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!

El-e-e was asking about how people schedule Christmas, and Pann was writing about how when you have holidays at your own home for the first time it can be tricky to know what to do. So I’ll tell you how we do it in the Swistle Family, which includes Swistle, Paul, and kids; Swistle’s Mom and Swistle’s Dad; and Swistle’s Brother and Swistle’s Sister-in-Law.

We start “after naptime.” The quotes are because this holds true even if no one in the family is young enough to nap. We start at 2:30 or 3:00, after everyone is showered and coffeed and dressed and breakfasted and lunched and napped, and no one has to come to the celebration feeling gritty and tangled and exhausted while it’s still dark outside. Perhaps most importantly of all, we can go ahead and eat candy without worrying about breakfast.

First, everyone opens stockings, all at the same time. There is exclaiming and snacking and chatting and calling out, “Where did you GET this?” (one year my brother gave me a bar of Total Bitch soap—best stocking stuffer EVER).

When the chatting and snacking die down, we do the Child Gift Exchange: children take turns opening their presents and handing out the presents they have chosen for adults. There is much exclaiming and chatting and removing packaging and inserting batteries and reminding to say thank you, and the adults can continue to snack out of their stockings.

At this point it is time for a break: the kids are wound up, and the adults are worn out from the children’s excitement and from too many bites of chocolate Santa. It’s around 5:00, so it’s time for a light dinner. At our house we have Swistle’s Soup with garlic bread. (This soup is actually BETTER as leftovers, so it’s good for making ahead of time and not having to cook on Christmas.)

After dinner, the children change into pajamas and we go out on a Christmas Light Drive: just weaving around the neighborhood saying, “Ooooo, I like those!” and “Yick!” to our hearts’ content. We listen to Christmas music in the car.

Back home, it’s 7:00 and the children go to bed. Littler children go to sleep. Older children may stay up and read new books, but they have to stay in bed.

Because now it is time for the grown-ups to relax. The wine is brought out. Everyone changes into pjs or into comfier clothes. There are no children running wild. The snacking from stockings continues, and the gift-opening begins. We go around the circle, taking turns. Lots of chatting and exclaiming.

After gifts, the adults have a late dinner of worstenbroodjes, which are basically pigs-in-blankets but oh so much more delicious. Also, a red jello salad and a green jello salad.

It is so pleasant. We can genuinely enjoy the children’s gifts, and give the children a lot of attention. We can genuinely enjoy our own gifts, too, and not have to try to squeeze them in between the children’s hyper enjoyment of theirs. We can talk without shouting.

Here is the part we don’t know yet, because the oldest child in the family is only a third-grader: at what point does a child cross over into the adult group? We’re playing it by ear, but we’re thinking Rob is close to being ready. I think the most important part is that the child has to be old enough not to dominate the evening, and to get pleasure from watching people other than himself open gifts.

I have been way over-stressed about teacher gifts this year. From the way I have been fretting and storming (did you see my rantlet in the comment section of a Maybe Painted Pink post? oh good, don’t go look), you would think I was under the impression that the gift I give teachers is what will MAKE OR BREAK their Christmas. “This gift from Rob’s mom is CRAP,” the teacher would say. “Christmas is RUINED.” She’d go home weeping, shaking her fist at the sky. She’d snap at her children, sulk on the couch all through Christmas morning, and cry in the bathroom during Christmas dinner. She would go back to school in January, but the light would be out of her eyes and she would be considering going back for a degree in architecture instead. And who would be to blame? SWISTLE.

It is my own fault I feel this way. After years of having a wonderful time choosing gifts for teachers, I thought I’d go online to find some fresh ideas. And what I found out is that all the gifts I was giving were considered total crap.

I was pleased to find I was not bottom of the barrel. I give good-brand candles, good-brand soaps, good-brand chocolates–better and much more expensive than what I buy for myself. As one of my teacher friends cheerfully put it when I turned to her hoping she’d say the reports online were by an unrepresentative sample of rogue teachers (she did not), I’m at “the good end of the Bad Gift Spectrum.” Oh good.

You are asking to see one of my high school poems, but do you really understand what you’re asking? HIGH SCHOOL POETRY. Did you not read Mary’s comment about how awful high school poetry is? “Emotion, writ large (and poorly),” she says, and OH HOW RIGHT SHE IS. My primary emotion in high school was imagining myself in deep, conflicted, star-crossed love with boys I stared at in study hall and never talked to.

Plus, to select a poem to post, I would have to go through that folder (I’m sorry to say that “& Such” means “& Stream-of-Consciousness Essays”), and probably read more than one poem during the selection process. I did TRY, okay? I went through it a little, looking for a poem that would be humorously humiliating without being genuinely embarrassing. But GEEZ, Former Self!

