Every year the kids would ask to see Santa and every year I would make up a lame excuse and then distract them as quickly as possible, yet another shining example of being a bad mom!

But I was being a bad mom for one very important reason, mall Santa’s are on drugs.  To be fair, I only know of one mall Santa to have been incapacitated by illegal substances, but that one Santa ruined it for my kids and me.

I was 16-years-old and working at the CD store in the mall.  A week before Christmas, the mall Santa wandered into the store where I was working in his full Santa outfit and proceeded to decimate the good name of “Santa”.

I was working with another teenage girl who we will call “Samantha”.  Samantha was a bit on the bigger side, but it wasn’t very noticeable because when you looked at her, all you saw were her gigantic boobs.   When Santa stumbled in, Samantha approached him and asked if she could help him find anything?

Santa responded by asking her, “do you have any acid?”

Samantha, unsure how to react, answered, “we have Lords of Acid or Crystal Method.” (Those were two techno bands at the time.)

Santa got very loud and asked her, “what if Santa’s ON acid?!”

At this point, the hoards of holiday shoppers stopped what they were doing just in time to hear Santa exclaim, “my God, you have enormous boobs!” He then turned and ran out of sight.

I called mall security who informed me Santa had tottered into a nearby shoe store and was currently terrorizing the people there, but assured me they had it under control.  A few moments later, we saw the mall security guards, wearing their pressed white shirts and Mountie-style hats, escort Santa past the CD store.  Santa was crawling on all fours.

After roughly 15-minutes, the mall security guards came back in carrying Santa’s beard as a souvenir and informed Samantha and me they had handed Santa off to the police and guaranteed us we wouldn’t have any more problems with the mischievous elf.

Just as the wanna-be Mounties finished reassuring us, Santa (minus his beard) ran past the CD store at a full sprint, followed closely by the aforementioned police officer and then immediately after by the two security guards (one of whom was still holding the beard).

Santa darted to his “village” at the center of the mall (near the entrance to the CD store), he was so nimble and quick! He grabbed a giant stuffed reindeer and turned with a jerk to run back past the CD store.  As he passed us, tightly clutching the stolen reindeer, he enthusiastically waved one hand at Samantha and yelled, “bye Big-Titty-Girl!!”

Santa then got tackled by the cop.

As I stood there watching the police officer and two security guards wrestle with Santa and a stuffed reindeer in the middle of the mall, I swore to myself that I would never, ever let my kids meet Santa.

The next day, there was a new Santa.  She only had one leg.

I have no idea what happened to that mall Santa, nor do I know if he was actually part of a work release program.  But I can say with 100% certainty that I will forever remember the man I affectionately call “Work Release Santa” and Samantha’s giant boobs.

If you had told me in the mid-nineties that in twenty years the following things would happen, I would have laughed myself stupid:

• Blink 182 would still be played on the radio
• Two of the tough-guys from the movie “Predator” would be elected Governor
• Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto would be Oscar Award Winners

None of those things could have been predicted, not even by Miss Cleo.  But Jared Leto’s career has led me to an interesting discovery, you can tell a person’s age by how they know Jared Leto.

I asked my boss this question, “How do you know Jared Leto?” My boss graduated high-school in 1998 and her answer was, “My So-Called Life”.  Since my boss is only one year older than me, this is the answer I was expecting.  Even though I did not have television growing up, I absolutely knew who the hot guy was from that TV show, as did most people from my generation.  

I posed this same question to another co-worker who is roughly 7-years my junior, “How do you know Jared Leto?” His answer was, “30 Seconds To Mars”.  Which is an alternative rock band Leto formed with his brother. 

My teenage children know him as the Joker in “Suicide Squad” and they both think he is an absolute hunk! Which totally cracks me up, because I think he’s super hot and it weirds me out that my kids and I are drooling over the same guy…

My parents know him from his Oscar winning performance and subsequence speech for the movie, “Dallas Buyers Club”.  

So, if you are ever curious how old a person is, bring up Jared Leto and see how they know him.  You’ll have your answer!

Today I was supposed to return to work, rested and ready to go after 11 days off for the holiday.  Instead, I woke up drenched in a cold sweat in a house with no children (they’re all with their other parent).  I had a headache and was absolutely furious at myself for getting sick on my first day back to work after so much time off.  Then it occured to me, I didn’t actually have any time off.  I never have time off.  I spent the entire holiday making sure everyone else had a fantastic break and I was absolutely frazzled and panicked about trying to go back to work exhausted.

I fully realize that this is not what a good mom is supposed to say after Christmas, but isn’t that the point of this blog? I’m burned out!  Our holiday was amazing, truly amazing. We always put up three Christmas trees, one for Cute Boyfriend that is color coordinated to the standards set by Macy’s departments stores.  A second tree for me that wears a tophat and sports memory filled ornaments and giant multi-colored lights reminiscent of the 80’s.  The third tree is actually a branch painted gold and encrusted with glitter that the two oldest and I hung tiny ornaments on when we were living month to month on food stamps, we call it our “Dr. Merry Seuss Tree”.  This Christmas was fabulously wonderful in every way, so why am I so fried?

The answer is simple, the holiday’s are for our families, not for moms.  I painstakingly got each of the kids exactly what they wanted for Christmas.  They got me a $6 chicken thermometer and spent the rest of the money I gave them on gifts for their friends.  (I could continue with examples, but if you have children, I will simply allow for you to insert your own examples here, as I am sure you know what I am talking about.)  So, today I took a mental health day! I honestly can not recommend this enough! Cute Boyfriend had already left for work and instead of continuing with my insane routine, I simply took advantage of an empty house and got back into bed.  The day has been glorious so far! I have binged watched Gilmore Girls on Netflix in my pajamas and I feel amazing! For breakfast I had a bowl of Quinn’s peanut butter cup cereal (because (s)he wasn’t here to stop me) and popcorn for lunch.  Today I am doing nothing and it is spectacularly uneventful.

So my advice to all of you parents is this, when that weirdly rare opportunity presents itself where you can have time to yourself without the kids or your significant other, TAKE IT! Don’t feel bad about calling into work, or ordering pizza instead of making dinner, do whatever it is that needs to be slightly altered so that you can have a few hours completely to yourself to do whatever you want to do!!

We get so frazzled and worn down trying to perfect the art of doing and remembering everything for everyone else.  Take time for yourself!  It is the BEST thing you can do for your family.  But most importantly, under no circumstance, can you feel guilty for taking time for yourself, a relaxed you is the best you and your family needs the best you.

So now, I am going to use a Bath Bomb (if you don’t know what this is, find out and get yourself one!) and tomorrow I will actually be rested and ready to resume my role as Super Bad Mom.