In anticipation of the Jansma Christmas party with my aunts, uncles, and cousins which has become a staple of the holiday season and is always at our house we discussed having an ugly sweater theme.  Parker said to my mom “you’re going to win grandma” to which my mom asked “why is that?”  Parker response “because you look like someone who would win”.  Granted, when it comes to sweaters most women in their sixties exclusively go ugly.  Had this been stated by a five year old to anyone else it wouldn’t have been a problem, but my mom is extremely sensitive almost to the point that I wonder if I was adopted, there are many reasons I know I am not but sometimes I wish I was.  The reality is that you can say almost anything to me and it won’t hurt my feelings, my dad was so mean to me when I was growing up that what typically would create immeasurable insecurities in an individual only made me stronger.  What is troubling is that being genetically linked to my parents makes me gravely concerned that I will eventually turn out to be just like them.

My parents live in a five bedroom farmhouse and my mom hasn’t slept in her own bed in at least 25 years.  Every night she falls asleep in the basement of their house watching Nick at Night.  I have no idea why she refuses to sleep in a bed and there are a multitude of reasons I don’t ask but the primary reason is I don’t want to start un-peeling the layers of the onion, the less I know about my moms incredible weirdness the better off I am and hopefully it lessens the likelihood that I will replicate that weirdness.  Here’s just one of many examples of why the future doesn’t seem too bright for me should I start evolving into the male version of Ardis, yes her name is Ardis and while some people may be able to overcome their name unless your Randy, Trevor, or Dale (possibly Esther) my mom couldn’t.  This past Saturday we went up to Grant to get a Christmas tree even though we finally decided to get a fake tree from Costco (this is encouraging because my mom is unable to change and like every good Dutch person is completely set in her ways) and my mom rode up with my sister.  My sister, toting her three kids couldn’t drop my mom off at her car so I took my mom from my house to get her car.  She said “wait a minute I have to grab my stuff”   I thought what stuff? and she immediately appeared with a grocery bag (I never found out what was in it but probably a carton of Pecan Sandies and some other sugary snacks that she would likely refer to as lunch or nourishment).  Whatever was in the grocery bag was secondary to the fact that she had her plastic Tupperware container of coupons with her.  Was she hoping to use one of her coupons to get a deal on a Christmas tree?  Doubtful, she brought her coupons because she constantly needs to be busy.  She couldn’t just sit in a car and go for a ride she had to be organizing coupons.  On top of that I”m pretty sure a majority of those coupons are older than some of the salad dressing she has in her fridge (she never throws any thing out and has dressing that predates the Obama administration and on top of that she puts all leftovers in margarine dishes so you have no idea what anything is or how old it is).

One time she flew out to Seattle and she has a mail bin like the mailmen have for delivering mail (she’s a professional) and she took it with her on the flight so she could organize her mail, not sure how she made it through TSA with that and it was probably the first time anyone tried to fly across the country with a bin full of junk mail.

If I were adopted I am sure one could argue nature versus nurture and claim that because I have been exposed to this weirdness for so long I will eventually embrace it and become as cooky as my mom (I haven’t even gotten into my dad yet) but the reality is that I fully recognize her bizarre behavior and have done everything in my power to not be my mom but I still have a fear that genetics will eventually prevail.  However, even if I do somehow avoid becoming a gigantic Dutch weirdo I can’t avoid the fact that I am going to have to take care of my parents someday and that day seems to be approaching quicker than I had expected.

