You're gonna have the Christmas spirit (even if I have to beat it into you).

"Dad, I'm glowing with the Christmas spirit!"

Today was the first day of Christmas break so I had all three kids home. Since working was essentially shot, I decided to make the most of the day and here is more or less what I had in mind:
     Me- "Kids, the true meaning of Christmas is     giving. You all are about to discover how great it is to buy a gift for someone you love, and relish in their joy at opening it on Christmas morning."
    Them- "Dad, thanks for teaching us the real deal about Christmas. We will no longer be greedy brats but instead get more pleasure in giving than receiving. Also, no more fighting and we'll get our grades up."

So I announced that we were getting in the car to go shopping for Christmas presents. The two girls were mildly intrigued but wanted to make sure that THEY were going to be getting presents. My son Sam however lives by an unwritten, unspoken, and un-true code that goes like this:

• During school, no X-Box. 
• On school days at home, it's kind of a gray area. 
• On weekends and holidays, X-Box is the priority and he would wear a diaper to avoid getting out of the chair if I'd let him. 

So his reaction was predictable rage. "NOOOOOOOOO!" was the only thing Sam said for the rest of the day.

As a treat to my suspicious Christmas shoppers, I announced that we would eat lunch at Panera's. The girls were on board but Sam? "NOOOOOOOOO!" of course.

After lunch we hit Target and I was struck with an immediate dilemma. As each kid was only shopping for their siblings, I desperately needed to keep the gifts separate. My horrible decision was to give each kid their own shopping cart. Shopping became an immediate full-contact drag race (I've never been to a real drag race but I assume that they involve screaming and temper tantrums) as everyone wanted to be first. Once in the lead, Sam pulled a celebratory wheelie, and pulled the cart all the way over on to its back and the Target crowd seemed especially pleased with that stunt.
We eventually made it to the toys and I announced a $5 limit which was met with the obligatory editorials about what a loser I am. As we began, my ridicule was fanned by the Target girl who said, "$5? Are you buying toys for a shelter or something?" This of course put me in the position to discuss, in front of my children, that A- I'm not a good enough person to have thought of that, and B- I'm a horrible cheapskate. Indifferent to my agony, she twisted the knife with, "Well, you won't find anything like that here, go to the back wall and look under 'stocking stuffers'." So I Christmas-ly fantasized about punching her in the throat and directed the crew to the "Target Wall of Shame."

Just one more then I'm off to my
80's throwback bash.

The shopping itself was rather tame as picking out 6 pieces of crap was pretty easy and we started heading back to the front. I made Abby go first while Macey followed at 20 feet and Sam another 20 feet behind (all pushing shopping carts that had a grand total of two stocking stuffers in them). The trip to the front was horrendous. First problem is that my kids can't freakin drive shopping carts (Macey gets a pass here as she can't see over the handle). Secondly, they spent the entire time trying to look in each other's carts to see what treasures they held. The end result was a Team DeMotte assault on every other shopper as cart-to-cart and cart-to-shin collisions were far too frequent.
Once in the car, each kid has zero interest in keeping secrets. So the conversation was pretty much them dropping hints while I screamed over the top in a desperate attempt to instill the beauty of Christmas.
Sam- "I'm not going to tell you but it's got braids and a dress and a snowman...."
Abby- "Is it a Frozen doll?"
Sam- "How'd you know?"

The spots are so worth the total destruction of the house

Final challenge was wrapping. I sat the kids down in front of the TV and called them into the kitchen one-by-one. Wrapping was behind closed doors but that was meaningless as the others were lying on the floor trying to look under the door and begging for hints.

We seriously did this by ourselves!

Enter the cat. Normal cats are a pain in the ass. Cats that are half-leopard are insane. Want to know all the fun things about having a half cat/half predator? They have cool spots. That's it, the rest is torture. So of course "Charley" has to make the ridiculous process of kids wrapping even more impossible. My job was to cut the paper, cut the tape, wrap the presents, shoo the cat and make the tags. The kid's job was apparently to subtly unwrap the other presents to see what was bought for them.

The end result is that we have 6 perfectly wrapped, mostly unwrapped, and then re-wrapped presents for the kids. Although I have no idea if I made any progress in the Christmas education of Team DeMotte, I am really banking on effort points in my final Dad report card.