A Christmas Without Santa...

Hopefully a little venting will do me some good...

Merry Christmas to all. First of all I would like to say to all of you, and all those who don't read my blog too (although by not reading this they'll never know I said this to them), I apologize for no gifts or cards this year. We took care of our family but as far as friends and neighbors go, Christmas was a bust. So much was going on this year (especially for me between school and work) there was no way we could get any gifts or cards out. So reading my blog will have to be the way you catch up with our busy lives. :)

This was an interesting year. We didn't put up decorations (except for the tree) until Christmas eve, and then it was only because Spencer was going to be coming over and I wanted the day to be magical for him. Also, Santa didn't come to our house this year. Not really anyway. Spencer spent Christmas morning at his mom's house this year and we were bummed, but at least he'll be with us next year. Santa has always come to both houses and left Christmas stuff at each, until last year. Last year was the first year that his mom decided to follow the law and let Mike and I have him for Christmas morning. After an odd turn of events that I had better not get into, she decided that Santa would only come to our house that year. Therefore, so as not to confuse Spencer (as to why Santa comes to both houses when he spends the morning at his Mom's house but only to our house when he spends the morning at our house) we decided to not have Santa come to our house seeing how Spencer would be waking up at his mom's house and spending the morning there. Then when Spencer got in the car on Christmas afternoon to head up to my parents' house for festivities and we asked him what Santa brought him, he replied, "Well Santa didn't bring me any presents." WHAT??! He said that Santa only filled his stocking this year. I asked him if Santa told him why he did that this year and Spencer said, "Well...he does different things at different houses." Obviously this statement was spewed verbatim from his mother's mouth to his. Santa has always brought him presents at that house before... It was obvious that he had struggled a lot with that idea and it made me really sad. Unfortunately Spencer wasn't able to come to our house at all on Christmas day "because that would be unfair..." (again spewed from his mother's mouth to his). I won't completely get into that.

Today we finally got to have Spencer come over and open his presents at our house. The entire time I just kept thinking, I wish these presents were from Santa instead of from us. I wish that even after all we had told Spencer that Santa wouldn't be coming to our house, that we would've just changed the wrapping and had it be Santa who gave him his cool presents. At least we could've kept that magic alive. I noticed how anti climatic it is when all the presents are from us. Then when I say, "What is it?" He looks at me like I'm dumb and says, "It's from you!" It's a lot better when they're so excited to tell you what they got from Santa because they know that you couldn't already know!

Anyway, I just wanted to stand on my soap box for a moment and say, I just cannot fathom the frame of mind some parents must be in to be so extremely selfish that they must ruin even the greatest of children's magical moments by ruining the glory of Santa Clause. How can someone possibly be so self involved that they must be recognized for everything to the point that they cannot even let one such as Santa be greater than they are? That is one thing I will never understand. From now on Santa will be visiting our house, even if it doesn't jive with the plans of other households. I will never make that same mistake again.

P.S. More about our Christmas holiday and festivities are yet to come including pictures, etc. LOVE YOU ALL! Thanks for reading and letting me vent!