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.