Christmas Truth and Lies

I walked through the halls of the elementary school looking at all the Christmas art and enjoyed myself.  The second grade corner had done a little beaded ornament cut-out with the line printed reading, "What I love about Christmas is..." and then the kids wrote down their answers.

As I observed I wondered if these were TRUE answers, answers they really believed, or answers they had been taught by others, or what.  A few here and there said "the presents!" which I believe to be the truest answer, but there were several that said things like, "being with my family."  "The love that we share!"  "GIVING!"  "sharing presents!"  "Being with those I love."  "All the together time."  Those are sweet answers and maybe I'm not giving these 7-8 year olds enough credit but I had some doubts about them.  But then, for some reason, this next one filled me with the most doubt of ALL:

Candy canes? Really? That's what you love most about Christmas? The worst, most over-abundant Christmas candy? Candy canes are fun for like the first twenty minutes of Christmas.  And then it's like, get out of my sight you filthy animal.  Remember how I'm a scrooge with neighbor gifts? Here's what we've received so far:

A pan of homemade orange rolls--WHAT. They were amazing.

A giant cone of caramel corn (say that ten times fast. This, too, was delish)

A children's Christmas book (A+) 

 A flipping THREE-LITER of Sprite. We'll see how long this sits on our counter.

A festive-looking bag of giant gumballs(?) 

And a case of candy canes. CANDY CANES.

 And this was like three days ago, a mere week before the day itself.  Obviously these people are just getting rid of their junk in their house.  I mean, a single candy cane would have been awful. I guess I'd accept it if it was dressed like a reindeer.  But a whole box?! What kind of friend are you??  It makes me give serious side eye to some people sometimes. I mean really, just what are you playing at. 

All mean jokes aside, it's super nice of friends to give us anything at all, especially because of who I am deep inside. If you're reading this, friend, I thank you. And also understand if you hate me now and give us poison-laced candy canes next year for a neighbor gift (not that I'd ever eat it--HA) But you know, if I view it as a craft item, it could come in handy. Homemade ornaments and things like such as.  So that's a bit better.  It's a craft! For decoration! Not meant to be eaten. Thanks, neighbor-friend! Thanks! (if you can't tell, this is my attempt to cover my bum in case this friend reads this and not come off as 100% jerkface jen.)

But back to the pic above--so obviously something is going on with that kid.  The only way it would be acceptable is if his name was Buddy and he came from the North Pole, because as we know, it's an important part of the four main food groups of elves:

Candy
Candy canes
Candy corn
And syrup.