Whew! What a Friday night!
Let’s just call yesterday the Family Christmas Prep day, shall we?
The day started out with the boys going to preschool until noon. While they were gone, I worked on cleaning up (I guess its nesting, this organization that is driving me mad), Hunter processed a deer that he shot earlier this week and I worked on emptying my Christmas decoration boxes. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted but was a start. The three small trees were put up last week as was the mantle. Now my Christmas village is up. The last two big things were the tree and the outside lights.
After Hunter finished up, we went and picked out our tree. Every year we think we’ll do the tree farm thing and every year we end up at Home Depot. It’s just how we roll. After about 20 minutes, we found the perfect tree for us and loaded her up. Our next errand wasn’t actually for us. My dad needed a $10 gift for his Sunday School Christmas party so I ran in Starbucks and got a little gift set…a mug and a bag of their Christmas blend. 9.95. Thank you very much. (I looked for a picture for yall but it’s a white, fat mug that just says Starbucks on it and the coffee, all with a ribbon. Tada!)
We dropped off my Dad’s gift, left our tree at the shop and headed to Bass Pro shop to see Santa. This has become our tradition. The kids love Bass Pro and you get a free 4 x 6 picture with options to purchase packages or, as I do, just buy the digital download (picture to come once I get it downloaded). You can also snap your own pictures at the same time. Nice, right? This year’s picture wasn’t awesome (JL wasn’t looking) but you know what? It’s done, we have our photo and they were so excited to talk to Santa. Plus, Bass Pro Shop offers crafts on certain days, color sheets, games for the kids to play with (including a train and remote control cars) and lots of other photo opportunities if you don’t forget your own camera, as I did. I’m sure we’ll end up back down there so no worries.
We also had plans to let the boys pick out their Christmas ornaments (another tradition) but they didn’t have any the kids liked so we walked down to the Disney store. What a mistake. The wheels fell off. JP got whiny, greedy, upset, running all over the place. JL just wanted to touch everything. Finally, we got out of there with a toy that we’ll turn into an ornament (Woody and Jesse anyone?) and 2 small plush Toy Story 3 characters (again, Woody and Jessie since there was no Bulls Eye). I know it seems nuts to buy a toy this close to Christmas. BUT, they were buy one, get one free so they cost us $4 each. YES. $4. Since the “ornament” was only 4.50, Woody and Jessie came home with us. I’m ok with that. It was a treat for them and we rarely buy toys for no reason to be honest. We just don’t do it. But, read on because it gets worse and I am looking for some opinions on how the rest of this story plays out.
We went back to Bass Pro to buy a few items on our list where the meltdown continued with JP. I had an exceptional bad parenting moment and was ready to leave but JL (the younger) had some birthday money and had be promised he could buy a toy gun. JP had spent his birthday money at Tractor Supply the night before. (We let them have half of it to spend, the other half goes into savings). Meltdown escalated; he didn’t want what he got last night. He wanted something from Bass Pro. I explained that we had explained the night before at Tractor Supply that we were going to Bass Pro the next day and he might want to wait but he insisted he wanted the toy he got there. We talked about it several times and I also reminded him in Bass Pro that he’d spent his money. It was all magically forgotten when his brother picked out what he wanted to spend his birthday money on. Needless to say, we rapidly picked up our final items and got the heck out of there.
It was late so my beloved hubs treated me to dinner at my favorite place. Cracker Barrel. Oh how I love Cracker Barrel. I could spend hours in their gift shop, without kids of course. Beautiful items and awesome Christmas items! We got really lucky though. By the time we gave them our names and went to the bathroom, they were calling our name! All the way to our table, I was chanting in my head, “in front of the fire, in front of the fire.” And we ended up IN FRONT OF THE FIRE! Perfect. In a corner table which means that the kids were completely closed in on 2 sides! Even more perfect. The kids asked for pancakes and since this was family night and I knew they’d eat it, pancakes it was. I had my favorite meal: chicken and dumplings, fried okra and fried apples. And biscuits with blackberry jam of course. It was an awesome meal and JP, knowing he’d gone way too far in Bass Pro, was an angel. A gift for his mama. We made a point of thanking them immensely for their good behavior and talking about how that’s how we expected them to act in public places.
We came home exhausted! The kids watched the Grinch while we got the tree in the stand. We’ll decorate today.
Is anyone else tired?!?
In the meantime, I have a major problem with how JP acted in Disney and Bass Pro. He was ungrateful for the toy he did get, despite his behavior and kept saying how he didn’t like it now and he wanted something different. Basically, he was a complete brat. He also kept saying I’ll act better if you’ll get me a toy when we went back to Bass Pro. No way kid. That would make him think he could bribe us which isn’t happening. The kids don’t typically get toys for no reason to be honest and we don’t use them as bargaining items. There’s no, if you’re good, you’ll get a toy. So, where is this coming from? Is this just the age 5 behavior? Any suggestions on how to teach him more about how to be grateful and appreciative because right now, he’s not. I’m frustrated with the behavior and honestly, embarrassed by it. I’d love to hear your ideas on this parenting phase.
May your weekend be calm and full of precious memories!
Carrie
