The Night Before Alternating Year Single Mother Christmas

In this home, as so many, every other year is a Christmas that I will have my child, and on the off years (and how off they feel!) the night before Christmas eve becomes the night before Christmas. The stocking (she is six and doesn't care if I have one) is hung on a neon pink thumbtack that holds up a postcard of the Vestal Virgin with care, I am in my yoga pants and certainly no variety of cap. Forgoing the nap, April and I are exchanging needless panic over irrational things (the after 11:00 PM variety, not the around noon variety). The gifts have been wrapped, and I am soon to settle down for a 3 hour Dr. Who session so that my favorite Dr. Who nerd and I can watch the Christmas episode at least close to the actual date.

And then from my porch there arose such a clatter... and I am now poised at my computer with bear mace in hand wishing I had (as Jim who gave it to me had suggested) learned to aim and fire it correctly. I have peeked outside of my bedroom window to confirm that there is in fact someone walking around the yard, and it isn't fucking Santa Clause (which would have pissed me off anyway really, I just dropped a healthy amount on gifts that I probably wouldn't have had I known he was on his way). No, it's a wiry hillbilly meth looking guy who I suspect was just on my porch (because of the extremely loud clatter and slamming of my door, you know)... and now that I listen closely, I suspect is again.

Yes, absolutely-- he's talking to himself.

Ordinarily one would call the police, but ordinary is not something that works for a single mother who knows in the following week that she will be alone in the house, and that even worse would be to make enemies with any local creep when her daughter could in fact be home. There isn't a big strong man to protect me (of my own choosing mind you, this is not a lament). There isn't the uncertainty of when anyone will come home to catch him slitting my throat in the shower. And there is no way I am going down these stairs to so much as lock my door, more or less call the police and piss of some cracked out spaz who very well may be a friend of my neighbors, and if he isn't doing anything else illegal, would be allowed to roam free the rest of the night anyway (presumably to slit my throat as previously mentioned).

This is not the first creepy person to haunt my porch in the moonlight, nor will it be the last I have no doubt. It is, however, the first ghost of Christmas Present to pop up, and I felt that was worthy of at least a little blog note. So help me, Christmas past and Christmas future better not fuck up anything out there that this guy hasn't already gotten at... this is totally ruining my cookie eating, who watching, and basking in the glow of the artificial spruce in my living room.