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A lovely holiday season to all of yous.

Here in the land o' Piffle, things have been busy. Kid-busy. Colin-busy, mostly.

As those with school-aged kids know, December is when that time honored tradition of The Big School Christmas Extravaganza is held. Actually, I think in most places now, it is known as "Holiday" or "Winter" rather than "Christmas", but here in small-village Wisconsin, we do not pander to those with other traditions. It is All Christmas, All The Time.

As Charles was coming back from a Really Big, Important meeting in Chicago (where he won an appeal before the state board of education, all applaud my amazing and brilliant husband) and was meeting us there, it was up to me to get small-handed people to the school on time. Colin, dressed in dress pants that were falling down, despite the belt, and clean sweater. Sara dressed in anything unstained. Me in matching shoes. (It's a Christmas Miracle!)

We arrived on time, having had to wade through the snow in the school parking lot, but happy to find a space, back behind the buses. We ditched Colin in his classroom and slipped along the snow-puddly hallways to the gym (of course it is held in the gym) and a spot on the bleachers.

The lights drop and the music teacher starts banging out strains of the kindergarteners' first song "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" on the ubiquitous upright school piano. This is followed by "Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer" and the token bow to those of another faith: "The Dreidel Song". All shouted, rather than sung, by the 5-year-olds.

And so it goes, for an hour. Herds of girls in velveteen and maryjanes, boys in sweaters or shirts and ties. As the grades progress, there is more singing than shouting. Accompanying hand gestures give way to dancing: Turkey Tango and something trying to be traditional Irish dancing, I think, are the ones that stick out. Then, the pointsettia raffle while all the kids troop back in to sing the finale song (something about Christmas around the world, with different kids calling out "Merry Christmas!" in different languages, while others held up construction paper flags). The whole thing ended by singing the official school song, set to, I realize in horror, the music of "It's A Small World, After All." Charles arrives half-way through, like the cavalry, and skootles Sara, who has had enough of cute kids butchering bad songs and bleachers and sitting still, to the hallway.

Back to the classroom to retrieve Colin, who proudly bears the centerpiece he has made, a ceramic creation that seems to be a snowman with an ent. It is glorious.

Now, I am sure you are all on the edges of your seats wondering how Colin's big birthday party came off.

Well, just swimmingly, I must say. I employed my decorating trick of streamers, streamers, and, oh, yes, streamers. Instead of balloons, (gasp) streamers were tied to the mailbox and the basketball hoop, looking almost completely unlike the prayer flags of Tibet. I said a few prayers, then, as 4 of the 6 boys who were officially invited, came.

They were polite and enthusiastic. We first we filled them full of pizza and pop, while they had a very serious and intense discussion about various scenes from the 6 Star Wars movies, which they can all quote from verbatim. As Charles said, "It's like a business lunch, but different." Then, we ran them downstairs while Colin opened his pile of Star Wars loot, and then chased them upstairs, filling them full of what Charles and I agreed was the very worst birthday cake in the world. The chocolate of the cake was completely without flavor and the icing tasted of chemicals and had the consistency of Cool Whip. It also had Yoda on top, which was supposed to talk but remained perversely mute when the stand was pushed. The kids loved it. We even had a choice of ice cream: Traditional Vanilla or Blue Moon, which was neon blue and tasted vaguely of sweet with a hint of Hawaiian Punch. You can guess which was the most popular flavor. Before the cake, we whipped them into a frenzy with the treasure hunt. Then, while I dealt with the carnage, Charles shepherded them downstairs to play multi-player video games while we waited for the parents to come and take their sugar-hyped kids home. Payback's a bitch, huh?

While sitting at the counter, watching my son and his friends at the table, I had this intense flash-forward to ten years from now, to his 17th birthday. I hope his friends of the future are as nice. I also know that we will need more than 3 large pizzas and a cake that will feed 24. I am glad we are raising our kids here.