Scary Mommy's Guide to Surviving the Holidays (9 page)

25

KILLER ROCKY ROAD FUDGE

by Alisa Schindler

E
very year on the holidays, my family, my extended family and even my husband's family all converge at my mother and stepfather's. I am thankful for us all to be together . . . and, equally so, that I don't have to cook.

The one thing I'm responsible for is a dessert and somehow I've gained a reputation for having some sort of baking prowess, despite not being much of a baker at all. The secret? My rocky road fudge. It looks like I slaved all day, when in reality it took all of ten minutes. In the spirit of giving, I'd like to share it with you.

1 12-ounce package plus 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup crunchy peanut butter—or, if you have children like mine, smooth

1 Tablespoon butter

1 package minimarshmallows

Line a greased baking pan with plastic wrap.

In a saucepan combine the chips, peanut butter, and butter. Cook over medium heat 2–3 minutes or until ingredients are melted—stir constantly! Then immediately remove from heat.

Stir in minimarshmallows and pour into the lined pan. Spread evenly, cover with more plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least three hours.

Keep it in there till you're ready to serve, then just remove plastic wrap and slice nice little squares. It'll cut through easily and you'll be fascinated how amazing it looks and tastes. Seriously, people will fall all over you.

Unless they have peanut allergies, in which case this would be a very bad thing. So please make sure to let everyone there know that there is peanut butter in the dessert.

Trust me, bring these and everyone will be thanking you and you'll be thanking me. And isn't that what this holiday is about?

26

THE BEST GIFTS TO BUY FOR PARENTS YOU HATE

by Jill Smokler

Y
ou know those parents you hate? Not the ones you
really
hate, whose kids bully yours or are the cause of hours worth of tears and angst; I mean the ones you
kind of
hate.

The mother who looked at you with scorn after learning your cupcakes came from a box. The ones who pay ten dollars a tooth, making your tooth fairy look like a cheapskate. The smug, think-they're-perfect-and-try-to-rub-it-in-your-face-every-chance-they-can parents. The ones who deserve to be kind of hated. You'd never wish harm upon those parents—of course not!—but they
do
have it coming. And you're going to passive-aggressively give it to them, in the form of seemingly innocent gifts for their offspring. I present you with a selection of thoughtful gifts that, while kids will love, are also sure to piss off those children's parents completely. Which makes them absolutely perfect . . .

1.
 LEGOs. Every parent knows that there is nothing more painful than stepping on a LEGO at 3:00 a.m. while you innocently stumble your way to the bathroom. But what about during waking hours? The secret to picking the most annoying LEGOs is to get a set aged at least three years older than the child it's intended for. This way, not only will you inflict surefire physical pain on the parent, but you'll also gift the annoyance of having to spend an hour assembling a toy that their child will dissolve into tears over any time it comes apart. As it's made to do.

2.
 Glitter. Gifting a one-pound jar of glitter, commonly known as the herpes of the art world, would be a tad too obvious, so mask it in an elaborate art set. Throw in some paper, scissors, and glue, knowing that although the paper will soon be recycled, the glitter will live on forever within the carpet fibers and air ducts of the home FOREVER.

3.
 A Build-A-Bear Workshop Gift Certificate. Your $25 gift may buy the actual bear, but the parent will be stuck accessorizing that bear in pure bear hell. A bear cheerleader! No, a fireman. No, a football star!! A doctor! A dentist! A cowgirl!!! The debate will go on for hours, over every detail right down to the bear's toes. Best of all, it will almost certainly end in tears unless the parent is prepared to pay a hundred bucks in extras like glasses, roller skates, and crutches. So you've either inflicted a tantrum of epic proportions on them in the middle of an overcrowded shopping mall, or caused them to spend a small fortune just to shut their kid up. Until Little Sibling sees Bigger Sibling's Build-A-Bear and decides he or she wants one too. Then they're completely fucked.

4.
 A Collection of Joke Books. Want to know what's more annoying than a kid telling stupid jokes, the punch line to which they don't understand? Nothing, that's what.

5.
 Anything musical. Gifting another child with a musical instrument is the artistic equivalent of giving a child a live goldfish as a carnival prize: you just don't do it. That is, unless your intent is to piss off the parent. If you do choose to go this ballsy route, prepare for retaliation.

Of course, you could always go the annoying-as-hell battery-operated toy route. If you do, just be sure to forget the batteries. Obviously.

27

FIVE WAYS KIDS WILL TOTALLY RUIN THE HOLIDAYS FOR YOU

by Amanda Mushro

I
t's the most magical and wonderful time of year, and you, being the supermom that you are, want to make this holiday season memorable and spectacular for your kids. You want to deck the halls and rock around the Christmas tree!

The problem is, much like the way your kids have ruined your ability to run up the stairs without peeing yourself a little, they will totally ruin the holidays for you. How, you ask?

1.
 They will ruin your Christmas card. You may have the most photogenic children to ever grace the pages of Facebook, and you're not too shabby of a photographer when you're snapping a quick picture at home on your iPhone. However, the minute you dress those kids up in festive holiday gear and try to pose the family on the front porch for the perfect photo to don your Christmas card, all hell breaks loose. Faster than you can say “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” someone will be dirty,
someone else is crying, someone has their eyes closed, and you are sweating and yelling, “Put your arm around your sister and act like you like her!”

