Birthday Boy!!!

I'm going to have to be honest and highly recommend not having a baby in December. It's not like the month isn't complicated enough, and it takes a lot of effort to compete with Christmas, which you kind of need to at least attempt if you are going to make sure that birthday time doesn't just get combined with Christmas. I've tried floating the idea of a summer or spring party, but he wants to celebrate on his actual birthday, and I get that.

We did his birthday celebration at school December 10, December 14, and I was back on the 16th.

December 10 was the "birthday table" which involves going to school to have lunch with the birthday kid. You get to bring a lunch for birthday table which is good because I gave up on school lunch when I graduated, and honestly the school lunch they had looked even worse than the lunches we had (actually there were a few school lunches I really like). I showed up like every other mom and dad with a bad from McDonald's, Artic Circle, Wendy's or Burger King (I have no idea why anyone went to Burger King, that isn't in Kaysville). I was planning to make Jake a special lunch but was falling behind, and ran to McDonald's, and it's a good thing, because I would have totally embarassed Jake instead of getting fast food like all the other kids. It's hard to figure out how to time everything with these activities and work, but this is not the kind of stuff you can miss, and he was so excited to have me come to school for lunch that I couldn't imgine missing it. We were the last ones sitting at the birthday table, as all the other kids rushed off to get some recess, Jake told me he was just going to hang out with me because I don't get to come to his school very much. It's hard to imagine this little person may someday find me the most embarassing person on the planet.

Then on Tuesday it was Jake's special day in his class. We got to make a poster, about Jake, and I got to go to school to talk about Jake, and to hand out birthday treats. I love making the posters each year, I've tried to do something different each year so we can keep his posters in his room. In K I got a canvas instead of a poster board, and painted his poster, 1st grade I did a collage, and this year I just did pictures, but tried to go a bit more humorous than serious this time around (I actually used the word chillax for the first time in my life, and we spend quite a bit of time debating which Harry Potter movie Jake looks the most like Ron Weasley). I didn't actually do treats I figured they were getting enough this time of year, so I put together a little gift bag which Jake was excited to give. I really enjoy that part of birthdays, in fact I remember as a kid the awesome treats mom use to make to send for my birthday (you can't make the treats anymore), and how I thought "I can't wait until I have kids to send cool birthday treats like mom". Mrs. Neiderhauser then had the kids raise there hands and tell us what they liked about Jake, it went something like "Jake is funny", "Jake is really funny" "Jake is really, really funny, and "Jake is hysterical" (great I'm raising the class clown) until the teacher got frustrated and said "there muct be other things you like about Jake, and my favorite comment of the day, a boy raised his hand and said "I like Jake because he never swears", while that has to warm a mother's heart, my next thought was "do the other 2nd graders routinely swear?" On the way home Jake told me that not only did a lot of the boys swear but a whole bunch of them said "fudge" all the time, I considered that it might be time (since he picked up the "real" word last year) to explain that in "Christmas Story" the mother queen swear word is not actually fudge, it's the other really really bad F word that we never say. He frankly looked relieved.

Finally I have promised Jake for 3 years now that I would try to come to his school for one of the class parties. The last 2 years all the parties were taken on back to school night before I got a chance to sign up, but this year I managed to get Christmas. They did a great job with "Christmas Around the World" which is pretty much the theme for most schools at this point I think. It's really good for the kids to be aware of how other people celebrate, and I've never played so much of the Dreidel game in my whole life. For the Christmas party, the teachers made airline tickets, and passports for all the kids, and they travelled around the world. They did Mexico, England, Germany, and Russia.

I was in the Russia room but I wish we could have travled around to see the other rooms. I did learn that the Russian version of Santa Claus (I won't even attempt to get his name) is assisted by a "hot lady" (as Jake called her, right in the middle of class, where mom lost a little of her pride with the "no swearing" thing) that rides around with Santa, in a very provocative dress (the dad that did the presentation said that he had to look everywhere online to get a modest version of this lady). I guess they figure if you are looking at the pretty lady in the very short skirt (which frankly doesn't make much sense in the middle of winter in Russia) you won't notice Santa hiding the presents. I also learned that in the winter in Russia if you spit it will crackle and freeze before it hits the ground. As can be imagined this was a very popular fact with 2nd grade boys. I also found out that "Russian Tea Cakes" are the exact same thing as "Mexican Wedding Cookies", I wonder who got them first?

Jake shared with me when we got home that in Germany that a witch is present for the bad kids. He thought this was pretty cool, and I figured with some creative editing it was time to read him some David Sedaris, and read him "Six to Eight Black Men" if you've never heard or read it (just put the title in Google the story is on line), it is one of the funniest stories I've ever read. Jake was really amused so I think the story will go with the Christmas story (probably not the same night) as a tradition.

Here are some other strange/interesting holiday traditions from around the world, they we have been discussing:

1- In Venezuala from December 16-December 24, they have Early Morning Mass, which isn't unusual for a Catholic country, what IS unusual is that during this time people have to go to Mass riding roller scates. Can you imagine how entertaining that would be?

2- In Norway, at Christmas people hide all their brooms, because apparently if you leave them out during the night Witches and Evil Spirits will come into your house, and then fly around creating havoc. Excellent Halloween tradition, not such a good Christmas one in my mind.

3- A tradition in Spain, Italy and Portugal is called the Caganer, which translates to "the pooper". You can see where this might be going. Near the manager scene somewhere they hide a Caganer, which is basically a man squatting to poop, so that the kids can find it during Christmas "for fun". Does this sound fun to anyone? Well anyone that isn't a second grade boy?

See I did it again, I just blended Christmas and Jake's birthday into one big confusing mess.

Merry Christmas, and wish me luck figuring it all out!