THE CHRISTMAS POTATO

 

 

This picture of Gabe was taken in 1989 while we were in Germany.  At the time I had just the 3 boys, Gabe was 5, Zack was 2 and Art was just 4 months old.  Gabe and Zack had been really ornery the past few weeks and I kept threatening them with coal from Santa.  Christmas Eve came and those 2 boys were as bad as ever. They couldn't seem to get their act together and be good, even in a last minute effort.  It just couldn't be done, they didn't have it in them to be good, not even for Santa.  I even showed them a bad boy list with their names on it.  So they went to bed where visions of sugerplums were replaced by chunks of coal.

For all of my threats I knew I would have to give them some coal just to remain credible.  Unfortunately 8pm on Christmas Eve was not the ideal time to go shopping for coal.  Steve ran downstairs and foraged through the garden, but the apartment complex had a manicured landscape that used mulch instead of gravel... we couldn't even find a rock!  So what to do... what to do?  The best I could come up with was a potato.  I wrapped two of them and labeled them for each of the older boys, and made a mental note to give them to the boys first.

It had the desired effect.  The boys knew why they were getting the potatoes and stared at them with regretful eyes.  I wondered aloud if all of the other presents were also potatoes and the boys were very reluctant to open them.  But they did and all in all they had a wonderful Christmas.

This little story would come back and bite me in the butt later though.  I was bragging about my quick thinking to one of the ladies from the Unit's wives group and word soon got around.  Needless to say I wasn't elected Mother Of The Year because I had given my poor sweet little boys potatoes for Christmas.  But thats okay because my boys took my threats seriously after that.

37 days until Christmas !