments to diets that are going to be FOR REALS this time. It’s no wonder we feel accompanying seasonal emotions.

Lookee my presents!

The picture I wanted so badly from Black Sheeped’s Etsy shop. The light caught the protective plastic funny so the mat looks faded/splotchy but it isn’t. (Kara Marie, it is EVEN MORE WONDERFUL in person. I’m so relieved Paul was the one who bought it! Whew!)

This cute 3-pack of L’Artisan perfumes. MMMmmmmm, FRENCH!

Pretty pretty earrings I started hinting about after seeing them over at Shannon’s blog.

Books books books, because I love books and our local library is small.

This awesome “secret hiding place” book Paul made. He’d filled it with those round, gold-wrapped Ferrero Rocher chocolates, but, um, I eated them.

What did you get?

It’s so good to know I’m not the only one up this early, and that grown-ups everywhere are dragging themselves out of bed and pulling themselves along the floor soldier-style, trying to make it all the way to the coffee pot. And it’s also good to know that, statistically speaking, it’s unlikely I’m the only one who did ALL the shopping for ALL the children, mother-in-laws, father-in-laws, sibling-in-laws, teachers, mail carrier, bus driver, etc., and ALL the wrapping of those presents, and ALL the sorting and carrying and distributing, only to hear her husband ask 10 minutes before celebration time if he can help. Um, YES, you can go BACK IN TIME and participate when I ASKED you to, or at least JOIN IN THE CONVERSATIONS about what to get people, instead of SIGHING like I was asking you to LEVEL THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA.

*Ahem* I mean, MERRY CHRISTMAS!