Merry Freakin Christmas

To the jackasses who bought the Little Tykes basketball hoop/set before us and then felt compelled to take the toy out of the box, fill the box with your cigarette-smoke-smelling trash, and then return it to the store so that I could unsuspectingly purchase it for my son for Christmas ... screw you!

I don't know if I should be more angry or sad, but either way I want to march into Toys R Us and rip the first employee I see a new one. Or just burst into tears and start wailing about how they ruined my and my family's Christmas.

Thinking of the "season", I'm trying to be a good person by thinking about how fortunate my children are that they have numerous new toys, books, movies, etc that they don't really notice that they can't play with this one specific gift. And I know that I as a parent would do almost anything to give my children anything they want and maybe the actual toy brought incredible joy to a child that would normally not get a Christmas/birthday/whatever present.

Or maybe they are just jerks. (I really, really want to curse, but since my mom reads my blog, I'm using more PG language).

But now as I look back at the pictures from my parents Christmas last night where I see Joel so proudly pushing his huge, wrapped present into the living room to unwrap, the pictures of Alyssa and Joel sitting in front of the unwrapped box in awe and excitement at getting to play with a "real" basketball hoop, its tainted for me. Instead of seeing the excitement and innocence and happiness of my kids when I look back on those pictures in years to come I'll remember the confusion, anger, and eventual sadness that came when I actually opened the box up. I guess some things are better left unopened.

I already have proclaimed that I hate shopping at Toys R Us. It seems like I have never had a good experience with them - rude employees, false advertising, the list goes on. I am already dreading the process of taking this gift back.