IT’S THE MOST FRIGHTENING TIME OF THE YEAR
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There is a distinct possibility that Christmas is going to be shaped into an indelible horror in my daughter’s mind.
She’s 16 months old, so I was all geared up to thrust her into the warm fuzzies of the season. It was going to be her first foray into the excitement of what is the most wonderful holiday for so many children.
Well, it started going downhill about a week ago. My wife and I had picked out the perfect tree, and put up all of our Christmas decorations. In what is now a family tradition, I hung the lights on the tree, and then my wife took them down and re-hung them so they didn’t look like a drunk badger had put them up.
My daughter was kind of indifferent to the tree at first. I guess when you’re that age, lots of new things pop up each day, so the idea of dragging a seven foot fir tree into your house and slapping cartoon characters and lights on it is just another in a long line of odd things in her world. She did enjoy pointing to the ornaments on the tree and saying, “Ho ho ho!” And then, when she would reach for one of them, she would hear, “No no no!” I’m sure that caused some confusion in her still-developing phonetic system.
And then one day, my daughter and I are upstairs playing earthquake, which is by far the greatest game she knows. The game is one that my father used to play with us, although he claims not to remember it. I’m guessing after four children, you intentionally block out some of those years. Earthquake is a simple game – Daddy lies down on his stomach, and daughter sits on his back while he shakes and wiggles, screaming, “Earthquake!!!” while she cackles until she falls off onto the floor. Oh, and in case you couldn’t guess, Mommy thinks this is one of the most ill conceived ideas for a game. What we see as great fun, she sees as the Make the Baby Fall to the Floor Game.
Anyway, we were in the middle of about a 7.3 quake when we heard a loud crash downstairs. I grabbed my daughter and headed downstairs, somewhat expecting to see the China cabinet on its side. Instead, I saw the blur of a very upset cat tear past me, and, upon entering the living room, I saw why – there was my Christmas tree, lying over the couch, broken ornaments strewn across the floor. And, of course, because I cut the Earthquake game short, my daughter had started crying. And when she cries, look out. She doesn’t cry that often, which means she saves them up for special occasions, and unleashes a barrage of Jamie Lee Curtis quality screams.
Holding my daughter in one arm, I tried to stand the tree back up. Once I got it upright, I let it go, only to see it come crashing down again. I looked down and realized I was also standing in three liters of tree water. So to recap: I’ve got a seven-foot tree on my couch, broken glass all over the place, a mini-flood, and a screaming and kicking toddler under my arm. In retrospect, I probably should have waited until my wife got home, or maybe gotten a neighbor to help me. But I decided, instead, to try and solve the problem alone. The first thing I did was to try and prop the tree up with a fireplace shovel. Once the tree shot the shovel across the room, I realized that was a bad idea.
I knew then that I was going to have to have both hands available to do this. Only problem is, there was broken glass all over the floor. Now, I’m no parenting expert, but I’m fairly certain that it is not considered a good idea to put your child down on broken glass. But I noticed that there was one section that was clear of glass, and the couch was serving as a nice barricade from the danger zone. I set my daughter down there and started to look for something for her to play with to keep her occupied. Turns out, I didn’t have to look at all. Remember those three liters of tree water? Yeah, well, she was sitting in it, and splashing it around was about as fun as Earthquake. Hey, those diapers are pretty absorbent, I thought, and let her play. I managed to get the tree up, leaning it against the corner until I could secure it with wire. And a cat-proof fence.
After I got it up, I grabbed my daughter, who had taken on about two of the liters of water, and held her under my arm while I did my best to sweep up the glass one-handed. We lost a handful of ornaments, but I am a firm believer that, once you have children or pets, you should not have anything nice, because they will seek it out and destroy it. If you ever want to get rid of something, just proclaim your undying love for it loudly, and rest assured a cat or a dog or a child will inadvertently put it in the garbage disposal or something.
Eventually, I got the tree back up, and my wife put all the decorations back in their appropriate locales. My daughter seems a little suspicious of the whole tree now, pretty much avoiding it. I can understand it, though, since she’s probably afraid the tree will come crashing down again and ruin another game of Earthquake. Hopefully, she’s still young enough that we can shape new Christmas memories that will override this, and she will see Christmas for what it is – a holiday that has forever scarred my cat.