I’d like to introduce you to Erin. from Working Mother Chronicles.  I had been reading her blog for a few months before meeting her in real life. She is witty as hell (auditioned for Jeopardy), super smart (hello, lawyer!) and has the ability to laugh at herself.  Obviously, I’m a fan.  But honestly, I’m not a fan of how good this post is.  I’m jealous  Jealous as hell. This is by far the best Guest Blog I have ever featured on Mommy’s Weird.  And I think my other Guest Bloggers will agree. Or hate me for being such a two faced jerk.

Meet Erin….

So it would appear that the rest of the retail world has caught up to what Costco has been trying to tell us since mid-August: “tis the Christmas season.

You can’t go to a store without being bombarded with Santas and reindeer and Mandarin oranges and fruitcake and that stupid song that asks “they” know it’s Christmas and lamenting because there won’t be any snow in Africa this December. As if there’s ever been snow in Africa at Christmas time. Sigh.

While our neighbourhood isn’t too Christmas-fied yet, there are enough people with lights up that my son started freaking out that we didn’t have any decorations on our house and “How will Santa find our house if there aren’t any decorations?” So I thought I would try to get a jump start on at least one holiday-related task and took the kids to Canadian Tire to get some outdoor lights.

Now, when I was growing up my Dad put up a pretty good Christmas light display. He was no Clark Griswold, mind you, but there were life-sized cut-outs of the stable and the baby Jesus and all the players in that story on the front lawn. One night when I was in high school a friend was dropping me off after a hockey game and announced, “And here we are, pulling into Bethlehem.”

Our own Christmas displays have been a bit more modest. As in, when I asked my husband if he was putting up lights this year he replied that he would change the regular outdoor light bulbs to red and green in honour of the season. That’s it.

I knew that wouldn’t be good enough for the kids, so off we went. I’m not necessarily in favour of those inflatable do-dads that seem to be everywhere these days, but thought that if the kids really wanted one, I’d be open to it. Like a Santa or a Snowman or something wintery.

Not an Angry Bird.

Yet, there it was. The red Angry Bird with a Santa hat, right beside Cookie Monster with a Santa hat and I wanted to weep for humanity.

There was only one left. Of each.

You know what that means, don’t you? It means that people have actually bought them and they will assault our eyes this December, trying to convince us that they actually have something to do with Christmas.

Thankfully, neither of my children wanted to bring the inflatable Christmas Angry Bird home. Neither did they want the 10 foot high Santa. Oh no. My son wanted something much more classic than either of those things: the outdoor Christmas palm tree.

I’m sorry, but having an outdoor Christmas palm tree on your lawn just screams, “I would rather be somewhere else with a margarita or a mojito but instead I’m stuck in this winter wasteland.” You know what? I would rather be somewhere with a margarita or a mojito too, but I’m not about to rub the fact that I’m not in my own face.

The kids and I came to a compromise. We got some fake twigs with multi-coloured lights to put in the planter and some icicle lights that have this strobe effect that may give people seizures (says so on the box!) for the house.

Now I just have to put them up.

(Is it January yet?)

Erin lives with her family in Calgary, AB.  She’s a lawyer by training and currently works for the Mayor of Calgary. Her life is what it would look like if Parks and Recreation and Modern Family had a baby sitcom.  Minus Amy Poehler and Eric Stonestreet, unfortunately.  She’s found that balancing a job outside the home with two preschoolers, a dog and a husband is not always easy, but always interesting – most times – even pretty awesome. Erin writes about their adventures, their commitment to being active citizens and other random stuff at her blog Working Mother Chronicles.