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November 28, 2005

‘Tis The Season

From Whitney Gaskell, November's Guest Literary Chick!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, time for family dysfunction to bloom and for shoppers to trample one another on their way into the Big Box retail stores in the hopes of scooping up discounted electronics.

Although, honestly, I love the holidays. I love turkey dinners and Christmas cookies and eggnog. And lest that seem food-centered, I also love Christmas carols and twinkle lights and trimming the tree. I even like picking out presents for people.

My two-year old son is not, yet, in the holiday spirit. At Thanksgiving dinner, as soon as we sat down and the turkey was brought out, Sam burst into hysterical tears. Which meant that I was stuck with the job of walking him up and down the hallway while my food got cold, so that the others could eat in peace. Such is the burden of motherhood.

Sam did calm down in time for the most important part of the meal: dessert. In fact, he happily put away a gargantuan-sized piece of pumpkin pie.

“Po-po pie,” he called it. And then proceeded to spend the next three days talking about the pie.

“Po-po pie?” he asked after lunch and dinner.

“No, we’re all out of pie,” I said. “But look, yummy apple slices!”

He looked at me disdainfully. “Po-po pie!”

Which is why I spent yesterday afternoon baking a pumpkin pie. It’s not like I didn’t already have five thousand other things to do, including – in no particular order – going to the grocery store, making dinner, mailing out holiday cards, wrapping the presents that need to be shipped ahead of time, vacuuming the living room and, oh yeah, rewriting a book.

But, hell, the cutest child in the world was gazing at me with enormous blue eyes, and asking in a piping voice, “po-po pie?” What choice did I have?

So I made the pie, and proudly served him a big piece topped with a dollop of Cool-Whip for dessert.

And Sam proceeded to lick the Cool-Whip off the pie, careful not to let a single bite of pumpkin cross his lips.

“Po-po pie,” he chirped.

“Yes. Pumpkin pie. That I made just for you. So, eat up,” I said pointedly.

Sam inspected the rejected piece of pie to see if he’d missed any Cool-Whip, and then looked up at me.

“Apple pie?” he asked sweetly.

“Do you really think I’m that big of a sucker?” I asked.

Actually, I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that.

Posted by Whitney at 5:12 PM