I should explain what happened on the Thanksgiving break with our son. From the time he got home for that break, he refused to leave the house. Even though he talked about going to my brother's house for Thanksgiving dinner, when it came time to go, he refused. We ended up having dinner at home. Thankfully, I had bought a small turkey that my wife planned to cook the day after Thanksgiving so that we would have "leftovers."
When it came time to take our son back to school on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, it was one of the worst experiences in some time for that task. We fought him for most of the afternoon before giving up for the night. He hit me so hard in the ear that my ears rang and I had some residual hearing issues for several days after. My wife finally got him back a day late but it was a monumental task.
So what has me stressed a few days before Christmas? You can probably guess from the preceding two paragraphs that so far during the break, my son is refusing to go anywhere. I offered to take him out to lunch for hamburgers, no luck. Same thing with trying to get him to go for a ride to look at Christmas lights. So far he is saying he is going to go to my sister's and my in-laws houses for Christmas. Let's hope he does.
Sunday mornings is one of the days that I usually use to take care of my grocery shopping. I left the house to go take care of the groceries and it was pouring down rain. I got in the car, with everything on my mind and headed to the store. By the time I got to Wegman's, the rain had slowed to a trickle, so at least I wouldn't get drenched going from the parking lot to the store.
My stress did not subside once I got inside the store. In fact, it started to increase. One of the first things that I was looking for in the meat department was out of stock. It was going to be dinner tonight so I quickly came up with a Plan B. The store was particularly crowded, and the aisles of the store were stacked with merchandise so maneuvering through the aisles was difficult at best.
As I was nearing the end of my shopping trip, I am sure that my face was not the friendliest it could be. It was then that I pushed my cart pass another father pushing a car with his little daughter in the seat. She leaned over and with the biggest smile on her face squealed to me, "Merry Christmas!"
My demeanor instantly changed and the frown on my face melted and was replaced with a smile. I look at her and cheerfully said to her, "Well Merry Christmas to you too!" She laughed with delight. So do yourself and someone else a favor and put a smile on your face and tell somebody "Merry Christmas." You just might make someone's day.
Glad some little person was able to spread some joy to you! It's interesting how your son likes school and likes being home, but he seems to be so afraid of being tricked into going back to school
ReplyDeleteSometimes it takes a child to show us the way. I guess that is what this particular holiday is all about. Take care and I hope you can have a peaceful Christmas.
ReplyDelete