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Maybe The Grinch Had Some Valid Points.

Posted on by Matt Gallagher

I love Christmas.

I’m writing that on its own line as a reminder to myself as much as anything else.  I love the decorations, I love the food, I love giving presents, I love getting presents.  Aside from my well documented vendetta against a certain polyester elf, I enjoy it all.  I even like Christmas music, though that’s a statement that comes with more footnotes and caveats than a doctoral thesis.

I’d be cool taking Paul’s name off bare minimum 3 Beatles songs to square the books over this atrocity.

I bring all this up because I cannot mentally square my love of Christmas as an institution with how much I am ready for this holiday to be something I can look forward to again instead of having to actually deal with.  It’s so exciting when it’s coming up and so stressful and unpleasant in the moment.  It’s the holiday equivalent of commercial air travel.

Those decorations I love?  Awful ideas.  Who in the world thought that Christmas tree ornaments were a good idea around children?  Can you even imagine that sales pitch?

“Check out this festive holiday bauble I made!  Kids will love them!”
“That’s pretty.  So you hang them up high where toddlers can’t scatter them all over the house?”
“Actually I was thinking 2 feet off the ground.”
“Oh.  Well they must be pretty durable otherwise kids might break t-“
“They’re made of glass the thickness of a silk scarf.”

We have an 18-month-old currently, so I decided to rip the band-aid off early and just instated a no-ornaments policy this year.  The likelihood was just too great of her taking every ornament off and breaking them the first day, pulling the entire tree over, and probably dousing the remains with kerosene and setting the whole pile on fire.  The kid is resourceful like that.

The 8-year-old is taking it surprisingly well.  It probably helped that I had her help me attach our tree to the wall with a bungee cord.  When your holiday decorations need the same treatment as securing furniture in the back of a pickup truck, it tends to drive the point home.

Our tree was going to look just like this one…except bare, sideways, and next to a contractor bag full of shattered glass.

I could cope if that was the one thing about getting ready for the holiday that I seem incapable of managing, but that’s where it STARTS.  My clock just ticked over to 12:01 AM December 22nd and there is not a single present wrapped yet.  Repeat: it is 72 hours until Christmas day and I currently possess the same number of wrapped presents as I do thermonuclear warheads.  I am woefully unprepared for both Christmas morning and a tactical nuclear exchange (though at least the latter would get me out of having to worry about the former).

I’m trying to convince myself that spending tomorrow night after the kids go to bed sitting up and wrapping presents will be pleasant.  A quiet moment to sit in the dim light while the house is asleep, listening to a podcast, drinking tea, and wrapping gifts.  That sounds nice.  Almost as nice as enjoying a quiet house, listening to a podcast, sipping tea, and doing ANYTHING BESIDES WRAPPING PRESENTS FOR HOURS.  I am fully capable of enjoying a quiet evening alone without devoting it to seasonal chores.

Why are we wrapping presents anyway?  The stocking is always the kids’ favorite part.  Couldn’t I just buy a gargantuan novelty stocking and cram the whole pile in there?  No need for tape, scissors, bows, cards, or cleanup.  Just 3 minutes to stuff everything into the yuletide megasock and then you’re ready to hit the ‘nog.

Big enough to hold a hoverboard, a puppy, a Playstation, and all the other stuff they asked for and aren’t gonna get.

The giant stocking in that photo is seven dollars.  That’s it.  The price of a Big Mac combo.  That’s what’s separating you from never having to wrap another toy that the manufacturer thought would sell better if they made the packaging the shape of a shrink wrapped octopus.

Right now the fact that it wouldn’t arrive before Christmas is the only thing keeping my finger off the “Buy Now” button.  Next year that festive seasonal rucksack may make an appearance.

