Holiday Shopping

“Got your holiday shopping done yet?” everyone keeps asking.

Yeah, right. Christmas is still two and a half weeks away. What’s the rush? I’m still washing sand out of my swimsuit from my Thanksgiving trip. I’m still wearing tank tops because I haven’t had time to swap my summer shirts out of the closet and move the winter sweaters in. (It takes a lot of tank tops to stay warm.)

What’s worse is I’m hosting a holiday party tonight, and I still haven’t decorated my tree, hung a wreath, or figured out if I still have paper plates lying around somewhere I can use. I also haven’t cleaned the bathrooms, run the vacuum, or dusted. (Those shelves are supposed to be gray and fuzzy, right? Can I pretend it’s artificial snow and not dust?)

Procrastination seems to be my official vocabulary word for December.

I don’t have any idea what to get my son yet for the holidays. He seems to change his mind every other minute. Now he wants a Wii (fat chance). Yesterday he wanted a Nerf shoot-em-up assault something-or-other (mommy doesn’t do guns, remember dear?). The day before that, it was a PSP (but you already have a Nintendo DS!). Last week, there was something about Guitar Hero, or maybe a real electric guitar. And a boy-sized jeep that really runs (right, keep dreaming). Or a pet (ack!), or a giant Legos city, complete with working plumbing, a functioning government, and trade deals with Japan.

I think I’ll get him a rock. It always worked for Charlie Brown. Or maybe that was Halloween. I can’t keep anything straight these days.

Anyway, while I was flipping desperately through store ads in the paper last week, I came across the Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker. Seems that’s the popular item for girls this year. It looks kind of cool, but the pink would definitely not go over well with my son, despite the obvious cupcake appeal. I think the manufacturers shot themselves in the foot by making it pink. I know a lot of cupcake-eating boys, myself. Oh well. So far, it’s the only thing NOT on his list.

The really interesting thing about the Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker, however, is that the cupcake mixes are gluten-free. Who knew? It’s not really advertised anywhere that way – but it’s making the rounds in the food allergy network. The year’s “must have” toy for girls, and it’s gluten-free? That’s pretty remarkable.

Now, if I could just find something remarkable that’s on my son’s list and that doesn’t cost the equivalent of a college education. (Sorry, son, we would have sent you to college, but we got you that “starter” pack of Bakugan cards and figurines when you were 10 instead, remember?)

Good luck with your shopping! And let me know if you find Guitar Hero on sale, for like $1.98.

Hooray for St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick’s Day and Easter fell in the same week this year. One holiday has a lot to do with food – chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, hard-boiled eggs, marshmallow eggs, and other unnaturally colored confections are a huge part of Easter.

The other holiday, St. Patrick’s Day, has nothing to do with food. OK, technically green beer is a food, but I don’t know anyone who wakes up to a basketful of green beer, and I’ve never heard of St. Patrick hiding beer bottles in the grass for the kids to find. (Well, maybe some fraternities do that. It’s been a while since I’ve been to college.) Alright, and maybe there are a few people out there who actually cook corned beef and cabbage for dinner, but really – you have to admit, St. Pat’s food just isn’t worth getting that excited for.

And yet, St. Patrick’s Day is still fun – it’s all about wearing green clothes, pinching those who forgot, talking in silly accents, and playing Irish music (the louder, the better). Even my son’s school, which has a school uniform, let kids replace the uniform with something green on St. Patrick’s Day.

That got me thinking about holidays that aren’t closely associated with food. There aren’t many of them. Let’s see… Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day, April Fool’s Day, Earth Day, Arbor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day. That’s about it. And most of those we celebrate primarily with big sales at furniture stores.

Everything else is all about food – brunches, barbecues, cherry pies, candy, family feasts. We do love to celebrate the big things in life by eating, don’t we? It’s not the kind of thing you think about, unless you spend way too much time thinking about food to begin with. Like us allergy-concerned types.

So holidays and food are just an inseparable pairing we have to live with. It means each holiday has that extra bit of stress, that extra amount of work to cook from scratch, that extra expense to order the “safe” foods from online sources, that heightened worry as we venture into someone else’s home. It means holidays, already stressful to begin with, strain us that much more.

But for our kids’ sakes, we still find ways to have fun. We strive to make the day seem normal, effortless, and special. And often we think no one appreciates what we go through. But just now, I asked my son what I should say about Easter in my blog, and he said, “You can talk about how everything the Easter Bunny brought me was safe, just for me! I got safe chocolate bunnies, safe chocolate eggs, safe candy in my eggs, safe white chocolate chickies, and really fun toys!”

He DID notice. He DID appreciate it.

And suddenly it doesn’t seem like food-centric holidays are quite as bad, after all.

Of course, I’m still voting for St. Patrick’s Day as my favorite holiday of the year. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go put some Irish music in the CD player…