There are two reasons that I would like to be Canadian.
The first reason is easy access to poutine, which is french fries covered with cheese curds and gravy _ and is the best thing you can eat when the temperature is below freezing and you've lost all feeling below your knees.
The second reason is Thanksgiving in October.
It makes more sense to celebrate this holiday earlier in the year, especially when you live in northern climes. Thanksgiving is about harvests, both spiritual and actual.
By late October, the bulk of our crops are in. Heck, it's usually snowed at least once by then.
But that is merely an intellectual justification for why I truly, deeply in my heart of hearts really want; I deeply desire a few more weeks between the turkey and the Christmas tree.
Rest assured that this column isn't yet another rant about all of the green and red merchandise that hits the shelves just after the black and orange merch is shoved into the clearance bins. Yes, it ticks me off, too, to hear "Jingle Bells" the day after "Monster Mash."
That fight has already been lost. You may as well fight the tide with a teacup.
No, I want to move Thanksgiving so that I have more time to really think about what I should get my kids for Christmas.
If it were up to them, they'd get every single piece of plastic junk that shows up in the commercials wedged between shows on Nick, the Discovery Channel and the Cartoon Network.
While I have no qualms about letting the Diva and the Boy watch television, I have buckets of qualm about them watching the endless ads, if only because they then ask for the latest iteration of Mario or Polly.
In the long run, I know that the commercials are good for them because they will learn that nothing is ever as wonderful as it is made to seem by those who are selling it.
Capitalism requires educated (and jaded) consumers.
In the short run, the kids are driving me crazy pointing out all of the gifts that they'd like.
When the Diva was younger, we made a deal.
Rather than tell me whenever she saw something she wanted Santa to bring her, she only tell me when she saw something that she most definitely did not want. I'd simply take it as a given that she wanted everything her eyes fell on unless informed otherwise.
This worked until her brother was old enough to want things, too.
She realized that there was no way I could keep both sets of demands straight unless I was reminded who wanted what every 10 minutes.
The Diva is nothing if not persistent.
My kids don't actually need more stuff.
They have plenty to play with, most of which winds up on their respective bedroom floors because neither can be bothered to put anything away, which is another column for another day.
And also is about as effective as the aforementioned battle with the tide.
They have so much stuff that I frequently have to cull the toys that are outgrown or unloved to find a home for the new toys, which is a truly First World problem and one that we are blessed to have.
In a perfect world, I'd only give my kids new experiences for Christmas. We'd spend a full year on mini-trips to wherever the urge takes us.
Which is not a practical plan, nor can it be wrapped.
Still, given a choice, I would only buy the gifts that they really want, rather than the ones that they ask for out of habit because they've just seen a flashy commercial.
The only way to figure out which gifts those are is to listen to them for more than a few weeks to see what keeps coming up.
Listening is hard, however, in the short weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when we all try to bake the cookies/do the shopping/deck the halls/grade the finals.
There's not a whole lot of time leftover to sit and talk to each other, which is a crying shame.
Right now the kids are simply primed to respond to every last toy targeted at them because the holiday is breathing hotly down their necks, too. They are just as wound up as the grown-ups are.
While this level of excitement can be sustained for three weeks, I don't think it could be sustained for six, which would mean the two weeks before Christmas would be relaxed and quiet.
The easiest answer would be to simply start my holiday prep earlier, no matter what the calendar might say.
But it's hard to think about Christmas until Thanksgiving has passed, just like it's hard to eat a dish of poutine in July.
Or so I believe.
Adrienne Martini is a freelance writer, instructor at the State University College at Oneonta, mom to Maddy and Cory, wife to Scott, and author of "Sweater Quest." Her columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/parentingimperfect.
Parenting Imperfect
The Christmas crunch is getting to be way too much
- Parenting Imperfect
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Diva finally got what she wanted for half her life
I am weak.
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A parenting phobia that will leave you scratching your head
One of my two worst parent phobias came to pass last month. Even simply typing its name makes my head all swimmy. The Diva, as happens to kids her age, succumbed to lice, passed along by one of her fellow fourth-graders.
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Oh, how the worries change as the children grow
Most days, we are all just trying to do our best under really challenging circumstances.
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Newborn phase would be much better if there were deadlines
Friends of mine just had their first baby.
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I just don't know if I can turn over control of the washer quite yet
I'm starting to think that the Diva should be taking care of her own laundry. My reasons are many.
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Bathing children shouldn't have to be this hard
I just hurt my throat while yelling at my children.
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The Kingdom of the Mouse offers lessons and true magic
Some opportunities simply fall into your lap.
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And the band played on ... right into the next generation
In what may later turn out to have been a fit of self-preservation, my brain repeatedly decided to forget that band starts in fourth grade.
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Being the Stuff Master to the Diva takes a lot of work
About 30 seconds after my first child was born, I somehow became the master of all of her stuff.
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The kids are growing up faster than we can keep up
My husband and I just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. If you add to that the number of years we spent either dating or living in sin, our relationship is now old enough to drink.
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Parenting would be easier if only I knew Dink's secret
By Adrienne Martini One of my college housemates had a family dog named Dink.
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The apple fell far from the tree, but I love her for it
This will come as a shock to exactly no one who knows me but I am not the girliest girl on the planet.
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As the kids' needs for Mom change, Mom's life changes
Now that both kids are in school, all of the thankless work from the last eight years is starting to pay off. As a result, I don't see as many other people as I used to.
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Some surprises aren't found in the surprise itself
I turned 40 earlier this month.
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If time could just speed up and slow down at the same time
At the end of February, I had something happen that I hadn't experienced for almost nine-years: I woke up in my own house and there were no kids in it. This was, in a word, astonishing.
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The Boy may just become this generation's Harpo Marx
The Diva has reached a new stage of development, one that is difficult to make public because this is a small town and her identity is known, if in a limited way. And so I'll merely give you the broadest outline: girls and their social networks are strange and, frequently, cruel.
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While life is often boring, trips make it much more interesting
Our life, by and large, is pretty boring. There's school. There's work. There's a few fun moments, like the Diva's riding lessons or the occasional movie.
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Memories of the kids as they were then mostly recalled in pictures
I have a nearly identical revelation every time I'm forced to go through the stacks of snapshots I really should put in an album already: how did my children get to be so big?
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Even if the box is fun, it's not really enough for Christmas
If I were a true pragmatist _ or a cold-hearted Grinch _ I wouldn't buy any gifts for the kids this year.
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Diva finally got what she wanted for half her life
