A Christmasy Moment

I am SO doing this as soon as there's enough snow on top of my car again!



Let's get one thing straight right now - I love Christmas music. Absolutely adore it. Have it playing pretty much 24/7 from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas. Can't get enough. It. Is. Awesome. The list of Christmas songs I don't like is very, very short.

There is an even shorter list. The List of Christmas Songs I Absolutely Cannot Stand. Consists of about three or four songs. And topping that list is the Christmas shoes song. Oh, how I loathe it.

I'm not saying I'm not a sentimental person . . . heck, I cried a bit at the end of Toy Story 3 for crying out loud! And I will occasionally tear up at a Christmas song. When something is good and then it tugs at your heartstrings, that's pretty awesome. When something is written deliberately to attempt to wring tears out of you - well, that's obnoxious to no end. And I can't stand it. Seriously, the thing sounds like it was written for a sappy holiday shoe commercial. In fact, I'm surprised Payless hasn't used it in an ad campaign. As a well known miser once said, if I could work my will every idiot who goes about with "Christmas Shoes" on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Unless, of course, you like it. Then let's just agree to pretend it doesn't exist and never let it come up in conversation. (random side note: totally didn't have to look up that quote, and it is exactly word for word. Check it, I dare you! A Christmas Carol ranks high on my list of all-time favorite Christmas obsessions.)

Anyway. Contrary to what that little rant would indicate, I am not that heartless. And while I am also not generally one to get all gushy and mushy on my blog (as you may have noticed), I can't help telling a super sweet story about Luke.

So last week on Luke's day off we ended up at the mall, as we often do. And they have an angel tree up, conveniently enough close to Luke's favorite store. Somehow (and I have yet to figure out how) Luke had never seen one before, and was quite intrigued. I think we spent a half hour - maybe more - walking around the tree while he read every last child's request. I asked him if he wanted to get one, because I love pulling off one or two every year. He was on the fence about it until he came to the tag for a ten-year-old boy who asked for legos. At which point I seriously watched him completely melt. Luke was quite the legos man himself back in the day, and it just broke his heart to think of some little boy not having legos under his tree Christmas morning. So we took that one.

And the next day we spent half an hour in Walmart looking for size 7 shoes. They had plenty in every size but that one, of which they only had, like, three. Obnoxious! But that was nothing compared to the time we had trying to get the right legos. See, on the tag whoever typed everything up had written "Lego's Toy Guns." Raise your hand if the picture that brings to mind is a toy gun made out of legos. Yeah, us too. So we're thinking, cool legos makes guns now? Bigger than the tiny ones that little lego Indiana Jones carries? Interesting. We went right into Toys R Us after taking the tag to get one.

Nothing. So we went home and googled it.

Nothing. Not even on the Legos web site. Which was really confusing. And we spent a lot of time scratching our heads and wondering where to find this really cool toy, and Luke spent a large chunk of time on hold with Legos customer service trying to figure things out, but never got through to a person. So we figure the kid had to have seen this somewhere in order to ask for it, so we'll just hit up every store in town until we find it. And then, walking through a parking lot, Luke figures it out. Wait a minute . . . the name "Legos" doesn't have an apostrophe in it . . . it's supposed to say "Legos, Toy Guns!!!"

(thi's would be the point that we both went off on a bit of a rant for a few minute's. I mean, really, what i's with people today and the way it seem's they think any word with an 's' on the end need's an apostrophe? How freaking dumb doe's thi's look?!?!?! IT'S NOT THAT FREAKING HARD PEOPLE!!!!!!! The ELEMENTARY SCHOOL kid's I work with get it, why dont you?!?!?! GOOD FREAKING GRIEF, IT'S A'S SIMPLE A'S GRAMMAR GET'S AND YOU LOOK LIKE A MORON WHEN YOU GET IT WRONG!!!!! LEARN IT!!!!!!!)

*large exhale* I feel better now.

Anyway, after finally finding the size 7 shoes that our anonymous boy needs, we headed to the toy section, grabbed a small Nerf gun and then proceeded to spend at least 45 minutes looking at legos while Luke agonized over what to pick. All the while talking about how when he was this kid's age he was all about the pirate legos. But now there are Star Wars legos and Toy Story legos and these branded legos and those branded legos and everything is a kit that makes something specific and you can't just buy a tub of random legos and build whatever you want (and seriously, how lame is that?), and Luke's going on and on about how important a decision this is and how he wants to pick something this boy will be excited to get, but it's so hard since we don't know what he likes, but legos are a big deal and you have to get it right. And he's going back and forth debating the merits of the helicopter versus the fire truck versus the SW snow speeder, and this would be the point where I completely melted. Like I said, I'm not one to gush, but I married a really sweet, really awesome guy. And should the day come that we have kids, he will be an absolutely fabulous dad. At least one of us will be good at it. *insert half smile here*

Anyway, that's all. I act Scrooge-y, but if I am of that ilk, I answer to Fred Scrooge. Next year we might have to take two. I was at a restaurant a few days later and they had an angel tree . . . and I nearly took a couple more home. I always worry about the ones who don't get picked - how sad is that? Get out there people, and give some sweet little kids a Christmas!!

P. ost S. cript
Some of my favorite Christmas musical numbers. :-)
BTW, Happy Hannukah Eric and Ian!