#DADLIFE #Holidays Good and Bad #ADULTING

Once you become a teenager and move into college, Christmas kind of loses its magic. The holiday becomes a time to hang with family and relax. The excitement of Santa, decorating and the fun of the season kind of disappear. It’s almost as if the holiday loses its importance or purpose for you. Then you have kids. All the sudden doing fun winter themed activates and getting ready for the holiday become a major focus. Having children makes the month and time surrounding the holidays significantly more fun and enjoyable. Just thinking about my children and the holidays makes me smile. I look back fondly on my time as a child and things I recall about Christmas and I want that for my children. I also wish I was a child and didn’t have to worry about buying gifts, wrapping them, budgeting for them and making sure both children have what they may perceive as an “even” amount of gifts. If someone could just shop, wrap and place all the gifts I want to get under the tree that would be great, thanks. Adulting is hard. While I love Christmas with my family and children, there are things I can’t stand.

1. Shopping – Why am I writing about Christmas in November? We already started shopping of course. When you have children you need to covertly sneak all your gifts into the house or wait until they are asleep. Too bad you can’t schedule Amazon deliveries for 9 PM every night. I know people that try to collect and hide boxes before their husbands/wives get home from work, but kids are much harder.
2. Boxes – WHY DO ALL TOY BOXES SHOW WHAT IS INSIDE?! Come on toy companies do better!! There should be a gift option when you order toys and it goes in a generic box. We have had to ship gifts to my wife’s office so that children didn’t come home and see a box with the contents splattered all over the side. Normally, Amazon takes care of this, but how many times are my children going to believe every package is diapers and wipes?
3. Christmas Vacation – This movie is not and never has been funny. Chevy Chase is not funny. He never was. Yes, you can @ me about this! People act like this is some funny holiday tradition. Give me ELF instead. Frankly, give me Die Hard instead. YES, DIE HARD ONE AND TWO. I have other hot takes about TV shows everyone loves that are also not funny, but that’s a different blog. (The office and Seinfeld, I’m coming for you)
4. Commercials on my DVR – Do you watch any TV when it is actually on? I rarely do besides sports and certain shows. (THRONES, back in APRIL!!!!) When I finally get around to watching shows that were recorded near the Holidays, they are littered with Holiday themed songs and commercials. Nothing like seeing and hearing these in February. The annoyance of this can only be topped by seeing political commercials, days, weeks and months after the election ended. If I can use an old phrase, hashtag first world problems.
5. Cars – This kind of relates to no.4, but car commercials where people give cars on Christmas day. What kind of relationship do these people have with their spouses? While I am sure my wife would be appreciative that I purchased her a brand new car, she would be furious that I made a major life purchase without consulting her. Plus, WHAT DID THEY DO WITH THE OLD CAR? You can’t trade that in without the other person knowing on Christmas eve? Can you? I’m sure there are like 11 pair of sunglasses in the old car or something of importance. Are all of these couples so independently wealthy and have time during the season to purchase a brand new car without their significant other knowing? Massive red flag. The husband is probably up to no good and covering for something he did.
6. Getting Pictures with Santa– Parents who have young children and choose to dress the kids up and make them stand in a line for an hour to get a picture with a stranger in a crowded, hot environment and hope you have one usable picture for Instagram and to send to family, you the real MVP. We all do this. We all know it’s not going to go well. We all keep doing it. I wouldn’t trade this picture of my children and their experience seeing Santa for anything! In a few weeks you will find this picture on the win the weekends Instagram account!

What do all of you actually dislike about the holidays? Let me know in the comments, on Twitter or Instagram!