So this is Christmas (Eve)

I made a critical error this year.  Seized by a sudden need for extreme frugality, I decided to make the gingerbread dough for the kids' gingerbread houses out of expired flour and shortening from our food storage.  Why not put it to use rather than throwing it all away?  The kids like building gingerbread houses, but I've never really seen them eat the houses.  This was going to be great!  And so frugal!  And stinky.  Rancid flour and shortening smell bad, folks.  I had to use extra allspice to cover the stench.  But it baked up beautifully.  Reminds me of that episode of Downton Abbey where the Machiavellian footman spends all his savings on phony black market goods.  Anyway, as I was rolling out walls and rooftops Anne tried to sneak some dough.  We generally eat raw cookie dough in this house.  If we die prematurely, the cause will be salmonella poisoning.

"Sorry kids, you can't eat this.  I made it from spoiled flour and shortening."  Damon and Anne were disappointed.  Claire was devastated.

Over the course of the day, she sobbed things like, "I'm going to eat mine anyway.  I don't care if it tastes bad!  Why did you make gingerbread we can't eat!  The gingerbread houses are ruined!  I don't even want to make gingerbread houses now! I'm never going to make gingerbread houses again! I'm going to make mine hideous on purpose.  Why did you make it bad!  Now it's ruined!"  It went on and on, interspersed with tears of rage.

This was bad timing.  We had a party to go to that night at Bliss and Showered Gingham's (names have been changed to protect privacy).  I needed to make an éclair cake and chicken noodle soup, make sure everyone had their white elephant gift wrapped and ready, make royal icing, and oversee the gingerbread house construction.  To top it all off, I had my own (hormone-induced) rage to contend with.

Stress makes me cranky.  But hormones being out of whack + stress makes me a teetotal witch.  I start caring what people think of me, and I'm convinced they're not thinking good things.  I started thinking, "My mom would have had everything done last night, and her house would be clean.  We would all be having a wonderful time if I could be as disciplined and talented as my mother, but I'm not!  I'm a failure!  I'll never be as great as my mom!  It's going to be the worst Christmas ever! AAAAAAAGH!" (Normal Me also knows I'll never be as great as my mom but is not bothered by it.  Mom is fantastic, but she and Dad raised me to believe I'm flippin' awesome, so it must be true, even if Mom can do more in a day than I can do in a week.) 

So, on top of Claire's crying, we had my not-so-nice comments to deal with. "WHO GOT FROSTING ON THE FLOOR?  ANNE!!  YOU ARE 6 YEARS OLD!  WHY ARE YOU GETTING FROSTING EVERYWHERE?!"  That sounds ridiculous now, but at the time, it seemed like an incomprehensible outrage that a 6-yr-old would get icing all over while building a gingerbread house.  Then (when the kids were out of earshot) Jake asked what he could do to help.  "I don't know!  I just want to scream the F-word over and over again."  He suggested that I go somewhere and do that, but I didn't.  I knew from past experience it wouldn't help.

While I nursed Julia I tried to reason with myself.  "You have four healthy, beautiful children who are all alive and with you.  You have a good husband whom you love.  No one is going to care if your chicken noodle soup is disgusting because there will be plenty of other good food there, including your éclair cake. Why can't you just be happy?"  Then some wise counsel about forgetting myself and serving others came to mind, which put me in an even worse mood, because I'd done nothing but serve others all day long.  GRRRRRR.

Whew, this is a long blog.  To wrap things up: we made it to the party, Claire and I both cheered up, we came home, and had a Merry Christmas the next day.

Conclusions: 1. Only make edible gingerbread houses.
2. Good food and pleasant company can do wonders for your mood.
3. Give good white elephant gifts more often (unless all guests are like Claire: she thought the roll of toilet paper she got was great).  The live goldfish given by one family made them extremely popular.  The Lady Godiva Chocolates box filled with carrot and celery sticks made us very unpopular.  Compounded with the unforgotten M&M bag filled with pinto beans that Jake gave last year, we may never be invited the Gingham's party again.