There was a poem written so that the first letter of each line spelled out the name of one of the cute boys I liked to stare at; there are two stanzas, one for his first name and one for his last name. Another poem claims that love and sadness are very different emotions, then ends “…or are they?”—ellipses, italics, and all.

There is what I believe is intended to be some sort of ballad, describing the love between a young girl and a soldier who, in a stunning surprise twist, dies in the war. There is a reference to “the neverending ballet with the stars,” and a little notation that perhaps “with” should be “of.” (I don’t think the trouble here was prepositional.) Later on, I wonder in a margin if “like a cloud in the sky” would be better as “like a shadow in the night.” (Answer: no.)

I speak hand-claspingly of “love on a summer’s day,” not that I had any idea what that would be like. I explain in one poem that “when our eyes / meet / it is magic.” (Free tip for high school poets: It is not REAL POETRY if the line breaks make sense.) I point out earnestly that activities such as “dancing with children” and “picking flowers” and “looking at the stars” should be pursued, whereas MONEY on the other hand is unimportant. (Number of times I danced with children in high school: zero. Number of times I earned money babysitting them: seven bersnillion.)

There is the confession that I have “a heart that beats.” Good thing I saved these poems, so I’d remember what I was like! I had a beating heart, I’d almost forgotten! Also, evidently I thought that a woman in love (such as myself) would run to her boyfriend (such as the boy I stared at in English class) “like a zephyr.” Hi, English vocab list! Did I realize that zephyrs do not typically trip over their own pant legs?

I invited one lucky young man to “come fly with me.” I’m not sure what I had in mind, but I can tell you it was NOT what the young man would have thought I meant. (I believe I may have been thinking of the scene where Lois Lane flies with Superman.) There are references to “broken dreams” and “forgetting to dream.” There are “tears running down the windowpane,” and, oddly, “a palavar of sorrow.” A…what?

Some of them are written in PINK INK. I mean—GAH!

Let’s talk instead about the baby names in that post, and what I think of them a dozen years later. To review: the girl names were Fenchurch, Sophie, Molly, Quinn, Madeleine, Philippa, Ivy, Jill, Grey, Noel, Maizie, and Leaf; and the boy names were Jack, Joe, Sam, Luke, Milo/Miles, Leo, and Ross.

I don’t actively dislike any of the names. I still like Ivy and Jill and Madeleine for girls. I still like Milo/Miles, Leo, and Joe for boys, and in fact all three of them were strong contenders when I was pregnant with Henry.

I still like most of the other names, too, but now some of them are starting to sound out of date. Jack and Sam, which seemed so fresh ‘n’ sassy in 1995, are more usual now. And I wouldn’t use Grey or Leaf or Fenchurch, because that didn’t turn out to be our naming style. Maizie now makes me think of Maisy the mouse. (Also: grain.) I still like Sophie, but now would probably go for Sofia instead. Philippa is too hard to spell–I can’t remember if it’s two Ls and one P or one L and two Ps or…? It’s like Eliot/Elliot/Elliott/Eliott.

• Card received: +5
• Card received before December 1st: -1
• Card received after December 25th: -1
• Card is pretty, and looks nice on wall: +3
• Card is glittery: +1
• Card does not contain card, but only letter, so there is nothing to put up on wall: -3
• Card is e-card: -5

• Card includes photo or is photo card: +5
• More than one photo: +2 each additional photo
• Photo is non-Christmassy so will look good on fridge all year: +1
• Photo is Christmassy so increases holiday feeling of card: +1
• Red-eye causes family to appear possessed by evil Christmas spirit: -1
• Photo was taken on beach this past summer in summer clothing, so family looks chilly against winter pattern of card: -1
• Photo includes dogs with glowing eyes who seem poised to eat humans: -1

• Card includes letter: +5
• Letter is informative and interesting: +3
• Letter describes child as “amazing” or “already an avid reader at age 3!”: -3 each
• Letter is so braggy and saccharine-cheery, I wonder why I associate with these people: -3
• Letter is so very braggy and saccharine-cheery, it crosses over into comical and becomes fun to read aloud in an unkind tone of voice: +2
• Letter is a sermon disguised as a Christmas letter, and contains pious hopes for our country, for mankind, and for me personally: -5
• Letter mentions details of gross surgery: -1 or +1, depending on entertainment value
• Letter contains thinly-veiled family gossip: +3
• Letter contains information that should have been told earlier: -2

• Card includes check: +5
• Large check: +10
• Card includes announcement of pregnancy: +10
• Card from Christmas Card Friends contains surprising news of baby born since last card sent: +10