Kay Jewelers "First Christmas" - A Reaction

Owen turned four years old and there are all sorts of how the heck does time go so slow and so fast associated with that, but I like to instead focus on a commercial that is running the rounds this Christmas. Perhaps you have seen it, the romantic image of a new family. Father, mother and baby happily cloistered around a tree. The baby is very young, seemingly just born. The mother is bushy eyed at what is indicated to be the wee hours of the morning. The father is gleaming at his son. Now while most watch this with hearts warming, I have a much different reaction. This is because I had a baby on December 19, 2006. When Christmas rolled around, Owen was a mere six days old. I can tell you the first holiday with Owen was not so idyllic. I was battling mastitis, a breast infection. Because Owen latched improperly created a cut in which bacteria grew that resulted in a fever of 104 degrees and hallucinations. This was easily remedied with antibiotics, but I was not the only one suffering that evening. On Christmas Eve, John “felt something” on the top of his ass. What was it? An ass boil. I know this because a few weeks when we finally emerged for the daze of having a kid I looked it up. It was stress related boil (because John was pretty much under the assumption that birth for me meant death). On that Christmas Eve, I sat with a pin over a burning flame in order to disinfect it so that I could pierce the boil atop my husband’s ass. What came out was a river of pus along with a smell that only can be described as what Lance Armstrong’s balls must smell like after the Tour de France. Gut wrenching waves of a most inhumane scent. So screw you Kay Jewelers and your “First Christmas”, because I don’t remember getting a freaking diamond necklace, but instead one boob as hard as a rock and a husband whose anxiousness and stress manifested itself as a boil on his ass that under the terms of “for better or worse” I got to pop. Happy Holidays everyone!

Bah Humbug

Oh December, you have come once again bringing with you Owen’s second birthday (what!) and Christmas (I am Catholic). However you also bring with you the most painful of all experience, and that is present shopping. Not to sound like a Scrooge or anything, because I really am not, but I hate holiday shopping. Buying gifts for people is to me pure torture. Also, opening gifts is kind of torture too, unless it is called Patron, Grey Goose or Maker’s Mark. But I am pregnant, so no White Russians will be able to rescue me this year, as I once again forage through the catacombs of the internet for gifts. Every time I got into Peet’s Coffee, I want to get gift cards, but not to actually put money in them, just to take them and perhaps give them to people who would use them, and then be all flustered when they were empty, and I would laugh to myself, because don’t you think that is funny? I do. I am not sure why it is I hate to receive or give presents, I think it may have to do with the fact that I hate to be told what to do, and buying presents for the sake of buying them seems really stupid. I mean, shouldn’t there be a 1,000 word essay on why I should buy you a gift? And vice versa? And holy cow if I have no clue what I would actually want anyway. When I want something, I do this thing that may sound a tad extreme - I pay for it myself. I know, right! Anyway, to you December, I will try not to look at the gift giving as a necessary chore, but something I should relish and be gleeful over and enjoy. Right after I make that appointment with a lobotomist. However, at least one good thing comes from all of this. Yep, TWENTY FOUR HOURS OF THE AWESOMENESS THAT IS A CHRISTMAS STORY. Ralphie!