I know, I know. There’s so much to love about the jolly fella. But he keeps getting in the way. Or not. <\/p>\n
Problem 1: Quiz Show<\/strong><\/p>\n Son: Mom, is Santa real? <\/p>\n Me: What do you think?<\/p>\n Son: I don’t know. Maybe. But is he real?<\/p>\n Me: Some people think so. Some people don’t. <\/p>\n Son: What do you think?<\/p>\n Problem 2: His Dark Materials<\/strong><\/p>\n Grandparents One: “Please use the check enclosed to purchase a gift for each of the kids from us.”<\/p>\n Grandparents Two: “Please use the check enclosed to purchase a gift for each of the kids from us.”<\/p>\n Grandparents Three: “Please use the check enclosed to purchase a gift for each of the kids from us.”<\/p>\n Great-grandparents One and Two: Rinse and repeat. <\/p>\n Santa: “You’re not going to gyp your kids by denying them a gift from my whimsical workshop, are you?”<\/p>\n Problem 3: Hopelessly bloated for you<\/strong><\/p>\n Christmas Eve, 11:30 p.m.: The non-Santa gifts are wrapped and under the tree. The stockings hung by the chimney with care are filled with candy and electric toothbrushes, courtesy of Santa (the Soper compromise). The only pre-collapse task remaining is altering the plate of cookies on the table for Fat Man. One or two can be thrown in the garbage, or hidden at the bottom of the Rubbermaid container from whence they were plucked (as long as they don’t have any identifying birthmarks or tattoos). But at least one cookie must be half-eaten, with quasi-human teeth marks readily identifiable. And thanks to the festive weeks-long sugar binge celebrating If Santa cared about preserving his reputation, he’d show up and bite the damned thing for me. Fifteen Christmases in parenthood and I’m still waiting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know, I know. There’s so much to love about the jolly fella. But he keeps getting in the way. Or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mormon-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6384,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070\/revisions\/6384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Satan<\/del> Santa coming to town which preceeded this moment, even one bite of frosted sprinkled confection will induce a coma lasting until New Year’s. <\/p>\n