Christmas stuff

On Christmas morning, after the presents are opened, comes one of my favorite parts of the day: getting everything put together and into its new place. Even when we Christmas away from home, there's still that time when the new stuff gets unboxed and worked into the fabric of my house.

I'm the oldest of four, so (of course) I always got the coolest stuff for Christmas and I learned early that the third best way to protect my stuff was to get it put away. The best way to protect everything, of course, was to hide it; the problem with that choice being that if I hid it well enough to keep my siblings out of it, I might not be able to find it again myself. The second best protection was to set a snare around it, but... let's just say that had troubles, too. So instead I took all my new stuff and put it away as soon as I got the chance. As a little bonus, I'd occasionally forget about one of the new put-away things for a few days and then have a little surprise when I noticed it again. But my primary motivation was to keep my stuff safe.

Now that I'm a parent, my priorities have changed a little bit. I still move my new stuff quickly, I just put it on my bed. I'm not quite as worried that my brother'll stop by and fire up my new power tools before I get to try, so my bed is safe enough. Next I set up the new stuff that the kids received. When they were little, that meant removing twist tie after twist tie from the Fischer-Price toys; now it's more likely that I'll be putting battereis into a new toy, or even installing a new game on the computer.

This year, priority one was the new Wii. Everyone wanted to try it out: by setting it up first, I then had a little time to figure out what else needed construction or unpackaging that the kids couldn't handle. Once their new things were all done, then I felt like I could go integrate my new stuff -- clothes, books, etc -- into my house.

What I don't understand, though, is how my very own children -- blood of my blood -- simply did not inherit or learn my strategy of putting new stuff away. Christmas was more than two weeks ago and still... stuff is lying about. It's not like they don't touch each other's stuff. Complaints about "That's mine and it's new!" are frequently heard. (The rule in our house is that you can't touch anyone else's new stuff if they've had it less than a day. The children expanded that rule themselves to include any toy that was missing for a long time and just reappeared.) They're smart enough kids; you'd think they'd come up with a better strategy that simply complaining. To be fair, T is starting to implement the "putting stuff away" plan, but just this year when she's on the verge of age 10.

I've learned by at-times-painful trial-and-error that if I move something to put it away and (1) it's not actually mine and (2) I can't recall where I thought "away" was, then I am responsible for the search that will be required. So I don't move stuff that isn't mine (which is a rule my parents trained me to follow in the first place.) Okay, plus I can be lazy about other people's things. And some part of my brain insists that the owner will learn a lesson if the toy is lost or broken. My hesitation to move the stuff that belongs to others has many reasons.

The problem that comes this time of year is that the new Christmas toys lie scattered around the house and in the next few days the birthdays start arriving. All three of my kids chose to have birthdays in the 40 days that follow Christmas (which I believe is poor planning. I definitely prefer my early Spring birthday. Again, my children didn't follow my example...), so more new things will arrive and want for places to live, too.

This year I finally realized that my strategy for dealing with the growing messiness is to avoid and ignore. I find lots of reasons to be outside the house (despite the weather) and, when I do have to be home, I spend more time than normal in my room or workshop. The problem with this semi-unintentioanl strategy is that I tend to drag the children places "Let's go ice skating!" or "Let's go out to eat tonight!" or "We haven't seen a movie in a while!" or "Weather's great for sledding!" By dragging the kids away so much, I don't really give them the opportunity to get bored with the things in the house and maybe (just maybe) put stuff away. So I'm looking for a better strategy now. Something that keeps them in the house, but less entertained, yet keeps me busy when I'm here.

Oh, maybe I need to find a Wii game I like and demand my turn on the thing.

Christmas 2009

Dec. 13, A.D. 2009

Merry Christmas, everyone!

We’re very happy to have this Christmas letter to present to you this year. Actually, it’s quite a stroke of good fortune that any letter exists. 2009 passed away too quickly and suddenly we found ourselves on Dec. 10th with a bit less than the 24 weeks we usually take, from first brainstorming session to official printing, to create our yearly letter. We held a family debate over 48 sleepless hours and decided the only logical course of action was to print out complete copies of our Facebook pages and highlight our best posts. We were implementing this rather awkward plan when luck stepped forward.

On the morning of Dec. 13, we climbed into the attic to cart down some Christmas decorations. There, next to an amazing mound of candy bar wrappers and empty Pepsi cans, we found some interesting documents. One began “In preparation for the 2010 census, the Unites States government has installed census agents in the attics, closets, basements, and refrigerators of 50 million randomly selected homes across this great land. The goal of this endeavor is to acquire a statistically significant sampling of the habits and traditions of the people of the United States. The goals of the census agents are twenty-eightfold. Firstly, the agent must…” The second document appeared, on quick glance, to summarize the events of the year for our family. Woo-hoo! We scanned it in to the computer and fired up the printer. Enjoy!

