The Heart of Darkness

Any parent who has spent the wintertime indoors with a pair of toddlers knows exactly why Christmas was invented. Oh, sure, I know it's supposed to be Jesus' birthday and all (highly debatable), but the real reason is that we needed some kind of carrot and stick mechanism to get children to behave properly.

And who can blame the kids for behaving badly? They're cooped up all day indoors with no outlet to bleed off their boundless childhood energy. Enter Santa Claus. This is a big fat nice dude who will give you presents-- but there's a catch. You have to be GOOD. Which sucks, because it's really in your nature to destroy things and make messes.

Behold.

"The horror...the horror..."

And take a look at this young hooligan caught by our in-store cameras trying to boost some chicken eggs. Apparently the Central Market brand, free-range, vegetarian-fed, super jumbo crap just WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH for the boy. So he had to filch a few for himself.

I think that the winter holidays are great. It's nice to have something to look forward to after the leaves fall and all the world grows cold. But then there's the inevitable let-down that occurs after Christmastime. I call it the "post-epiphany love withdrawal syndrome."

The kids have been showered with attention, sweets, and presents for about 2 solid weeks, then we expect them to go back to their normal lives replete with rules, crappy indoor games, and vegetables? Seriously. C'mon.

Fellow parents, we need to come up with some kind of winter holiday methadone.