While my parents are only in their early sixties they act like they are 112 and have a lifestyle that has prematurely aged them, especially my mom.  My mom still lays out in the sun and she drinks liters of Diet Coke daily.  On top of that she will only eat vegetables that are lathered in brown sugar, butter, or both.  Shirley made beef stew once and my mom picked out all the vegetables and only ate the meat, I was waiting for her to grab a couple pecan sandies to absorb the liquid part of the stew but fortunately she didn’t do that.  My dad has MS and was diagnosed when he was in his late twenties.  While a lot of what he is going through is directly related to his illness, there are some things that he does that are entirely his own doing because he’s old and old people are annoying.  Like Shirley’s grandma (yes, her grandma is still alive) my dad has to have coffee all the time and it may be the only thing he thinks about to the point that  he will drink instant coffee if he can’t get his hands on regular coffee.  It can be 95 degrees out and my dad and Shirley’s grandma will be clamoring for a cup of coffee (Shirley’s grandma can only drink decaf though which is even more annoying).  You know what would go good with this popsicle?  A cup of decaf coffee!

While I have come to accept that I will eventually have to be quite involved in my parent’s lives, it still stings due to the fact that my parents are entirely unwilling to listen to any of my advice.  The five bedroom house they currently occupy should have been sold eight years ago but my mom refuses to listen to me and I have stopped trying to get her to sell it.  In addition, my mom refuses to stop driving the handicap van that is meant to transport my dad places.  Granted, she’s stopped parking in handicap spots when he’s not with her (which is 99% of the time she drives the van) but she still insists on driving the van over her actual vehicle because she doesn’t want to put miles on her vehicle (it’s a 2003 Envoy and has almost 200,000 miles on it).  The problem with her driivng the handicap van is primarily that it is hard to find a handicap van and the more miles she puts on it the less miles there will be for my dad to use it.  On top of that, if she’s driving the van and my dad needs to go somewhere it’s tough shit for Tom. (my dad’s name, tough shit for tom is not some new phrase I’m trying to make popular)

My dad ended up in the ER just yesterday and was eventually admitted to Spectrum due to a UT infection.  This use to happen quite a bit and when it did/does he’s rendered completely helpless.  One time my mom just dumped him off at the ER fortunately I ended up showing up and was able to help him through the initial exam and assist him in the attempt to get him admitted.  Frequently hospitals don’t want to admit him but we have been fortunate that he has typically been admitted.  My fear this time was that my mom was going to stay at work since my dad was transported via ambulance on this particular occasion.  The sad thing is my mom is so guarded I don’t think anyone at work even knows she has a wheelchair bound husband.  I get my teeth cleaned at the dentist office where she works and the hygienist is one of the people who thinks she knows my mom.  She asked me if my parents would ever take our kids if Shirley and I went away somewhere and I just laughed.  She wondered why I laughed and I told her about my dad, she had no idea.  The logical question would have been to ask her if she ever wondered why my mom drives a handicap van around since my mom has no obvious physical handicaps, but I didn’t even bother.

The running joke between Shirley and I is that my mom will drop the news about my dad passing away a couple weeks after his funeral. “Where’s dad?”

“He died last Tuesday we wanted to keep his funeral small.”   Frequently when he ends up in the hospital we don’t find out for a number of days as if it is no big deal that he’s been completely incapacitated and is now in the hospital.  While I was always quite embarrassed by how young my parents were when I was growing up (they were 18 and 17 when they had me) the advantage was going to be that they would be able bodied and I wouldn’t have to take care of them as they aged because we were so close in age, unfortunately it hasn’t quit played out that way, I guess it’s a good thing my sister married Super Dave I don’t know where our family would be with out him.  With my two brothers living out of the area and my sister having three kids and counting I am staring to figure out why I woke up at 3 am and couldn’t get back to sleep …….

Last night was the annual NPC Christmas program.  I calculated out the years left for the elementary program and Aiden has three more and I am hoping we can just pull Parker out of the program at that point, otherwise we are looking at five more years of the same story over and over.  The great thing, or not so great thing about where my kids go to school is that they have a band and an orchestra, I don’t know the difference between the two but I can tell you they both suck.  Fortunately I missed the orchestra performance because I was waiting for my father in law who unbeknownst to me was already seated.  However, I did catch the band and had I not had a program and known that they were likely to be playing Christmas music I would have had no idea what the songs actually were.  Now, I am not saying these kids don’t have a bright future or that there isn’t the next Kenny G somewhere in the NPC elementary band, but right now their music should only be played in a sound proof room.  (I doubt there is a Kenny G, I feel like if they had a Kenny G he would have been good enough to make me realize they were playing Jingle Bells)