Don’t let all this give you the wrong idea; I really do love Christmas.  Any issues I have with preparing for the holiday are minor quibbles.  The joy I get from the soft glow of Christmas tree lights far outweighs the annoyance of picking up ornaments broken by kids and dogs.  The time I’ll spend wrapping presents is less than the time I just spent writing about not wanting to do it.  For every obnoxious “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” there’s a “Chorus of the Bells.”  With Christmas, the good is great while the bad is just kind of stressful and annoying.

…All I’m saying is that next year, my 80-gallon, industrial-grade cargo stocking and I are going to engage in a little strategic corner-cutting to help keep the fun front and center.

Anyway, Merry Christmas.  Now go move the elf.

Feel free to buy me a cup of coffee at paypal.me/inessentialreading if you enjoyed the column.

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“Hop On Pop” Should Not Inspire Tears.

Posted on by Matt Gallagher

I am a terrible reader when it comes to children’s books.  It’s not that I struggle to read in general or dislike reading to my kids in particular, the issue is that I have like zero resistance to anything even remotely tear-jerky.  It’s not something I’m proud of, but give me a story where someone loses something, learns a lesson, or essentially does anything at all and suddenly I look like your mom watching the ending of “Beaches.”

So I invite you to laugh at my complete lack of machismo as I list the top children’s books that make me cry like a kid whose scoop of ice cream just fell off their cone and into a thresher.

“City Dog, Country Frog” by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J. Muth

Mo Willems, how dare you?  At this point Willems has overthrown Dr. Suess as the grand emperor of grade school picture books, and even my emotional hair-trigger can get through “Elephant and Piggy” or “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” dry eyed (even though the poor pigeon is never going to get a chance to fulfill his lifelong dream of bus ownership, which is just…[sniff]…tragic). 

Then out of left field all the lovable cartoonish characters are gone, replaced with page after page of beautiful watercolors about friendship and loss.  Based on that heartwarming cover photo and the fact that I’ve described it as “Sad,” the plot points should be so obvious I hardly need to outline them, but just for full clarity they are:

A: Dog meets Frog.
B: Frog dies.
C: I cry like my genitals are caught in a laundry mangle.

To begin with, anything sad involving a dog gets exponentially sadder, and a cute puppy who, by coincidence, looks exactly like my dog only worsens the problem.  Even the frog is somehow cute, and that’s really saying something since the standard look for frogs is “Damp pile of old pudding skins.”  Seriously, look at these two:

That dog makes Lassie look like a pillowcase full of turds.

…and here’s City Dog coming to terms with Frog’s death a mere 7 sentences later.

I’M NOT CRYING; YOU’RE CRYING! 
…Just kidding; I’m bawling my eyes out.

This little dude is in mourning by page 42.  I didn’t need to look that number up; It’s burned into my mind like a glowing ember of sadness.  I will think about him gazing forlornly across that frozen pond on my deathbed.  Give me back that frog, Mo; I don’t need this kind of emotional catharsis when I’m trying to put a 5-year-old to bed.

“Oregon’s Journey” By Rascal, Illustrated by Louis Joos

This is such a sweet and sad celebration of America’s downtrodden I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that all the ink used in the printing process contained trace amounts of Woody Guthrie’s blood.

The plot involves Oregon the dancing circus bear who asks his friend, Duke the clown, to take him back to the forest to live with other bears.  The circus seems to be in the middle of industrial Pittsburgh, and yeah: I’m right there with you, Oregon.  If I were living in a grim caricature of the Rust Belt I think I’d want to move too.

“Take me home to the forest…or, like, literally anywhere else.  At this point I’d settle for living in a highway median.”

Together they cross the country exclusively via transportation mentioned in Bob Dylan lyrics.  They walk, ride a Greyhound bus, hitchhike, and jump an honest-to-god boxcar.  No mention of them playing forlorn harmonica on the trip, but you’ve gotta assume.

On their way to the west coast they stay in rundown motels, sleep in an abandoned Chevy parked in a field, meet a traveling salesmen, a Navajo elder, an aspiring actresses, and MY GOD IS ANYTHING IN THIS BOOK NOT STRAIGHT OUT OF A FOLK SONG?!?!

