Lessons learned?

As parents we spend our time trying to teach our children the difference between right and wrong. We sneek vegetables in their food and we make sure they drink plenty of milk. We give them fresh fruit as an alternative to sugary sweets. As parents we tuck our kids into bed each night with a story, song, prayer and a kiss. We make sure they are wearing warm jammies in the winter and cool jammies in the summer. We give them vitamins. We teach them to lace up their shoes so they don't trip and fall.

We teach them "A clean house is a happy house. So clean up your room to make it happy!" We search through their Halloween candy vigorously--hoping to find any tainted candy--after all we only want our children safe. We teach them to think for themselves because "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" We teach them lessons in humility and altruism. We, of course, want our children turning out better than we did. We want to learn from the mistakes our parents made. We genuinly want what is best for them! One of the most important things we do as parents is teach our children about strangers. Don't talk to strangers. Never go anywhere with a stranger. Don't accept candy from a stranger. If a stranger has a kitty or puppy or hampster or ferrit--do not go see it! It most definatly is a trap. We love our children--that is why we do this.

However, come Halloween through Christmastime, many of these rules don't apply. After dressing our kids up we drag them around for the neighborhood to admire; we let them accept candy from pretty much anybody who offers it to them. And then we get frustrated the next day when are children are literally bouncing from one wall to the next! Then comes Thanksgiving where the motto is "It only comes once a year--why not enjoy it"--thus destroying the image of eat your fruits and veggies that we have worked so hard to establish!

Finally my favorite--Christmas time! Here we drag our already hyper children to malls and parties and force them to sit on the lap of a strange fat man wearing a bright red suit and curly, shaggy, white hair. And then, we laugh when they scream. As we snuggle our hysterical children, we are laughing inside at the jolliness that surrounds the Santa tradition. And, if we are the lucky ones whos child is excited to see Jolly Old Saint Nick, they sit on his lap and rattle off a list of wants that would provide entertainment for a small third world country.

I would like to condem this practice, but alas, like most of you reading this...I find humor in the backfiring of the values we have tried to instill in our children. If you don't believe me, then hopefully you will enjoy the pictures below!

Its all worth it once you get your bag of goodies though!