It’s a “thing” over here for kids to give all their classmates candy canes and little cards around Christmas time. Part of me thinks this is really sweet, but most of me thinks that, REALLY, there should have been a collective parental meeting about this practice and SOMEONE should have put a stop to it before it even got off the ground. Honestly, the last thing all our children need around this time of year, during the last two weeks of school, is more sugar.
This year both my kids begged me to buy them candy canes to hand out, so I finally caved. After all, it is really hard to say no when your kids want to do something pro-social, even when it does involve sugar.
So I went to the dollar store and bought the smallest candy canes I could find. Then, yesterday morning, I handed each child a carefully apportioned bag of candy canes, delivered some sensible messages about what was to be done with said sugar, and sent them off to school.
When they got in the car yesterday afternoon I asked them how Operation Distribute Christmas Cheer had gone.
“Good,” Dominic said virtuously. “I handed one out to everyone in my class, and then I gave the rest to the teacher next door for the OTHER class.”
“How many did you eat yourself?” I asked.
“I ate two,” he said.
“Good choice! I’m delighted to hear it,” I said, hiding some skepticism. Dominic had delivered that line perfectly calmly and looked me straight in the eyes. I wasn’t at all sure I was being given the most accurate picture of events.
“What about you, Alex?” I asked.
Alex heaved a big sigh.
“The maths was ALL wrong,” Alex said. “You gave me thirty. There are 26 people in my class and I gave one to EVERYONE. And the teacher. And there were STILL ten left. So the maths was all wrong. You did it wrong.”
“Huh,” I said. “So what happened to those ten?”
“I ATE THEM ALL,” Alex wailed. “What was I SUPPOSED to do? You put TEN CANDY CANES right in front of me!!!”
“Well,” I said. “Not the BEST choice about sugar, hey? OK, Dominic gets the gold star today for making the best choice about how much candy to eat.”
Dominic laughed.
“Do you want to know the actual truth?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” I said. “I always want to know the truth.”
“I ate five,” Dominic said.
“Well,” I said. “Your gold medal for good decision making just got downgraded to a bronze medal.”
“But then I ALSO get a SILVER MEDAL for telling you the truth the SECOND TIME,” Dominic said.
“But THAT means I get a gold medal for telling you the truth the FIRST TIME,” Alex howled happily.
“OK,” I said. “Alex gets a gold medal for telling the truth the first time. Dominic gets a silver for telling the truth the SECOND time, and a bronze for SOMEWHAT decent decision making regarding candy.”
And then the boys spend the rest of the ride home debating whether one gold was worth more than a silver AND a bronze.
Please, for the love of sugar-free sanity, can some higher power (hello, school policy) decide against candy cane distribution before next December?