Subjects J and D were legally married in Rolla, MO, in 1993. They were also legally married in Baldwin City, KS in 1994; in Santa Barbara, CA in 1995; in Las Vegas, NV in 1996; and so on, every year, through Hell, MI, in 2009. This deviation from social norms in the sacred marriage institution is simply one example among many that leads this agent to the conclusion that this family is rated high risk for revolutionary activities.

Three children reside in the home. F (male) is 11 years of age. T (female) is 9 years of age. Q (male) is 7 years of age. Note that the names of some of these children are non-traditional enough that the gender specification is required. All three children participate in their school district’s gifted programs, a known training ground for evil geniuses.

Late, late into the night, many nights a month, subject D can be found running her sewing machine. “Quilting” is the official report. She is also active in a “Quilt Guild” that has had to change meeting locations during this past year. Sewing, which is key for those making uniforms and flags for rogue political factions, is an important part of D’s life, and something she is passing on to her children. Every one of the children has received a sewing machine for his or her 6th birthday. This year, subject T used her sewing skills to make a Halloween costume for the family dog (named “Kwyjibo,” or “Boe”). This agent asks why the sewing needs to take place in the depths of the
night.

All of the subjects are heavily involved in the supposedly patriotic scouting organizations: Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Cub Scouts. Both of the adults are leaders of these groups, imposing their values and ideas on children from all over the surrounding area. The children are being trained in many facets of outdoor survival, and are receiving awards for their efforts. F earned his Arrow of Light as a Cub Scout and his Tenderfoot badge (and 7 merit badges) as a Boy Scout. He attended a summer camp and returned home reporting that he could successfully swim a mile without stopping. T bridged up to Juniors and spent her first week ever at Girl Scout sleepover camp. She also attended a horse camp this summer, learning many skills useful in supporting or leading cavalry. Q earned his Tiger badge and spent a week attending Cub Scout Day Camp, where he learned to fire BB guns and shoot a bow and arrow. Also, in June, all three males returned home soot-faced and smelling of smoke, claiming to have attended a “flag retirement” ceremony.

Vegetables are grown all throughout their property. The back yard has three separate vegetable garden areas, and additional food is grown in transportable containers across the front yard and on the front porch. Even the basement has a large planting area with grow lights and under-soil heating. The distribution of gardening areas easily misleads the casual viewer into believing that the family has only a small area set aside for growing their own food stores.

Most alarming of all is the subject family’s training in martial arts. Subjects J, F, and T fence in a fencing club, attending lessons and classes and informally bouting on most Saturdays. They fence behind the closed door of their garage, and occasionally in the driveway itself. Their basement has an area set aside for nightly solo fencing practice: they’ve used the term “sanctuary” in describing this area. These children are well trained for hand-to-hand combat. Subject Q is impatient to begin his own training. Also, in November, the subjects transported their own weaponry and gear across state lines.

Other warning signals: F reads the biographies of many famous historical figures, studying how they rose to power. He also knows more about Egyptian history and politics than most people twice his age. T reads and re-reads the Twilight books as if they were a blueprint for keeping a group of super humans secret from the eyes of the world. Q reads detective books, building strong deduction and analytical reasoning muscles. D has read the Twilight books even more than T. J read the biography of Hannibal this summer. The subjects also play many strategy games, and have been known to alter the rules to make the games even more challenging. This summer they also started with role-playing games. At this tender age the children are being trained to assume alien roles and play them without faltering. They played one Dungeons and Dragons game for 6 hours the weekend that Q, the youngest, wore the ambulatory EEG machine that ultimately led to the diagnosis of his epilepsy.

The subject children go to great lengths to appear as ordinary children. The two older ones learned to ride their bikes this summer. Q participated in coach-pitch baseball and insisted, despite suffering an exhausting epileptic seizure en route to one game, on playing and – most telling – appearing in the team picture. Q has his own betta, F has his own hermit crab, and T is looking forward to obtaining 2 guinea pigs in February. To the untrained observer, these children appear nearly identical to normal children.

This agent recommends intensified surveillance of the subjects at a minimum. Ideally, more decisive measures should be implemented immediately after the holiday season.

We hope you enjoyed reading our letter this year. (When events slow down a little, we’ll read it ourselves.)

Merry Christmas!


The 2009 Christmas Letter is brought to you by Jackson and Jackson Paranoia Treatment Services (“We chase the people who are chasing you”) and Professional Census Agent Removal (“If you have a census agent infestation, think PCAR.”)