With a beer in hand, and possibly a surely attitude, 4-year-old Hayden Wright escaped his home, wandered the streets, then broke into the neighbors house to steal their Christmas presents.

Hayden’s mom, 21-year-old April, says she doesn’t know how the boy got beer and got out but she’s just glad he’s okay and says it won’t happen again.

It gets stranger.

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Last year, my then three-year-old wanted one thing for Christmas:  Groovy Girls.  Groovy Girl dolls, Groovy Girl beds, Groovy Girl cars.  One look at the prices left me a little dizzy, until I got the idea to look them up on Craigslist.  Low and behold, there was an 11-year-old girl selling her entire collection.  For $20.

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I’m sure I’m not the only one headed to the in-laws for the holidays. And what a mixed bag that can be, right? On the one hand, a retreat: two extra adults, people actually interested in your kids, daily hot square meals that you had no hand in preparing.

But there’s another side: you’re totally at the mercy of a matriarch whom you don’t have the privilege of grousing at (I’m thinking my own mom, here). Three weeks of frozen vegetables. Never really knowing what to do with my snack plate — leaving it in the sink feels mean, but putting it in the dishwasher is, in my case, akin to personal invasion. Continue reading »

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It’s been a tough year, according to Santa’s elves. Kids who normally might ask for video games or new dolls are now asking Santa for simpler things.

A job for mom. A little more time with dad. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says post office consumer affairs director Elma Ramirez in Oakland, Calif. 

According to this all at once hilarious and heart breaking column in the Contra Costa Times, there’s a post office in Oakland that opens letters to Santa and then asks people to answer them — with anything they can spare. Continue reading »

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The holidays are always ripe for the pro-Santa and anti-Santa group to go at each other in the grand tradition of parental sniping.

But here’s one I’d never heard before: folks who don’t want Santa “taking credit” for the gifts they’ve lovingly chosen and wrapped up for their children. Continue reading »

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So you survived Thanksgiving with the family … give yourself a pat on the back.  But don’t get too comfortable.  By my watch, Christmas is approaching fast.  There’s a reason we all overeat and over-drink during the holiday season:  Too much together time.

If your family puts the fun in dysfunction, then you might actually look forward to the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.  But if the thought of spending a day, or two, or three with your family makes you want to weep, you might benefit from these sanity-saving holiday tips from Carl Sheusi, zen master extraordinaire and psychologist who says that the reason why your parents are so good at pushing your buttons is because “they installed them.”

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Last year I learned the true miracle of Christmas: Blackmail. You can get your toddler to do anything by putting Santa on a string and keeping him just out of reach. Behave, and good tidings will come to you. Keep up those tantrums, and, well, you probably don’t want to risk it.

See? Miracle.

So I took particular delight in the recent Cake Wrecks post about the scariest Santas on the pastry racks. These are, indeed, Santas that will scare your children straight this holiday season. Of particular note is the pairing with the song.

Photo: Cake Wrecks

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