All is Well

Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse. ~ Clark Griswold

Are you familiar with Christmas Vacation? Things around here were getting far too intense this week...similar to Clark's dysfunctional holiday celebration. If it could go wrong, it did. If it was something to induce stress, it did. We have cussed that Polar Express float like mad. The paint fiasco, racing against the deadline, trying to make everything "just right". How to get a light to shine from the front. What music would work and how would we broadcast it? How long would it take to tie shiny ribbon to the 375 tiny bells we planned to throw in complete Polar Express fashion?

Ultimately, we ended up getting all the bells tied. Burned downloaded Polar Express music on a CD was blasted through Daughter's infamous karaoke machine (sans the microphone). The girls, clad in their pj's threw candy and bells (we kept a few for the judges....hey, no harm in shamelessly trying to woo the judges). Hubby and Clem drove the truck with Son, Lil Clem, Three (the neighbor's son), and the Girl Scout Lady's son in the back. One of my male students oddly ended up in our truck, too. Weird. Clementine and I walked in front of the truck carrying a banner....Hubby really missed his chance for revenge. We had a super time! All the stress of the week vanished. Seeing the girls laughing and smiling was awesomely satisfying...the way it was meant to be. To top it all off.....WE WON! We won $250 (wait for the irony....) in the Most Community Spirit category. Good thing they didn't hear us muttering the "f-bomb" profusely in reference to the train throughout the week. Now that it's over maybe the Christmas spirit will finally enter our home. Daughter DID throw out the gords this morning. That's definitely a start.