Tis The Season To Be Frustrated

We are getting into the Christmas spirit late this year. Thanksgiving was wonderful with family and friends, and then my hubby and I took off for a week to go to the sealing of my nephew. It was a beautiful experience.

Once we got back, I had a week of laudry, undone homework and general mess to clean up, while Greg left on another business trip. So here it is almost the middle of December with nothing Christmas-y to speak of in our house.

Yesterday afternoon I zipped by Fred Meyers for my daughter who had to buy a birthday gift and grabbed a variety of lights. When we moved two years ago we got rid of alot of our holiday stuff, and then last year in the rental we did very little.

Well, when I got home, it was pouring rain and then we had to run out to go Caroling with the cubscouts, so by the time we got back home nobody wanted to do the lights. I left early with Anna to get her driver's test this morning and when I came home, you would have vomited- my husband used 90% on one small tree which now looks like a glowing plasma ball. Then he threw up two little strings on the lower branches of a huge tree, so it looks like a pathetic.

Now my house looks like a disfunctional family with a husband that was forced against his will to put up Christmas lights. Can you say passive aggressive behavior? If that wasn't enough, no one wants to go get the Christmas tree. My children aren't really spoiled but don't really WANT anything. They are happy to hang out together and don't understand why we simply don't read the Christmas story. Why do we have to put up a huge tree, yank out all the storage bins, cover it with stuff and put it away a few weeks later?

Well, I'm forcing these grinches out the door with a smile. Maybe we'll just get a really small tree this year and call it good.

Wii, Wii, Wii all the way home

OK, so I understand the logic behind Nintendo's attempt not to over-hire for a temporary blip in production only to have to lay off employees once the market is saturated. It is also a brilliant marketing strategy to create a shortage of game systems to keep consumers hungry and willing to pay over $200 for something that is going to suck in at least twice that much in accessories and be a constant financial drain when you look at the price of games- not to mention the wasted hours of mind numbing, hypnotic, electronic-induced stupidity I will be training my children to become part of.

That said, I want one. My teenagers don't want anything else and will even settle for a raincheck, rather than have something other than a Wii under the tree on Christmas morning. I was determined not to give in but it would be a great way to spend the two weeks of vacation after Christmas since it will be raining the whole time (we are in Portland.) And, you know, the more I started looking for it, the more I fell victim to Nintendo's marketing ploy. I really want one.

So then I started looking on the computer and was amazed how plentiful they are if your want to pay twice the store price. Is anybody else angry with the hundreds of enterprising individuals who have bought extras so they could sell them for a profit on ebay or craig's list. Normally, I would shrug and say it is the American Way, but I find that now my emotions have seeped into the decision, my attitude is drifting towards thinking they are all scrooges who should be fined, forced to donate their profits to foster kids and forbidden from ever touching a Wii again. Jerks.

(I once read an article about women in politics written during the suffrage era. It said that women were so emotionally invested in their homes and children that they could never be impartial enough to be allowed to vote. Although I don't necessarily agree, on PMS-y days I can see the point.)

Well, tomorrow there are supposed to be 18 coming in on a truck at Game Stop. My son wants to camp out at 3am. When they are gone, we can pay the full price and come home with a piece of paper to put under the tree, promising that the next system to come on the truck (after the other 40 parents that did the same thing) will be ours. Just watch, it will come the same day Winter break is over- just my luck.