Don't buy me a snowglobe

I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis. We moved into my parent's house when I was in Kindergarten and they still live there. My mom didn't work until I was in high school. Our house was kept clean and we always ate dinner together at the table. I was raised right. So why can't I recreate some of this "normalcy" for my kids? My two beautiful babies ate dinner on the kitchen floor for the third night out of four this week. The other night they ate down in the basement family room on the floor and had a "picnic".

The reason my children are eating meals like zoo animals is because of Christmas. I have a true love-hate affair with this holiday. I love the presents, the music, the parties, the food, and the decorations. I hate shopping for the presents, preparing for the parties, getting fatter from all the food (along with the pressure to make festive cookies now that I have kids) and putting up all the decorations. I am a woman and a mother, therefore I am in charge of the decorations. Last Sunday I started decorating the outside of the house and came inside a few times to see that Chris had started pulling out all the knick knacks, candles and wreaths from the Christmas boxes. He unwrapped everything one by one with the kids and they had a ball discovering each new thing. Their absolute favorite item was a snowglobe with a snowman inside dressed in Packer garb. (I'm a Vikings fan and I'm sure someone gave this to us last year to spite me!) The main reason my children were so fascinated with this snowglobe was because it was squishy. It was not a fancy glass one, but rather made of some sort of plastic that made it utterly irresistable. My kids squeezed and squished that thing for over five minutes before Chris started bellowing the consequences that would occur if the snowman was let free from it's watery state. They moved on for an hour or so before returning to the decadent table of Christmas joy full of untouchable items. I was on the phone with my mother when all of a sudden I heard soft giggling in the dining room. I turned around to find Ella standing tall and proud with the snowglobe in her hands. A stream of water, similar in appearance to a drinking fountain, was pouring out of the globe onto my dining room table covered in aforementioned Christmas knick knackery. As Ella discovered that she could aim the water stream, she started moving around in a circle so that she could cover more ground, literally. I hung up on my mother and started yelling for her to throw it to me. This just caused both Harrison and Ella to laugh even harder . I tried to put my hand over it to no avail. The room was covered in about two cups of sparkly, snowglobe water.

I gave up at that point and decided to boycott Christmas decorating. I have not touched one single item on the table since Sunday. Nor has anyone else. Each night my kids eat on the floor, while Chris and I stand and eat at the counter, and no one mentions a thing - as if this is completely normal behavior.