The Lentzner Christmas Story Tradition

Some families have wonderful traditions that go back centuries, others start a tradition as soon as their child is born.  My family is no different - we do some of the same sentimental (other wacky) things year after year.  When my husband joined the fold, we had to include Elvis Christmas music to our "decorating the tree" tradition (I love him, but I am not an Elvis fan).  My husband had to accept that Mrs. Claus brought pajamas to everyone on Christmas Eve (don't even get me started about the year she forgot) and we both created some of our own traditions when we became parents.

When my son was just about 3 years old, his sister came along.  Not only was he forced to share us with a new sibling, but he also started nursery school and his mother (moi) decided that she was not busy enough, needed to start a business.  Those first few months with a newborn, a toddler and new business were chaotic to say the least.   Also, it was the first Christmas season that my son understood what was on T.V. and (gulp) he may have watched a tad too much.  Which brings me to the Lentzner story I am forced to tell year after year:

For some reason 2002 was the year I was really made aware of the toy and game commercials that flooded the airways from August to December.  I admit our son was spending more time in front of the TV than before he had a new baby sister, but I don't remember there being so many commercials in the years past.  I am assuming it was the fact that the year before I was pregnant and moving into my new home, but still 2002 seemed to have a huge amount of commercials targeting children. 

As Christmas grew closer, my son would scream, yell or plead with me to come into the family room to see what was on the TV.  I would run in, usually with a small baby in my arms only to see the same commercial as the day before.  He would point and jump up and down and say, "I want that!  I want that!".  This went on for weeks, or months - but who was counting?  I was pretty sleep-deprived at this point.  One very stressful day of me running back and forth from, baby, business to toddler I decided it was enough.  I calmly walked over to the TV, turned it off and sat my 3 year old son down.  The speech I gave him went like this, "Grant you have to stop telling Mommy you want everything on TV, you can not have everything.  Some of the things you say you want we already have.  Some things are for much older children.  It is not nice to keep telling Mommy you want everything - you already have soooo many wonderful toys.  You do not need every thing you see on TV.  Okay?  I don't want to hear you say that to Mommy any longer.  Do you hear me?  I - DO - NOT - want to hear you say that again."

I will never forget his sweet, sweet innocent face - he looked at me and he nodded his head, "Yes, Mommy I understand." I leaned over and hugged him and gave him a kiss.  I smiled and smugly thought to myself I handled that quite well.  As I went to turn the TV back on, I decided to sit with him for a moment and not run off to get his sister.  We watched the end of his show and a toy commercial came on, then another, then another.  My son tapped me on the arm and as I turned my head and looked at him on the couch next to me, he mouthed the words, "I want that" while pointing at the TV.  One point my son, zero point for Mommy.

So, every year my family, my friends and my children (especially my son) force me to repeat this story to them.  We laugh every time and my son (though he does not recall the actual event) usually re-enacts his part of the story.  This has now become one of our Christmas Traditions.

Original SV Moms post, though the story has been repeated to almost everyone she knows.  Jamie can also be found blogging about running a small business (where she repeats herself also) at JPD Mom.