CONFESSIONS OF A FACEBOOK FAILURE: Year 2

Day 24: Thank you.

I saw your post. Your pine is simply perfect.

I eyeballed your update. Your elf’s little life is unbelievable…far more fascinating than my own (not my elf’s life, but my own).

I’ve seen your status. Your holiday hand-mades are too sweet, almost sickeningly so.

In fact, your pre-post primping inspired me to pull out our own Christmas season, shake off the smell of the grungy garage, and reveal the same spirits of seasons past that resulted in the magic that emerged from your perfect plastic bins.

Unfortunately, the contents of our Christmas containers were a little less Pinterest, a little less post-worthy, a little less perfect, and a little more, well…

But still, I thank you.

Our pine tree is plastered with bottom branch clutter, camouflaged (although only vaguely) in the costume of Christmas kid-mades. The canes are classics, in that they are aged like fine wine (a very, very aged fine wine…and periodically sampled by the savages and re-wrapped with sticky stray needles to simmer for future forbidden licks). Our tree topper crescendo is a one-of-a-kind Reggio-inspired design (a.k.a. the collision of cut outs, Elmers, a toilet paper roll, and a glitter bomb). The whole scene is, well, what is the antonym for Pinterest?

Even so, my lil’ monsters spent their day delighting in devouring and destroying the whole mess of homemade pine cone and puffy paint monstrosities, I even dare to call decorations.

So thank you for inspiring me via envy that evolved into effort that presented itself as, well, what is the antonym of Pinterest again?

Your Christmas card was incredible. The calm and clean and perfectly posed little people it captured brought tears of, well, I’m not exactly sure of the emotion. But still, I thank you as it has also inspired us to postpone our own postcards to the New Year’s edition…

…with the hope that a few more minutes might melt away our winter layer (a.k.a. the Holiday 10…okay 20),

…with the belief that a few more moments might be just enough pause for a magical maturing of my monsters so they might sit still and smile long enough to snap a single scene of success,

…with the dream that a day’s delay might allow us the chance to finally get clean, or come to terms with coming clean on snapping and sharing the true state of ourselves,

…with the hope that it just might mean the difference between Pinterest and, wait, what is the antonym for Pinterest again?

Come to think of it, you might as well stop waiting on that New’s Year’s Shutterfly sensation, and just anticipate the Valentines variety instead. I’m not sure even a Christmas Miracle can save us at this point.

But still, I thank you…

for inspiring my attempts at Pinterest, post-worthy perfection,

allowing me the opportunity to make the mess where we found the magic,

and ultimately coming to peace with my puffy painted pine cones, the potty paper presence at the peak of our pine, my perfectly, imperfect little people, and the glitter bomb gaudiness I call Christ-mess. It may not be Pinterest, but it is as close to perfect as I could ever envy.

Merry Christ-mess from my perfect(ish) little family to yours!