Now the band and orchestra are bad but actually not the worst part of the program.  The worst part is when the kids have to go up to the microphones and say their “memorized’ lines.  90% of them have  a look of terror and on their face as if they were about to get on board the worlds highest and faster roller coaster.  It’s painful to watch them go through this, and I typically enjoy watching other people suffer.  Frequently a kid will get through part of their lines and then just freeze up and at that point it’s just dead air.  I hope and pray that my kids never get speaking parts, I get squeamish when a complete stranger’s kid screws up I can’t imagine what it will be like to have my own kid get three words out and then start yelling “turd” at the top of his lungs because he can’t remember his lines.

Now, NPC is a private school and that allows them to actually embrace Jesus and all the stuff that surrounds the birth of Christ.  However, it is a bit problematic because they feel the need to include every part of the story.  Come on, even the most godless atheist knows the Christmas story backwards and forwards, in the interest of time can’t we leave the shepherds out?  Or if you are going to keep them in get rid of the Wiseman we don’t need both of their stories.

Somehow I managed to survive the Christmas program once again and I am already dreading next years.  What I did notice is that people are not shy about having their phones out while the program is going on.  I could see if it was a secular Christmas program, all the people involved in those things are going to hell so what does it matter if they are paying attention?  However, God is watching us watch the Christmas program and I feel like we should be paying attention, or at least pretend to pay attention.

Similar to the idea that I have a pretty good idea where most people are spending the after life, I have a relative (not a sibling) who documents her whole life on Facebook.  She had a medical emergency last night and documented the entire thing on Facebook while it was happening.  I wonder if when they took her to the hospital in the ambulance she had Facebook open as she was being pushed out on the stretcher?  This all happened around midnight and she concluded her post by indicating that she wasn’t worried about having an untimely demise because she knew she was going to heaven.  Rather presumptive isn’t it?  Of course I didn’t read any of this, unless my relative was a hot chick who was a victim/witness in a criminal case I was handling or fodder for a group email or a blog there is no way I would run across her posts.  I don’t go on Facebook and I don’t pay attention to anyone’s posts, does that make me better than you?  Of course it does, but it’s just one of the many things that makes me better than you.  I’m glad there is Facebook because it has allowed me to retrieve countless photos to use to make fun of people but that’s about where it ends in terms of it’s usefulness to me.  The only reason I found out about the post is because Shirley saw it and relayed its contents to me.

In line with the entire Facebook thing and sticking with the holiday theme, the Christmas Card was Facebook prior to there being a Facebook.  Facebook is a platform where people can post whatever they want to make their lives look more amazing than everyone else’s lives.  It’s probably one of the many reasons I am not on there, I would post all of the shit about my life that sucks and I’m pretty sure you aren’t suppose to do that on Facebook.  Probably to no one’s surprise the Jansma’s don’t do a Christmas card anymore, if we were still int he habit of doing such a thing it would probably get to the intended recipients around Valentine’s Day.  It would be interesting to do a study to find out how much cabbage is spent on the the family Christmas card industry on a yearly basis.  I’m not saying forego the family Christmas Card and contribute the money you would have spent to a charitable cause, I am saying that most of the money sunk into this industry is postage.  We need to stop funding the US postal service I want it to go away I don’t want it to thrive off the backs of insecure families who send out photos of themselves or their kids in their best moments via Christmas cards so that everyone can think how they have their shit together when there is a 90% chance they don’t.

If someone put a gun to my head and I was forced to put together a Christmas card it would not involve any of my family and it wouldn’t even involve my dog.  What it would involve is a photo of our newest family member Jasper urinating in the toilet.  That’s right Parker caught him peeing in the toilet this morning and unlike his other male counterparts (me, Aiden, and Parker) he doesn’t have any splatter issues.