Elf This.

Let's be honest.  Christmas is kind of a pain in the ass.  Oh, it's magical all right.  It's family and tradition and feelings and gingerbread and all that.  It's also a lot of work.  Not the Advent, quiet, reflective Jesus bit.  No, that would be easy.  But where are you going to find all that when you're hosting the yearly camping group Christmas party on Saturday when you didn't get your free weekend this year because Thanksgiving was so late and you got back from Houston late, bloated and frankly still hungover from three days of non-stop eating and drinking?  You're not. 

This year's Christmas seems really, really important.  I don't want to ignore any part of G's last Christmas as a permanent resident of this place.  I don't want to take the joy from her with my eye-rolling and can-we-just-put-out-a-couple-of-things-this-year humbug.  Especially when really, I'm the one who started all these traditions in the first place.  It didn't seem as big a deal when there were a couple of old, broken nativity scenes and some folk art Santas from the Hobby Lobby.  And the kids were so little!  They loved it so much!  It seemed so important!  But now there are THOUSANDS of them.  And they go in every nook and cranny of our home.  And we have TWO trees.  Yes, we are those people.  And I was the one who wanted it all.  Emphasis on -ed.

Remember when your kids were little and you were advised never to threaten a punishment that you weren't willing to follow through on?  Here's what they don't tell you:  Don't start a tradition that you're not willing to follow through on either.  I don't want to take one single thing from her last real Christmas.  But I also don't want to lug all that stuff in from the shed.  

I wonder if it's not getting worse with the pressure of Pinterest.  Don't get me wrong.  I am a fan.  But the level of perfection now required is so much worse than before.  There are at least 500 burlap Christmas wreath links over there right now.  Really?  And let's not start with the Elf on the Shelf.  I can only thank God, Jesus, Moses, Muhammed, Zeus, Isis, Osiris, Hera, Apollo, Venus, Buddha, Krishna, and the dude who kept getting his eyes plucked out on the side of that mountain that my kids were too old for the Elf on the Shelf when it showed up.  I would have had to have been institutionalized.  Now, some of my favorite people are big fans, and I don't love them ANY less for their elves.  I do, however, mock them.  I'll leave the very best commentary on this to the expert.

But nothing, NOTHING, I tell you, tops what I found in this month's Southern Living magazine.  Which I must admit I bought for no other reason than it had a picture of a giant piece of red velvet cake on the cover.  Mmmmm.  Red velvet.  Anyway, on the way to the recipe, I found this:

I'm going to give you a minute to take it all in.  Yes, folks, this may well be the end of civilization as we know it.  I don't even know where to start processing this single sheet of fabulous.  First of all, for the love of all that is holy, why would you ever WANT to dress like dishware?  Is there some need that this fills for someone out there?  And even in the most bizarre of universes in which one might think it was okay to dress like dishware, why would one want to look like Blanche Devereaux from The Golden Girls?  This is a train wreck.  Notice that the page is titled "Fashion Plate."  Get it?  Notice also that the green lace blouse says, "Step aside, tacky sweater." Oh, the irony.

Getting all the shit out of the shed suddenly seems a much more reasonable solution.

Ho ho ho.