Sing that paragraph over a G chord and you could probably get a headlining spot at the Newport Folk Festival.

Oregon’s Journey doesn’t leave me quite as emotionally drained as the other two entries on this list.  I can make to the end glassy eyed with my voice breaking, but not quite ringing tears out my beard like it was a mop full of warm saline like the others.   I can handle a bittersweet road trip way better than heartbroken dogs.

…I can also handle “Oregon’s Journey” a hell of a lot better than…

“The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams, illustrated by Charles Santore

Listen, Margery Williams, you Edwardian era jerk: I have young children, poor sleep, terrible personal habits, and one last fraying thread of emotional stability.  I don’t need you tap-dancing all over it. 

I don’t even know how I’m gonna write a few paragraphs about this thing.  Just look at that picture up there.  All I’ve done so far is look up a photo of the cover and I already need to go get a Gatorade because I’m dehydrated from dribbling 32 warm salty ounces of despair onto my shirt.

This is the 100 year anniversary of The Velveteen Rabbit, so at least I’m not alone.  By now every parent alive has had to deal with this stupid, beautiful, heartwarming story about children bonding with stuffed animals.  Your grandma was pulling for this adorable sack of sawdust to become a real rabbit back in the 60s.  Her grandma was tearing up at it while tucking her own kids into bed in the 20s (presumably so they could be well rested for another big day at some factory that just made coal exhaust).  The collective tears this book has rung out of parents could probably fill a pool deep enough to drown a giraffe.

Here’s the velveteen rabbit so sad it cries a single real tear and DEAR GOD WHY DID I GO LOOKING FOR A USABLE PHOTO FROM THIS BOOK?!

Look, I’m a grown man.  I know toys don’t have thoughts or feelings, no matter how long and hard they’re loved.  What I DO know, however, is that once my daughter outgrows her need for stuffed animals, I fully expect there be a day where I go out to the park near the house and see a grey and white cat walking around with a big red scarf on.

…because if my daughter’s favorite stuffy fails to make the cut, I am FINDING the Nursery Magic Fairy and that chick and I are gonna throw hands.

Feel free to buy me a cup of coffee at paypal.me/inessentialreading if you enjoyed the column.

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This Should Not Qualify As A Christmas Tradition.

Posted on by Matt Gallagher

Young parents (or middle-aged parents who got started late, like me) have to navigate a wholly different, entirely more complex landscape than our own parents ever imagined. Social media, cyber bullying, rapidly changing social norms…all of these are challenges not seen by earlier generations.

None of them, however, come close to the greatest obstacle we face.

I am, of course, referring to Elf on the Shelf.

If you’ve dodged this particular holiday ordeal, A: I hate you, and B:Here’s how it works: 

An elf (small doll) gets “adopted” into your home (suggested retail price: $32.95) and begins appearing at various locations around the house (you move it around overnight) throughout the entire month of December.  For some reason, searching for the elf’s new location every morning amuses kids to no end, despite just being a holiday version of the VASTLY less popular household game, “Help dad find his car keys.” 

If this seems like an easily forgettable chore that will upset and frustrate the kid if you forget, well, you’re wrong: forgetting it will tear your kid’s heart asunder like they just visited a cancer ward exclusively for golden retriever puppies.

Now, in fairness, moving the elf is a pretty minor chore, and I can live with that.  I like Christmas.  My reserves of holiday cheer can endure moving a doll from the mantle to the bookshelf once per day. 

That, sadly, is not what my kid’s friends’ parents are doing. They’re doing this:

While I have nothing but admiration for the parents who can display this level of dedication to a bit, the last thing I need around Christmas is a kid who comes home to inform me that her friend’s elf made a gingerbread house overnight while ours just sat on the TV.  In terms of terrible things she could bring home from school, I’d honestly prefer she came home with a jar full of termites than outlandish elf expectations.

Listen kid: I’m happy that your friend’s elves are rock climbing or cooking hibachi or taking up artisan woodworking or whatever they’re doing today. 