2.
 They won't perform on demand. While driving around in your swagger wagon, your children burst into a perfect and adorable rendition of “Jingle Bells”—complete with perfectly timed and coordinated hand movements! But get them around family and friends and say, “Hey kids, how about we sing ‘Jingle Bells'?”—it's radio silence. Seriously, my dog is a better performer than my kids in front of a crowd.

3.
 They don't appreciate gifts. You spent weeks searching for the perfect gift for each kid. If need be, you would stand in line for hours with the rest of the crazies during Black Friday to get the one gift your kiddo has put at the top of their Christmas wish list. Even though Santa will totally get credit for your hard work, you sit back and watch your kids rip through your perfect wrapping in five minutes. Once the ribbons and wrapping settle, you see one kid playing in a box and another kid has the audacity to ask you, “Is that it?”

4.
 They don't appreciate holiday traditions.

Me: Let's take a drive to see Christmas lights, kids.

Kids: I'm hungry. Where are my snacks?

Me: Let's walk thought the neighborhood and sing carols.

Kids: I'm too cold. Where are my snacks?

Me: Let's watch It's a Wonderful Life!

Kids: No, put on Monsters, Inc. . . . again. And grab me some snacks too.

Me: Look! We're next in line to see Santa!

Kids: No! I don't want to see Santa anymore! Let's get a pretzel.

5.
 They won't eat your special holiday foods. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Puh-leaze. You're lucky if your little angels agree to anything that's not A) Cheetos or B) something that comes in a squeeze bottle, and you think you're going to be able to convince them into your patented roasted chestnut sausage stuffing? Oh, honey. But if you don't believe me, just go ahead and try giving your kids that special virgin eggnog recipe you spent an hour devising specially for them, and see if they don't look at it disdainfully and ask for Yoo-hoo.

And then, just when you want to pull a Grinch, they totally redeem themselves. You're at the end of your holiday garland and vow to never go through all this trouble to make their holidays merry and bright again. And poof! Just like a Christmas miracle, they morph into the sweet Linus at the end of
A Charlie Brown Christmas
, and you just want to squeeze them and make the holidays last a little longer.

28

OUR PARENTS DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE SANTA LIE, AND WE SHOULDN'T, EITHER

by Maria Guido

I
f you've convinced yourself that there's some way you can perpetuate the Santa myth without becoming a giant fucking liar—let it go. You can't. You will not make it through the holiday season without sitting on a huge throne of lies—and that's okay. No one, and I repeat
no one
I know harbors hate for their parents because of the Santa lie. So stop worrying about it. Seriously, stop. Our parents never worried about this stuff—I guarantee it.

When I was old enough to care, my parents told me there was a Santa. It's a story I accepted without question, because the concept of someone bringing me gifts once a year was rewarding enough to block out the creep factor of a fat old white guy sneaking into my house. I don't remember being told detailed stories throughout the holiday season. This was the driving narrative:
there's an old guy who lives in the North Pole, surrounded by little people. You can send him a letter and tell him what you want and if you're good enough, he'll swing by your house on Christmas Eve. I was directed to the Claymation
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Christmas special. That was enough. I never questioned anything about the holiday season or Santa's role in my life until one fateful night in the early '80s.

It was Christmas Eve. I was six years old. I was in bed, alternating between pretending I was asleep to fool my mother, who was periodically checking in on me, and jumping to the window convinced I could make out Rudolph's nose in the night sky. I heard my parents stirring downstairs and quietly made my way to the hall to see what was going on. We had one of those two-story homes that were very popular in California in the '80s—a giant vaulted ceiling reigning over a staircase that culminated in a landing you could look over from the second floor into the living room. I did a military shrug to the iron rods and peered under the banister, down to the floor below. My parents were discussing something I couldn't quite make out. My mom was placing a stuffed koala under the tree.

I remember thinking,
Cute
, shrugging, and going back to bed.

I woke in the morning to a lit tree, Santa's cookies gone, and my mother excitedly showing me what Santa had brought to reward me for being such a good girl all year: a stuffed koala.

I can't remember exactly what I was thinking at that moment, but I'm assuming it was something like,
My parents are lying assholes
.

I sat down, defeated, and focused on the wall in front of me. Santa wasn't real, my parents were not to be trusted, and that
koala was a totally dumb gift.

I remember being specifically dismayed about the koala thing, but I don't remember there being a running tally of all of the lies my parents had told to perpetuate the Santa myth, because there just weren't that many. I accepted the Santa narrative and the few tall tales my parents told me: that Santa was a man who would make his way to our house once a year and that I could somehow visit him at the mall.

Seeing Santa sitting on a throne in the mall once a year didn't present a quandary to my six-year-old brain. I guess had I thought about it, I could have deduced that there were other malls and other Santas—but I never did. Oakridge Mall in suburban San Jose was the only mall I knew. The Santa who sat in its glorious courtyard was the only one I would ever see. I didn't question why or how Santa had the time to stop in a shitty mall in a young Silicon Valley. I didn't think about the fact that he had clones all over the land, and what that meant for his credibility.

A couple decades later, I'm already totally lying to my child, and I am 100 percent okay with it. If I do such an amazing job at parenting that the only thing this kid has to mention at therapy is some Santa betrayal, I'll consider that a win. A big win.

To be honest, I lie all the time because I sincerely feel I've earned that right, what with all the keeping my kids alive and wiping their asses and such. Hopefully my kid won't hold it against me when he catches me with the proverbial koala in my hands.