63 Days Until Christmas
Added on 23 October 2008
Yesterday, for the first time this year, I used Christmas as a threat with the kids. Not too bad, waiting until 3:34pm on the 22nd October to invoke the annual sloberfest in the words, "If you don't come now/stop hitting your sister/get off the crocodile/take your finger off the nuclear device detonation switch, there'll be no Christmas presents."Yesterday's was a fairly mundane "If you don't get a move on..." Maybe it's playing the hand too early. It'll take a lot of stamina to keep up the Christmas threats all the way to the 25th. By the time we get to the middle of December, the effect will possibly have long since worn off, and when the words "If you don't untie your mother and I right now, there'll be no presents..." leave my mouth, they'll just kick back, drink some more beer, and stick Bad Boys II on the dvd player.
In these halcyon pre-teenage days they're good kids mostly. God knows what'll happen once they're introduced to hormones, but for the moment all is well. Consequently, they pretty much know they're going to get Christmas presents, so at some point they're going to see the threat as empty. (Obviously, should they burn the house down with malicious intent, get arrested for money laundering, or get involved in some dodgy business deals of the Enron variety, then all present privileges will be revoked.)
For the moment though the threat survives intact. One day, however, one day soon, they will realise the hollowness of the attempted intimidation, and then they will let slips the dogs and all Hell will be unleashed.
A brief blog, now back to the copy editing grind. Almost done, and soon the all new Long Midnight of Barney Thomson will be unleashed on a desperate world...