So this is Christmas?

Yes, it was and I’ll tell you now things may be slow posting-wise for a while longer because I moved from the darkness into the light.  I embraced a whole new dawn of technological creativity and bowed before a god whose design aesthetic is mind-blowing.  Yes, I changed from a PC to an iMac. Am I lovin’it?  Well, yes, yes I am.  I love even just staring at it when it’s turned off.  I am totally in love with it.

So, yes, Christmas.  Over and done with and I’m nursing a sense of anti-climax.  Having got myself spectacularly well-organised in the run up to the event, I was busy hugging  myself with glee and anticipation when I came down with tonsillitis.  Again.  Which was bad enough but then a day before things got seriously weird when I started upchucking blood.  I know it was blood because I put some in tupperware and showed it to my doctor, heh, heh.  Never say I don’t know how to make somebody’s Christmas.

Enough about blood vomit; I can sense you really want to know what the children of a feminist get for the big day.

The short answer is: pretty much the same as every other spoilt Western kid, only in reverse.

L’il Boo got a cooker and a tea set.  Boogie got a secret agent HQ and a pair of MMA/boxing gloves.

And yes, for the record, Boogie would never have got the cooker.  I am that kind of mother.

I tell myself that I simply buy what the children want; or what would seem to be something they’d enjoy given who they are right now.  And to a certain extent, that is absolutely true.  Boogie, for example, has for some time now, dressed almost exclusively in black because ‘that’s what spies wear‘.  And she’s so into her martial arts at the minute that when L’il Boo launches himself at her (to hug her? to headdbutt her? to rugby tackle her? – it’s impossible to tell until it’s all over bar the shouting), Boogie will sometimes reflexively move her foot in a perfect roundhouse kick and fell the poor child before even he’s made up his mind.  Obviously, I say, no,don’t kick your brother, but it’s quite beautiful to watch, this absolute unerring sureness in her body’s ability to protect itself

And L’il Boo is forever putting plastic food items in the washing machine at nursery and refuses to leave the place before he’s offered, and made, multiple ‘cups of tea’ for me and every member of staff there.

So I have no difficulty in saying ‘I got what I thought they’d like.’  I did, it is true.

But it would be totally untrue to say that ‘I got what I thought they’d like without any consideration of the wider implications of what they might like.’  Because I didn’t.

Because for a start, Boogie likes every single bit of plastic tut she so much as glimpses on the TV.  And I mean everything.  She is an advertiser’s dream.  She even professed a desire for the new ‘girl’ version of Lego (for which you’ll have to visit Reel Girl all by yourself because I have yet to figure out how to copy a web address on this ‘puder), which she has as much chance of getting from ‘Santa’ (i.e. her miserable, fun-eating feminist mother), as I have of getting a boob job with industrial-grade silicone implants (thanks PIP – again, you’ll have to figure that link out for yourselves). Because, just in case you were confused, the new ‘girly’ Lego is an insult of quite epic proportions to girls everywhere.  And by extension to women, and I don’t take these kinds of insults lightly.  Bastards.  FUCK LEGO AND THEIR BEAUTY SALON SHIT.  Phew!  Glad I got that out of my system.  And if one more fucking company wheels out insulting eye-searing pink toys and then waffles on about ‘honouring girls’ play patterns’ I am going to go bat shit fucking crazy.  Even more so than normal.  Girls: taught to play a certain way since birth, toy companies then look at them playing that way and use it as an excuse to serve them more of the same shit.  Arrgh!

So there were lots of things Boogie professed a desire for which, whilst they may have made it on to her Santa list, were never, not in a million fucking years, going to appear under the tree on Christmas morning.  Unless, of course, I was dead and my mother – or any number of annoying relatives and in-laws – had taken over the Father Christmas role.  And even if I were dead, there are legal instruments in place to prevent that very thing.  I really am that kind of mother.

And yes, you can accuse me of brainwashing my children as much as you like, but it is just me; just little old me against a muti-billion pound industry feeding my children gender stereotypes until they’re sick.

Trust me, I can live with the accusation.

And so, is this Christmas?  Of course not; it’s actually New Year now.  And judging by the amount of vino I have already consumed on this yes-you-can-start-drinking-at-noon-it’s-a-special-day day, I will, once again, fail to see in the new year.  So I shall wish you all a good one and hope for you all a year filled with small victories and big, big memories.

Christmas is Coming!

In 6 weeks from today, in fact!  I don’t know what it is this year, but I am sliding into the idea of the festive season with quivers of excitement.  Normally, I’m pretty Christmassy, but never in November and never so much so that I look forward to the process of buying presents.  But this year, this year…

I think it’s because L’il Boo is clearly going to be a full and active participant in the whole thing this year.  Last year, he approached his pile of presents with a cool indifference and opened them at a pace that frankly maddened Boogie.  Even on his birthday in June, he was only vaguely interested in wrapping paper removal.  By Boogie’s birthday in October, however, he’d clearly realised what possibilities could lie underneath each layer of wrapping.  In a stunning display, he managed to open most of Boogie’s presents faster than she did – and the girl’s a house record holder for the fastest unwrapping of presents.  In an even more stunning display, Boogie took the entire thing entirely in her stride, saying – and apparently even meaning it – that she didn’t mind at all.  Eh?

So this Christmas morning is going to be FULL ON and I can’t frickin’ wait.

This is my kids’ normal morning routine:

- Wake up, charge into parents’ bed.  Jump on parents in turn until one finally gets enough breath back to shout ‘get the bloody hell off me you pesky kids!’ (yes, we both swear and quote Scooby Doo a lot in this house; I make no apologies)

- Keep jumping until somebody (normally me) gets kicked in the head in the general melee.

- Hurtle off bed at light speed as soon as I announce it’s time to get dressed, hurtling, naturally, in the opposite direction to where the clothes are.

- Get rounded up and stuffed into clothes, one item at a time.  Between each item, charge up and down the hallway, laughing maniacally.

- Get herded into kitchen for breakfast.  Give parents’ ears a rest for five minutes (on a good day), or (Boogie only) have head fit because an imaginary drop of milk has touched sleeve of dress. (Love her – the girl has issues)

- Request to leave the table, then (Boogie) shout Bear! and run round and round in circles, growling (L’il Boo) and shouting (Boogie) and laughing maniacally (both), whilst parents drink hot beverages and successfully totally ignore the noise and the carnage.

- Rouse parents by saying something un-ignorable like ‘let’s do back flips off the sofa, you go first L’il Boo!’

- Resist parents’ entreaties to ‘get a move on!’ until bodily carried (one per parent) to the toothbrushing area.  Squeal like stuck pigs the whole way.

- React to teeth/hair brushing like they’re medieval torture devices resurrected by parents for pure sadistic pleasure

- Escape sadistic torturers and run up and down hallway (again) with towels on heads shouting ‘Superhero!’

- Try to escape capture by climbing up the outside of our metal staircase.  Give BoogieMeister a heart attack as L’il Boo suddenly appears at head height, ta-dahing off said stairs like a drunken Chinese acrobat.

- Get trapped by net and have shoes forcible attached.

- Get kissed/cuddled/shoved out of door by me in one smooth motion.

So when I say Christmas will be full on, you can see how much fun it’s going to be!  I seriously cannot wait!