My Girl’s Spirit
Telling off Santa
I never saw it coming — my little 6-year-old, sweet as can be, full of life and laughter — that my daughter would take out Santa Claus. But she did. And how. Approaching Santa, my daughter asked him a question in Spanish, at which point he was unable to answer. And when he did with something like, “HO! LA!” she called him out. Full-stop.
Looking over at the hoopla, I saw my girl, hand on one hip, pointing with the other, giving Santa a talk. “You are a FAKE!,” she told him. “Santa knows every language in the world of every child in the world and you can’t even understand me!” Then, with all the conviction in the world, “You are a faker, faker, baker.”
I tried to stop her, but there was little I could do. A girl on a mission is unstoppable. I feebly asked her to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. In response she said, “If you know when I am sleeping and know when I’m awake. If you know when I’ve been bad or good, then how do you not know what I want for Christmas?” Shit. Score one for the first grader.
Eventually I got her to sit on Santa’s lap. She did it under protest, and only after I conceded that she was right, the Macy’s dude was not Santa.
As we left, he called her back and gave her a tiny pin. She snorted and said, “Santa gives candycanes, not pins. And anyway, your beard is too short.”
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Tree Climber Saves Christmas
You’ve heard me blog and beg and plead and look to you to help us find someone to light the local tree. The extraordinary Straun Edwards from Trees 360 Degrees did indeed light the tree for our community and the San Jose Mercury News’ Sharon Noguchi covered the event.
Read the awesome story here!
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Fearless Wonder
Thing 2
My little Thing 2 took to the stage tonight. It wasn’t after nine months of ballet rehearsal, it wasn’t a school recital. She took to the stage when at the Santana Row Tree Lighting event, they asked for children to hit the stage. And she did. Front and center. Belting out Christmas carols like she knew the words (which, um, she didn’t really know many). She swayed to the music, danced and chimed in at the chorus.
I’m was never that kind of girl. Afraid that someone would think I was fat on stage or that I wasn’t dressed cute enough or whatever. My girl doesn’t have those issues. Up she went in front of at least a thousand people, smiling the kind of joy that can only come from the pure heart of a child.
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No Boobies from Santa, Please
I took the Things to Toys’R'Us yesterday to get their much deserved Pokemon cards and to get ideas for Christmas gifts. I am thinking, like all of us these days, that Santa is on a Budget and might want a little lead-time on gifts. Strolling the aisles went from being a fun adventure to a head-shaking wonk. I couldn’t believe the inappropriateness of toys being sold today. I give you this, I’m old fashioned. Even still, I have never seen toys this obscene in my life.
We’ve always said, girls toys suck. There are some cute Lincoln Logs for girls and a few decent toys if you look hard enough. But overall, I’m pretty certain my daughter would rather play in the backyard with a bouncy ball or ride her bike than brush fake hair on a plastic doll. And the whole makeup on little girls thing? What a crock. This year, the toys targeted at boys are not much better. My son is all for fantasy, but war and killing really aren’t the basics of what we’re trying to bring home. Thanks all the same.
Some of the worst offenders are the marketing freaks at Disney. There is an entire aisle at Toys’R'Us and at Target that are dedicated to frigging Hannah Montana, who my daughter says is (a) boring and (b) a terrible singer and (c) wears ugly clothes. I might, for example, be interested in buying my daughter a microphone for Christmas. But the only microphones are Hannah Montana or The Jonas Brothers. I might be interested in getting my son a large remote control truck, but, just like Mommy’s car, I’d really prefer if it wasn’t outfitted with weapons. Talk about road rage.
There were three items I found to be borderline in actually selling in the stores. At one point I was thinking to myself, “Oh shit, I sound like Michelle Duggar” but then I got pissed. How dare you sell inappropriate toys to my children. And what is your definition of children? And where is your sense of moral value? So, in typical Garza Girl fashion, I’m going to out you rotten scoundrels.
The Styling Head — This offensive toy looks pretty benign until you roll your hands across the big boobies popping out of the box. The toy, which is supposed to be a hair playing toy (which is lame all unto itself), barely shows the hair or hair accessories at all. But the boobies? Oh yes, you are selling big push-up boobies (bra included!) to my six-year-old child.
Styling Head
The Splatster — This toy is a wireless paint draw tool. It’s designed to splat paint onto your TV (again, why am I painting on a TV instead of paper is beyond me). The tool is so hideously phallic that I had to grab it out of my child’s hand. I was so shocked that I took it in my own hand looking for where the jig was — maybe it was missing a part? I understand this is supposed to be a paintbrush, but I swear on the stack of porns under your husband’s bed, this thing looks and feels just like a dildo. And don’t tell me, Fisher-Price didn’t figure that much out. And don’t tell me I have a dirty mind. Because, yes I have a terribly dirty mind, but I was amongst a group of parents that were standing around this new-to-market toy staring in shock.
