My children are drug addicts. Little blue-eyed, bed-wetting drug addicts.

It’s 9:30 pm and Cindy and I are staring at them gaunt-eyed and almost drooling as they buzz around the living room like carpenter bees on crack.

Over the next ten minutes either Cindy or I (at this point I don’t know who) bark the following lines…

Stop running!

Stop screaming!

What’s wrong with you?!

Settled down!

Get off his back! Your brother is not a horse!

Shhh!

Why are you screaming?!

That’s it… I’m texting Santa! (followed by…Of course Santa has a cell phone!)

Shhh! I said stop screaming!

No you can’t have another cookie!

You’re acting like an animal!

I’m calling Santa!

Stop crying!

Santa will not bring you new toys if you don’t clean up your old ones!

Shhh! Stop screaming!!!

That’s it… Christmas is cancelled!!!

Every year Santa Claus saddles his suped-up sleigh, races to the local malls and peddles his peppermint laced drug known as Christmas crack to unassuming children.  An addiction they’ll not kick until they become dispassionate teenagers concerned with more weightier matters such as sleep, tacos and 3rd period Biology.

And though Christmas week is hell week right now,  I know I will soon miss it. Because I know when my children stretch into adolescence they will find all this holiday glee and merriment down-right annoying.

So this week, between deep breaths and pints of Guinness, I’ve been reminding myself that their “out-of-control” behavior is just fueled by unsolicited, unadulterated excitement.

An excitement that is hard to find in the banality of the adult world.

In time, your child’s addiction to Christmas crack will pass and the Christmas season will lose its magic.

So in the meantime, I suggest sniffing some gingerbread crumbs and becoming an addict yourself.

Be well,

Jay