Behind the Photo: A new Christmas tradition

It's hard to start holiday traditions when kids are small. A tradition carries with it the steep expectation  that things should go a certain way and I've found that high expectations and children just don't mix. Until now, we've not really had any Christmas traditions with the kids. For one, they've been barely cognizant of what's going on and I'm not one to fill their head with ideas especially when I'm still (yes, still) struggling with how to explain all this to my children and steer them away from the crass consumerism that so disgusts me.

Over the past five years, I've either been pregnant or had a newborn or a newly mobile infant on my hands. Church services, live nativity scenes or other Christmas shows, visits with Santa Claus or parties, among other things, have been out of the question. I've not been able to predict with any  certainty whether my children will be in the mood for these activities, let alone whether I'd be semi-conscious at the time.

Right now, the kids are a whiny bunch of billy goats that we loathe to take out in public. Girlface is in the "I do it" stage. The Baby has turned into a raging lunatic toddler who throws things. Big Brother is five, but still somewhat cranky and loud. They've not had much exercise lately because of the temperature and it gets dark before dinner. Recipe for chaos, I tell you.

We've been desperately trying to find ways to entertain them which do not involve taking them out in public. Our solution? Bundle 'em up, strap in the van and search for Christmas lights. It's not without it's unpleasantness, but at least they can't physically reach us.

We hear this a lot from the back seat:

"TURN THE SONG ON."(Girlface)

"STOP THE CAR." (Big Brother)

"BACK UP, BACK UP." (The Baby)

But it's worth it. We found the holy grail of Christmas front-yard scenes:

Christmas lights, Griswold style

Girlface calls out from the back seat continuously, "OOOOOOOOOOOO, CHRISTMAS LIGHTS." It's only cute the first 10 times; after that, I kick myself for not bringing ear plugs. And when we found Santa the other night, Girlface darted around me, out of the van and nearly ran out in front of the only car we'd seen in a while. Terrifying.

This man, I mean, Santa, sits in his yard which is decked out with Christmas lights and dinosaurs (he runs a reptile rescue).  He hands out candy canes, lets you take photos of him with your kids and actually chats with the kids for a while. We gave him a small donation for his rescue operation. It sounds creepy, I know. But he's a nice guy and we'll likely skip the crowded mall and go see him again next year.  

Big Brother was delighted.

Big Brother told him that he wanted a fast car. And when Santa asked him if his sister had been good, he told him, "Yes, but sometimes she's bad." I bit my tongue, because, you know, he hadn't asked me if my son had been good. I was totally in the mood to rat his little butt out, too. Girlface stood in front of him and whined, "I want a new puzzle." Then when we got back to the van, she cried that she hadn't gotten a new puzzle. So sad (and one of the reasons I don't like this time of year with small children: they live in the moment. If they say they want a new puzzle, they mean that they want it now.) They conned us into letting them eat their candy canes on the ride home, too, so you can imagine how bedtime went that night.

We've done this a few times this past week. It started as a desperate attempt to occupy the children between dinner and bedtime. It's turned out to be the only Christmas related activity we can get them to sit still for; mostly because we've strapped them in.

Behind the photo

Sometimes I look at my friends' photos on Facebook which show clean, well-mannered kids happily frolicking in the sand or the waves or the woods or wherever and I suddenly think my kids are impossible. Because there is no way they would look that happy or play that well together or frolic for 10 consecutive minutes without screaming or fighting or melting down. (Okay, I'm exaggerating. They can't go 5 minutes without incident.)

Once I saw my sister's photos of a lovely sunrise picnic at the beach in Okinawa. It really doesn't get more idyllic than that. And at the time, I was in daily survival mode, living on Diet Coke, Luna Bars and three hours of sleep at a stretch. I mentioned how jealous I was of the whole scene. And how hopeless I felt at that moment.

She let me in on a little secret. It wasn't quite as idyllic as it looked. Between shots of the kids frolicking in the surf against the rising sun, there were fights and she wasn't feeling well and everyone had to get up way too early. (In my blinding jealousy and discontent, it never occurred to me that they got up before sunrise for this.)

It was then I realized that behind every photo is a story. Photos stand still. But time marches on. And with those marching orders comes conflict and unpredictability, which is why I savor the times when my kids are sleeping or gone or frozen in photos. It's peaceful and predictable.

So I've decided to add a running feature to the blog called Behind the Photo. I post lots of photos on Facebook. And in viewing them, I see the happy moments, the memories we made, the fun we had.
I also fear that some mom somewhere who is having a rough time will feel the same hopeless discouragement I felt over my sister's photos. But my husband and I are the only one who knows the real story behind the photos. For instance, only I know that 20 seconds after this beautiful sandbox shot, Big Brother dumped sand on his sister's head for no apparent reason. (And now you know, too. You're welcome.)

I don't think this is a negative exercise, though. It's about honesty. Sometimes moms focus so much on the positive that we think other children are perfect. And then we end up hating other moms and ourselves because we're comparing our insides to your outsides. That's just too much hating. We all need to know about each other's insides if we're going to survive parenthood with our sanity intact.

Here's our first entry.

Jim flying a kite in a hurricane

How does this thing work, Big Brother?

On a Friday night in August as Hurricane Irene's outer bands buffeted our area, we decided to test out a family joke. My husband loves kites. He brings them with us every time we go to the lake and tries to fly them, wind or no wind. Actually, the wind almost immediately stops when he tries to put a kite in the air. I've long told him that he couldn't fly a kite in a hurricane.

I brought the camera, of course, because he would want irrefutable proof that he could indeed fly a kite in a hurricane.

What really happened: Jim got the kite up in the air several times. Jim impatiently tried to get Big Brother set up with a kite. I followed behind with the two younger ones, continually untangling them from trailing kite strings. The Baby freaked out and cried each time he got tangled up. Girlface obliviously walked through the kite strings. Jim barked. I sighed. I tracked down Girlface and The Baby's shoes in a large field. Then I got bit on the foot by a chigger (?). It hurt. Bad.

Time spent: about an hour, maybe 10 minutes of which the kite was in the air.

Time to go? Big Brother pitched the kind of fit that makes us wonder whether such family outings are worth the effort. Which, of course, they are because we accept (eventually or at least before the next outing) the fact that fun is frequently punctuated by unpleasantness with little kids.

P.S. Yeah, it was pretty fun. And, yes, my husband can fly a kite in a hurricane. Indeed, that may be the only time he can fly a kite.