I HATE...

I love Christmas. I love Christmas in the CITY! I do not get stressed about cards, gift-giving, post office lines, scheduling, attending or throwing parties, performing. I truly love it all. This year I am especially excited because my kids are at an age where they are TOTALLY into it. I love love love this time of year.
However,there is one thing that I hate, despise, get the shivers about....and that is GRAB BAG GIFTS.

My first memory of the grab bag gift was when I was in about 3rd grade. My gifted program class (project arrow it was called where I lived) assigned a grab bag to us. I only mention the gifted part because I associate my hatred for that damned gifted program with the damned grab bag. Because we were smart we didn't do the traditional grab bag....we did that annoying one where you grab a gift, unwrap it, and you can keep it or pick someone else's or whatever those stupid rules were. At the time it seemed much trickier than that, but anyway....I ended up with my own present! I almost cried. Maybe if it had been a good present I wouldn't have...but it was a BOOK! It was, A Little Princess! Boring! Book! Lots of Words! (I didn't read than like I do now.) I don't know why my Mom sent it with me...probably because it was just lying around...or maybe she thought the gifted kids would enjoy a reading challenge....who knows?!

Ever since then I have hated it, but hopefully my reasons are a bit more justified then being bitter about taking home my own stupid dumb lame book gift.

I recently hosted Pukey's kindergarten class for our Holiday Party, and without being consulted, the room moms ordered us to participate in a grab bag gift for the children, with a money limit of $10- I was pretty upset that they assigned this to MY party, but I did not say anything because they had already told everyone, and I didn't want to mess up what the room moms had been planning.

When the blessed grab bag gift event finally happened at MY party, the results were typical and stupid grab bag results:

1. We were short like 4 or 5 presents! Seriously, who doesn't fess up in this situation? Or, quietly take their child aside and explain that mommy forgot the grab bag gift and make some promise to avoid a meltdown or whatever. And how ridiculous is it that a mom actually brought 4 extra with her (because she KNEW this would happen! ha!)?

2. I arbitrarily decided that the children would choose from the grab basket (in our case) in reverse alphabetical order. No one seemed to care about this. And that's just a stupid way to receive a gift.

3. At least half of the kids were dissappointed in their gift, if not more. The only person who was truly ecstatic about their gift was Pukey, and guess why? The smarty pants picked her OWN present!!!!! I was secretly proud of her because I hate the grab bag, and she figured out how to win at grab bag.

I stared at that pile of kids and those pile of (to-be-honset) ho-hum gifts and all I saw was dollar signs: $200- was just wasted on a stupid dumb lame grab bag. $200- that could have:

~Sent 8 Care Packages to troops in Iraq

~Send 20 girls to school in Afghanistan

~Donate to the Humane Society and get the class a subscription to All Animals magazine to share!

~Buy 20 or 30 books to send to flood victims in Washington or New Orleans.

~Sponsor a team running in the Avon Breast Cancer Run.

~Take a field trip to the NYC Post Office and pick some letters for Santa and fulfill some wishes.

The list goes on. SO, I plan on expressing these sentiments, in slightly more mature, hopefully less harmful and more hopeful language, on our parent group site....for next year!