Phallic Toy
Forces of Valor Sherman Tank — This might be the worst offender of all. This isn’t the 1950s tank that you roll across the living room floor while your parents watch Lawrence Welk. This horrible, grotesque toy has realistic sounds of people dying, being shot, the roar of the tank and more. The tank itself it touted for being realistic. I actually grabbed my son physically away from this toy as he pushed the button and the sound of military dying comes crashing across Aisle 12 across from the Batman action figures. The reality of war right in your livingroom. The hatefulness of death and destruction right there by your fireplace direct from the North Pole?
Death for XMas
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Halloween is Coming
The Joker, originally uploaded by Thing Family.
My very least favorite holiday of the year. Well, sorta.
I don’t mind the kids and the candy (even with 1000, yes one THOUSAND) trick-or-treaters annually to our house. I don’t mind the dressing up, my kids’ endless search for the right costume or even the crazed sugar highs and lows that go hand-in-hand with 10lbs of candy my kids collect.
What I don’t like is the scary stuff. I don’t like the freaky dead people costumes, the devil costumes and the people from the crypt with bloody faces. It scares me. I don’t like mean, scary looking clowns and I sure as shit don’t want to take my kids up to the door of some freaky house with a fake body hanging from a tree from a noose.
Maybe I’m old fashioned. I liked it when trick or treating was cute and fun. I liked it when we knew the people whose houses we went to. I really liked the community of it all. We’re a far cry from that life now.
I took this photo a couple days ago at the Halloween Spirit store where my son and I went looking for costumes. He literally ran away from it and then didn’t want to find a costume to wear for himself because he was so scared of the masks and axes and noises coming from around the shop.
I’m not going to boycott Halloween, but don’t come to me if you think scaring the shit out of my kids or me is your idea of fun. We’ll have our annual chicken chili and play Charlie Brown’s The Great Pumpkin and that’s gonna be it. It’s enough for me.
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Project: KidGive
“This feels like I won the championship,” Thing 1 told me today as he held the Salvation Army tag he’d pulled from the Christmas tree at the mall. Thing 2 kept showing people in California Pizza Kitchen her tag, telling everyone around her, “There is a 9-year-old girl who isn’t going to have Christmas presents and I’m going to get her a real art set!”
Project KidGive is an idea LaGringa and I have been thinking about for awhile. The plan was, like so many other families, to pick a child’s name off the Christmas tree at the mall and have the kids earn money themselves to make enough to buy the toy for a child this Christmas.
Project KidGive became the focal point of the kids’ days, doing chores, talking/fantasizing/questioning about the child they were so determined to help.
In the end, it took six weeks of cleaning out mommy’s car, taking out the trash, folding laundry, being the “light police” by turning off the lights in the house, offering to help neighbors and grandparents.
When it was time, we went and picked out the toys. It took for.ev.er. They looked and sampled and price scanned dozens of toys, looking for the most special, coolest, most fun one they could find. At last, they were satisfied and we took the gifts to the mall.
The holiday crazed mall concierge caught on fast when I started coming toward her with two beaming kids, arms laden with presents, handmade notes and drawings that were to go with the gifts. I took photos and cried with pride. Mission accomplished:: The Things worked from their hearts for a stranger in need and for more than a brief moment, got to live the true spirit of Christmas.
How We Did It:
1. We told the kids about the project with great anticipation before we went to the mall to get the Salvation Army tags. That way, they knew what was going on and we didn’t spring it on them. I didn’t multi-task, I went to the mall for that reason only and I read them every single tag, allowing them to pick them for themselves.
2. We made everything very visual. We posted a progress chart that they could fill in daily. There was an unexpected bonus with this, since we were able to count how much we made for the day and how much was remaining. Good math skills!
3. La Gringa and I praised constantly for their work. We showed visitors their chart. We touted them as givers, we told them they were like Jesus (and they always added: and like Santa!). We didn’t confuse household responsibilities with these special chores.
4. We made the goals attainable. This took some work, as I had made the dollar values too low at first (10 cents per chore, on average was way too low). As time went on, we had to get more creative ($3 for reading a book). We made sure there was always room for a chore (30 seconds to run around the house and shut of lights to 15 minutes of putting away laundry).
5. We let them have control over picking their gifts. Gave them the money they’d earned and took the time to drive them to (three!) stores they wanted to investigate for their gifts.
6. We gave them one present on Christmas Eve: it was the same gifts they had earned for the other children. We praised them and talked about their giving, the feeling of giving and reinforced how they had made someone else’s Christmas a good one.
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Side Gigs
