How to Start the Christmas Season

How to Start the Christmas Season

Subtitle: I am usually forced to be in this. This year I decided to watch. That might have been a bad choice. 

Step 1: Leave early. Yes, the parade starts at 2, but since I live in a small town it is literally the only thing going on except for buy on get one free Starbucks, which I’d like to add is pretty damn amazing in an of itself. However, you would think that since the parade starts at 2:15 and the road (yes THE ROAD not ROADS) close at 2 you would have plently of time to get there if you leave at 1:20 and live fifteen minutes away.  It’s not. How in the hell did so many people move out here without my noticing. Who are you people? I went to high school with the whole town and I don’t know you? Who are you? Regardless, get out of my way. My mom is calling again. For the tenth time. I need wine already. 

Step 2: Wear clothes. First, I feel like this is a step in every other blog. Should I just write an entry on dressing properly? Like always?  Aren’t you cold? Ok, let’s just for a moment disregard the morons wearing t-shirts and shorts in forty degree weather, let’s just focus on these people. See them? Have you seen them on www.peoplepfwalmart.com . Yup, they live here, in my town.  Forget anything else you might have to say about their attire.  Dem bitches GOT to be cold. 

Step 3: Find a place to sit. After you have recovered from the site above, you need to find a place to sit.  Don’t let your mother pick, because she seems to think it is ok to sit by the gutter. It’s a hole, she insists. Yes mom, it is called a gutter and the kids will drop something down there and it will be the end of the world. Mom goes on to ask kids if they want to sit over the hole. It’s a gutter mom. Shut up, she says, I’ve been working all morning. Touche mom, touche. Carry on. 

Step 4: Listen to your mother talk to inanimate objects. Seriously, my mother is hysterical anyway, but to hear her after she has worked and running on little sleep is even better. First, we have the hole incident. Next, my mom starts yelling at people trying to drive into the parade like they can hear her. Then, once my Stargate jacket is recognized (No morons here I am not a veteran - does the GIGANTIC SG-1 patch not give it away!?!?) then my mother proceeds to tell every person on the curb we were sitting on that I drove 14 hours to hug Michael Shanks, that he wished me a Happy Birthday and doesn't do it that much anymore and wished me luck on my half marathon, switching in an instant to why the cops should not tell stupid people to move away from the train track because they deserve to be hit if  they are stupid. God I love her. 

Step 5: Then watch your mom tell off some yuppies. This entire entry has very quickly gone to enjoy a Christmas parade to my mom is the funniest woman alive. Hands down.  Lesson here is that if you show up to a small town parade in your Ralph Lauren sweaters and your $1000 stroller and party right in front of us my mom will TELL YOU OFF. And not with swears or anything, she will say the most downright mean things that you will not understand because you are not as smart as she is. So move. Because if you don’t she might actually switch to the swears. 

Step 6: The parade begins! Did I mention way back in step 1 to pack some blankets. Oops, but in my defense I thought it felt a lot warmer at home. It’s not. The kids are crawling into your lap while you try to film the parade for your grandparents and online friends, complaining of cold, wind, life, hunger, anything they can possibly whine about rather than watch the actual parade. 

Me: Sit up. Watch the parade. 

Kids: We’re bored. 

Me: Why?!? Here comes the band. 

Kids: They don’t have any candy. 

I give up on parenting. 

Step 7: Bring some kind of back-up to your cell phone. So, you are trying to be a good grand daughter and film the parade but of course your phone is a bing bonging and dying and bleeping and blooping and some of those hicks in your small town keep walking in front of you because since you are not shouldering a 10,000 pound VHS camcorder they are completely unaware that you are recording and when the person in their group with teeth notices you are filming they lean all over in your face mystified at how that contraption works. Long story short, just bring a camcorder.

Step 8: Back to mom. My cell phone battery died so I sadly did not get this on tape. About .2 seconds AFTER my phone gave me the hell no came the classic cars and my mom in RARE form. Here’s a snippet of the conversation (well, monologue really)

Mom: That’s not a mustang, I don’t know why Ford even allowed that car to be made. Will, do you see that? THAT is not a car. Now THAT, that’s a chevelle. THAT’s a car. I almost wrecked one of those drag racing on the boulevard. Yeah, woo hoo (yelling at drivers) THAT’s an engine, rev that up!!! No, keep driving, no one cares about that car, it shouldn’t be in the parade, (back to the drivers) that’s right I LOVE IT!! WHOO HOOO. They don’t make cars like that anymore. THAT’s a car, not that stupid mess they drive now, just LOOK at that. Brianne? Did your camera die? You have GOT to be filming this for your sister. 

Did I mention my mom is AWESOME?

Step 9: Get OUT of there. No really, you vaguely remember from the scout meeting where they discussed this (you were only half listening because your troop decided to skip this year) that they are like 115 floats and you’ve been sitting on a cold curb for over an hour, the kids are whining, you have forgotten your wallet and even though you are sitting on the curb in FRONT of the coffee shop you can’t buy a damn thing and THERE is Santa, yes kids, get up, these city folks who came to town to watch do not know that Santa is code for leave.  Run. If we make it to the car we might beat the train.

Step 10: End of the World beer.  Noticed I forgot the countdown, didn’t you? I didn’t it just got it’s own step. We have 32 days. Shock Top is now making End of the World Beer. Party City is carrying End of the World Decor. They know. They all know. 

Drink up now while you still can...