Why Are Reindeer So Angry?
Christmas is coming! At the House of Burns the time is here for Zack to carefully draw up a new blueprint to decorate the house and get busy covering every square inch of outdoor space with coordinated lighting. It also means that we are close to the arrival of Tupac Santa, the hologram Santa that is beamed into our bonus room windows to pace back and forth spreading both joy and terror to all who see him. Last year Tupac Santa also acquired a hologram fireplace, which really upped the Christmas ante by giving the appearance that Santa was pressed up against the second story window of a house that was actively burning down. Also, it was set to Christmas music that blasted from Evan's bedroom window.
We had some explaining to do to the neighbors. And the HOA.
But this year Zack is rallying and Tupac Santa will be back soon. In anticipation we are making no less than four trips a week to Home Depot, Lowes, Hobby Lobby, and Michaels. On our last trip to Michaels Petey discovered a wooden nutcracker shaped like a reindeer, meant to be painted. She dug deep, clutching the reindeer and following me around the store like a Bubba Gump in pink Crocs and listing all of the nuts that we would be able to crack using the shoddily constructed reindeer. When I failed to bite, not even when she got to macadamia nuts, she changed gears and wove an elaborate verbal tapestry describing the chic holiday parties I could host with the freshly painted nutcracker surrounded by an assortment of unshelled nuts on a holiday table.
I'm tired, you guys. I gave in. I figured what was the harm in a $10 wooden nutcracker if it made her so happy?
Turns out the harm is in the $40 of paint and supplies that have to be purchased to complete the project. Happily stocked up, Petey spent an afternoon creating her nutcracking masterpiece. When she brought it to show me I was....surprised. While painted a festive red and green with an adorable button nose, the two dark thick eyebrows suggested an emotion I hadn't expected.
"Why.....um....why does the reindeer look so.....angry?" I was cautious, because puberty hormones are afoot and the simplest questions can spark a three day battle.
"Angry?" Petey shrugged. "I don't know if he's actually angry. That's just what reindeer look like, you know?"
I'm not sure why the present he's holding also appears to be on a picket line. I pressed her a little more over dinner that night. She was adamant that all reindeer look angry. Everyone knows that, she insisted.
I went to bed wondering why my daughter seems to think that Santa's transportation suffers from crippling RBF. A day later, I remembered why.
When Petey was four our mastiff, Maeby, arrived for Christmas. She was adorable, a fuzzy puppy tripping over paws that hinted at the 200lb dog she would become. She was also part alligator, hiding under the coffee table and snatching up anything in reach to drag back to her lair. Because Christmas was near, Petey had recently been given a stuffed reindeer that she insisted on leaving in reach of the mastiff. Daily I would rescue the reindeer from the jaws of death and remind Petey to quit leaving it laying around.
And then one day it happened. Maeby sucked the reindeer under the coffee table with her and chewed its face off. I found the toy intact, but entirely faceless. To prove a point like the parent of the year that I have been since 2004, I drew a face on that would appropriately represent the reindeer's feelings at being left to fend for itself.
Petey cried when she first saw it and then declared she loved it, out of spite I am sure. For three Christmases the angry reindeer surfaced and was carried around in the most passive aggressive display of love I have ever had the privilege to witness. It was finally put out of its misery in a mass unstuffing campaign Maeby led to let us know she did not approve of moving to a new house.
At least now I know where the belief that all reindeer are angry originated. I'm hoping to use this to make the House of Burns Christmas 2019 even more dramatic. Imagine how great Flaming Tupac Santa will look when there is a herd of furious hologram reindeer stampeding around him......