Santanic Worship and Mall Glamour Shots

No... no... not dead... just tired.  I've heard that things come in threes but how about baskets full of shit throwing Chaos Monkeys fighting against the Happy Holiday Kittens?  Why monkeys?  Because they know too much.  Why kittens?  If you have to ask then you are fuzz bereft and I can't help you.

Kittens won, btw.

Suck my Yule Log, Monkeys!

All hail the beginning of the Christmas TORNADO!
Decorations are out!
Tree has been trimmed!
Santa's lap has been covered... by Sass's ass cheeks.  There is even a picture.  *shudder*

Now, I'm gonna stop here for a moment...
 
     Santa pictures... nay, all holiday creature photos, are the devil.  Why you ask?  Because they are the only evidence that I exist (because I am always BEHIND the camera... because I am the only one that REMEMBERS that there is a camera ) and they make me look insane.  There I am, year after year, frantically wrangling one of my squirming progeny with a look on my face that screams "I'm crapping my dress!" so that years from now, they can say that they did this and Mommy and Daddy loved them and wasn't it nice that we all did these things together as a family?

No... it wasn't really...  Well... some of it anyway....

     We waited forever in line in a hot shopping mall full of aromatic, incredibly under-dressed humanity (as in "More Clothes Please!"  I did NOT need an anatomy lesson this afternoon and did you know that Tennessee formal wear includes camo, a muffin top, and Axe Body Spray? ... and that's just the dudes?) while they both wined and squirmed and dropped graham cracker crumbs everywhere.  It was "We have to wait our turn, honey." a thousand times and fervently whispered prayers that they wouldn't stain their Christmas outfits before we got up to Santa.
     Then... there we were.  We gently nudged a hesitant Sass forward, underneath the oddly elongated neck of an enormous, grotesquely-grinning, white Polar Bear in people clothes, and towards Santa.  I thought Sprinkles was going to crawl out of her skin trying to get away, and Sass... well...  for Sass it was awe at first sight.  I watched him stare up at The Man Himself, thinkin' finger firmly implanted, silent and still.  My boy was meeting Santa.  THE Santa. For him, this.  Was.  IT.  Santa helped him into his lap.  We smiled for our picture.  He told Santa that he had been a good boy this year (wtf?) and what he wanted for Christmas.  I have never seen that boy so all sorts of supa-LED-lit-up glowing from toes-to-nose with excitement.  You should see the picture.  He is radiant   The moment was perfect... except that Sprinkles looks like she is trying to dig her way out of a pit of live, venomous vipers;  Hubbs is in some awkward Senior Picture pose; and I am shiny, desperate, and disheveled.  But Sass is beautiful.  And that is beautiful...

.... and THANK GAWD we won't have to do it again until next year....

To actually SEE the photo...  go here.  And no worries... I take pity "Likes".