Your elf isn’t gonna do that stuff. 

Your elf is gonna sit by this lamp.  He might fall over in the night.  He’ll probably acquire a ketchup stain at some point.

But over and above the expectation to produce Pinterest-worthy tableaus of Yuletide mischief (note that I spent more effort on phrasing this sentence than I will ever spend arranging the elf), the thing that bothers me most is the Elf’s backstory.

The story, outlined in a picture book that comes bundled with the doll (presumably to justify charging over thirty bucks for a toy they didn’t even bother to give feet) is that the elf moves around on its own overnight so it can report the kid’s behavior back to Santa.  So aside from being Baby’s First Narc, the elf story is so transparently fake I’m worried it’s gonna collapse the whole Christmas Magic™ illusion.

My 8-year-old has already started low-key reminding me to move her elf overnight, and I can’t decide what to make of it.

Let me be clear. This is not her saying “Dad, don’t forget to move my elf overnight.”  That would be simple; I would tell her to move her own elf.  I would feel fine telling her that because, in this theoretical scenario, my daughter and I have mutually agreed that this Dollar-Tree-quality doll that somehow costs as much as a lobster dinner is an inanimate piece of polyester.

That, however, is not the conversation we are having.

“Dad, where do you think my elf will move tonight?  I hope he hides in my stocking.”  She can’t wink yet, but if she could, she’d be batting that one eye like she had a bug trapped beneath her eyelid.

What does this mean?  Does she believe?  Is she trying to convince herself that it’s real?  Does she know the elf is just a goof but wants ME to think that she believes it?  Is she equally suspicious of Santa or has she compartmentalized the elf to its own category.  I haven’t been this confused since I started trying to figure girls out in the sixth grade.  This is “Do you like me?  ___Yes  ___No  _X_ Maybe” all over again.

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE Santa.  I ought to—I’ve worked as a charity Santa for years.  I love what he represents and what he means to kids.   But as much as I’d like to hang on to my daughter’s belief years for as long as possible, I recognize that she won’t believe in Santa forever.  I accept it.  In some ways I’m looking forward to it.  I’m excited to see what kind of person the kid turns into, and growing out of stuff like Santa and the Tooth Fairy are a big part of that.

…but, man, don’t let the thing that ends her belief in The Big Man be this doofy little doll that she’s supposed to pretend is playing cards with her Barbies and going fishing in the dog’s water dish.  I can deal with my kids growing out of a belief in Santa, but he deserves a better send off than this festive holiday version of Capone going down on tax evasion.

Anyway, I have to cut this off and go move an elf.  Maybe if I remove the living room vent cover I could recreate that scene from “Die Hard”…

Feel free to buy me a cup of coffee at paypal.me/inessentialreading if you enjoyed the column.

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The Park Moms Are Better At This Than I Am.

Posted on by Matt Gallagher

I’m amazed by moms, sometimes.

Go out on a Saturday to the zoo and really appreciate how prepared some of those moms are.  5 minutes per animal, 45 on the playground, in and out of the zoo in 4 hours exactly.  The stroller is clean and free of debris, and there’s a cooler full of water bottles and snacks tucked neatly under it.  There’s a schedule; there’s order.

…and there’s me.  I’m the parent whose toddler is eating leaves while the older kid tries to climb into the meerkat exhibit.

It’s interesting how being stay-at-home parent can still give you an inferiority complex , even though you’re almost totally isolated from other adults. Like a castaway concerned whether his tattered rags are in trendy summer colors.  Over the years I’ve worked with bestselling authors and people who would go on to win Emmys.  People who were routinely recognized on the street.  It’s easy to feel inadequate in that situation.  The closest I’ve ever come to being recognized on the street was overhearing a pair of awestruck kids discreetly pointing at me and whisper-shouting “I THINK THAT’S SANTA!!”  That’s a kind of recognition, I suppose, but not the kind that constitutes an impressive LinkedIn profile.

