Now I've done it. Yesterday, while folks far better than I spread holiday cheer by feeding the homeless and greeting their relatives, I created a new me. I gave her a name, a suitable complexion, and a groovy nickname. I made her willowy and strong, and for good measure set her up with a smear of brown on top of her head. (Something about her had to resemble me, and I was having a particularly foul hair day). In other words, I created "a Mii", the Wii™ bowling, tennis playing, boxing fool. And we, "that family that doesn't have a working television," became owners of the Wii™-wielding fun basement on the block.
You can guess where this is going. We plugged in and burned electricity all day. Oh, yes we did. We kept our lights on, and our outdoor lights on (it was snowing and grey, after all, and timer decided to take the holiday off). The stereo churned Christmas Carols, and the Wii™ was on, and the energy-seeking controllers were on and... shoot, we should have just turned on all the flashlights in the house for good measure and let them run their batteries down so that we could re-charge them while we played Mario Kart™. (Thank you for asking. I died in a variety of exciting ways, including plummeting into mine shafts, and cycling off snowy cliffs). I feel as good as a spiky tortoise can feel this morning.
My solace is a BITS Smart Surge Powerstrip, which ensures that when we are not playing Wii™, the power is off. Really off, not sucking energy as part of a creepy self-directed game of night-owl-energy-Vampire-Wii™. And I have this solace, too: As I write, my children are sqealing, side by side, oohing and ahhing, laughing and cringing. And they are moving. Did we need to buy a Wii™ in order to achieve this peaceful moment? Of course not. It was a gift. Seriously. We played oodles of cards and board games this holiday, and we will soon retreat to a cottage, where we will reduce our power intake significantly.
Until then? It's Boxing Day. Time to get back to work (and to return those "thought that counts" gifts). The lights come off the tree and the porch goes dark today. The sun's reflection of the snow lights up most of the house, the kids will pull out their books, and we will get back to our imperfect, real life, bad hair selves. Until noon.
At noon, we go sledding. Hope I don't sail off a cliff. Yee-haw! Nothing beats real life.
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