My Christmas Wish List was not all silver bells and holly this year. I wasn’t asking my government Santa for anything out of the ordinary—just a quick holiday cuddle and a couple of empanadas to fill my belly would have sufficed. But like the dead horse I beat every year, all I ended up with was a jobless elf, wilting mistletoe and my empty box wrapped with a shiny golden bow.
It’s never A Wonderful Life, during the holidays. It’s usually me, the sugar plum fairy, begging Dirge, the Scrooge to fork over the measly child support installment he is hoarding so he can buy the overabundance of crotchless undies for the red-headed daddy stealer. It’s me, the poverty laden single mom, wrapping disillusionment in shiny cellophane and golden bows, stuffing the stockings with the numerous amounts of guilt that have piled up during the year, and of course, a ton of empty promises in empty boxes all nicely organized under the Charlie Brown tree that was left on my doorstep.
It would be nice if just one holiday wasn’t a nail biting extravaganza and over indulgence of begging. But no Christmas story is complete without the proverbial miracle, right? Well, my miracle comes in the form of last minute fed ex boxes showing up on my porch in the middle of the night with Dirge’s handprints smudged all over them. Confession # 25: Like clockwork, every year, I wait in angst with my rusty exacto knife, my steamer and my vengeance ready to rip off the gift tags that say, “from your loving dad” to replace it with “from your loving Government Santa.” Seriously, why should the part-time dad and skater boy get all the damn credit, when all I am left with is the crumbled wrapping paper and his poop-eating grins?
I have yet to learn the secret of sharing our Wonderful Life with my kids. I have yet to learn a sensitive way of telling them that their “loving dad & part-time hero” is really sky-diving and purchasing botox treatments for the meal ticket pilferer with their money. I keep the secret. I protect the kids. I stuff the stockings. I bite my nails and I cook up the tastiest government turkey this side of skid row--all while wearing my sugar plum fairy tutu for effect.
Real Single Moms Rock On!
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