If you’re married the feelings of professional inadequacy start with your spouse, obviously.  Nothing really feels like a counterbalance to their actual job.  My wife has RESPONSIBILITIES.  Meetings.  Seminars.  Out of state travel for more meetings and seminars.  I, meanwhile, have seen every episode of Bluey four hundred times and routinely get toddler urine in my hair. 

I do laundry all day but wear the same clothes so long I barely produce any dirty clothes.  I think I’ve had on this hoodie since Halloween, and the jeans so long I’m worried I may be in the process of absorbing them into my legs like a jellyfish digesting a sardine.  This is no way for an adult to live.

I sometimes wonder if I should start filling out more paperwork just to feel on the same footing as my wife.  Would the IRS mind if I submitted a 1040 and just drew little frowny faces wherever there was supposed to be a blank to fill in with my income?  Hopefully there are some extra forms for that to really make it the kind of long, convoluted process that’ll let me relate with other working adults again.  Maybe the baby and I could find out our enneagram types together to make this feel more like a workplace.   “Looks like you spilled juice on the written test, and during the verbal section, answered every question ‘Doggy!’  I’m calling that a type 2 with a 3 wing.”

The natural remedy for that would be to get closer to other stay at home parents, but, as I mentioned, it’s clear that the moms I encounter and I are playing in entirely different leagues, if not different sports altogether. 

It’s obscene what other parents manage to accomplish in a day.  How do you make it to the park every day with a kid whose hair is combed like some of these moms?  I show up in a dirty car with a disheveled kid, with my clothes covered in dinosaur stickers and, like, a corndog stick tangled in my beard.  I feel like that’s what parents of toddlers are supposed to look like.  It’s what EVERYTHING small children interact with looks like.  You can’t be clean around little kids.  They exude a cloud of dirt, vomit, and little broken bits of Cheez-Its.  Every kid under 5 is like watching the origin story for a future episode of Hoarders. 

…and yet, there they are: park moms.  Hair combed, teeth brushed, clothes that were presumably still on a hanger that morning, and with CROWDS of kids.  You’d think they were trying to put together a baseball team.  Just child after child after child, all neat, all with last names for first names, all with their own labeled water bottle brought from home stashed in the ‘park snack bag,’ which somehow became a thing since my own ‘drink from the hose’ style childhood.  What in my pantry could I even have to put in a park snack bag?  Canned soup?  Uncooked rice?  Where are these women getting all these oranges and Fig Newtons?  I can’t imagine the planning that goes into this.  They must schedule trips to the bathroom 3 weeks in advance.

I don’t mean to imply that stay-at-home parenting is a bad gig.  It’s a really great gig; I haven’t enjoyed this level of cartoons and dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets since my early 20s.  There’s still plenty of work, though, and there is simply not a format for sharing your successes in a way that puts you on level with other adults.  Cleaning the floor of a kid’s closet should come with an award.  It’s like mucking out the Augean Stables, except you also have to sort out a zillion loose puzzle pieces and you’ll definitely step on a Lego. 

What jobs like cleaning a kid’s closet really lack, however, is some kind of arbitrary professional certification or the ability to get you in the door if you’re interviewing to become a brand manager:

“Do you excel while in working in difficult situations?”
“Difficult?  You bet!  I stepped on so many Legos last week than my wife thought I had stigmata!”
[Sound of resume in a shredder]

All that to say, if you do know someone who spends all their time with kids, try to really foul up something we’re good at.  Make an inedible meal, fold some laundry wrong, change a diaper in a way that requires a lot of hand washing after the fact…we’re all a disheveled mess and need to know that we’ve got some skills that other adults aren’t automatically good at.  Having to reload the dishwasher after you botched it is as good as a birthday present.

…and if you happen to be married to one of those perfect park moms, throw a handful of dirt in her purse for me.  Get on my level, Susan.

Feel free to buy me a cup of coffee at paypal.me/inessentialreading if you enjoyed the column.