Claus: The Rematch

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope that you are all busy little elves this time of year, shopping, and baking, and just generally enjoying your family and friends. I've been pretty busy myself. In fact, this past weekend, Mommy and I went to a gingerbread decorating party! Let me tell you about this fun idea! Mommy's friend Ms. Christen, who has a little boy Cecil who is a few months older than me, decided to get all the kids together and let us decorate gingerbread houses. I was on board as soon as I heard there would be frosting and candy. Let me tell you, this party was where it was at!



Everyone was there. Cecil, Patrick, Malcolm (who goes to my school!), Charlotte, Ryan, Amelia (not the cousin, just the friend), her sister Sarah. Of course my best girl Mae was there.



Her brother Crawford was there also.

Ms. Christen is sort of the Martha Stewart of Mommy's friends. The set up was way cool. There was this big table exactly the right size for us. The table cloth was striped like a candy cane. Each of us got our own apron and chef's hat:

It should not surprise you that I didn't care to keep the hat on my head.

Also, we each got our very own gingerbread house, frosting, and BIG bag of candy to decorate. Here is my house before we got to work:

Pretty cool huh? If you've met Ms. Christen, you would not be surprised in the least to know that she made all of the houses herself. Mommy is still impressed by this. She once tried to make gingerbread houses as a little girl. It did not look anything close to this.

Anyway, we all got to work decorating. Here are some pictures of finished products. This is Amelia's house:

I know, right?! I love her use of lifesavers here.

Here's Ryan's place. Check out the tree line and fancy frosting design. This kid is GOOD.

Here's mine.

Where's the candy you ask? Funny story. You see, I don't like it when frosting touches candy. Who'd a thunk it, huh? Yeah, it was news to mommy too. See everytime she would attempt to stick candy on the frosting, I'd fall apart. Please note the few red and orange candy pieces lying on the side of the house there. Yep. That's as close as they got to the actual house. Also, all I wanted was to eat the frosting. So, after a while, and quite a few tears, mommy and I got into a groove where she would simply squeeze frosting onto the house, and I would remove it with my finger and eat it.

It didn't make for a very pretty house, but it made for an extremely happy Thomas. And as we all know, a happy Thomas is a happy everybody.

Some of you might argue that I was far too young for this exercise, but as proof otherwise, I present to you the finished product of Sarah, a sweet little thing who is but 12 days older than I am:

Yeah. Perhaps what they say is true. Boys do mature later than girls.

Anyway, after I had had my fill of frosting, I was about ready to settle down for a long winter's nap. When out on Ms. Christen's lawn, there arose such a clatter, I turned to my left to see what was the matter. And there he was.

Claus. Again. And 20 days early, might I add. Honestly, I thought he and I had an understanding. He would come on Christmas Eve. He would leave me gifts. But we would have no contact. He would not approach me. I would not approach him. We would have a mutual respect for the other, but there would be no togetherness. We had discussed this in my open letter to him last year (See Christmas blog post last year). But yet he persists. And then they let him in.

I tried very hard to keep my cool. After all, Mae was there, and I do have an image to uphold. But as he made his way around the table, I began to get suspicious and I felt my personal space was in danger. I kept a close eye on him.

In my defense, I'm not entirely sure this guy was the real deal. He was certainly jolly and nice and all the things Santa's supposed to be. But, he smelled like cigarettes. I know Santa smokes a pipe, but I'm fairly certain he's not a Marlboro man. Second, he listed his reindeer, and mentioned one was named Nixon. I'm, admittedly, no expert on Santa, but I don't recall there ever being a reindeer named Nixon. Perhaps he has a Presidential Fleet that Nixon commands? Third, he attempted to sing multiple Christmas Carols with us, but suspiciously didn't know the words. None of these are of course dead give aways, but they just set off some red flags.

After he took his place on the couch, Mommy asked if I would care to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what I wanted. I very clearly said no. I know I didn't stutter. I know there was no waffling. I VERY clearly said no. In fact, I shook my head vehemently when saying it. It can't be said that I got my languages confused either, because "no" in spanish is the same as "no" in english. So I'm going to say that the fault here lies entirely with mommy. As I said, I told her no. But do you know what she did? She pushed my chair in front of Santa, and well, this is what happened.

Yeah. Not pretty. But guess what, she got what she deserved. The nerve of her! Can you believe she just threw me to the wolves like that?? Me neither! She's lucky I forgave her. Admittedly, I was the only person at this party to react this way, but I'm just going to say it's because I'm much more observant than the average person, and could tell this Santa wasn't the real deal. I'm just saying. . .

And I'll tell you, the only thing that got me over this, was that Mommy, Daddy and Uncle Scott took me to the Chimes for dinner that night. I got some food, but I barely remember it. What I do remember is that daddy ordered some buffalo wings that came with some ranch dressing. That ranch dressing was GOOOOOOOOOOD.

If Santa would care to apologize for his clear breach of contract, I might be willing to settle for a bottle of that stuff.

In any case, in spite of this dreadful scene with The Claus, I'm having a pretty Merry Christmas season. I hope you all are too, and I hope that Santa doesn't visit you until you are safely asleep in your bed on December 24th, and that he leaves you lots of goodies.

Merry Christmas to all my fans who make writing this blog so much fun!

Thomas.