The Deer Family

Two years ago, as Jason, Carter and I were wandering around Coscto, Carter asked me to go look at the Christmas decorations with him. Before anyone gets all wound up about it, I’m completely on board that Christmas decorations should not be out in September, but on the other hand I don’t really care when anyone wants to start decorating their home for Christmas. Whatever makes you happy.

Anyway, two years ago in Costco Carter saw the Christmas decorations and wanted to look. As we walked the two aisles of Christmas decorations (in September . . . ) Carter got very excited. “Momma, look at the deer family. The deer family is our family! It has a momma deer, a daddy deer, and a baby deer. It’s us!” Carter was so earnest in his excitement over the deer family being just like our family his enthusiasm was contagious. When we walked back over to the Grinch Jason, I told him about Carter seeing the deer family and how overwhelmingly excited he was about the deer family because it was just like our family.

The Grinch Jason immediately struck down the idea of the deer family. He had a litany of reasons as to why we were not going to purchase the deer family that day. It was wrong to buy Christmas decorations in September. He didn’t like the deer family. He didn’t want to have to set up the deer family and make sure all the lights worked. We didn’t buy the deer family that year.

Fast forward about a year and we are wandering through Costco again. For those that don’t know this, Costco is Jason’s happy place. He loves Costco. It’s early October 2017 and there are two aisles of Christmas decorations set up. Like any happy child, Carter sees the Christmas decorations and wants to go look at them, so Carter and I find ourselves walking through the Christmas aisles again. For a second year in row Carter spots the deer family. “Momma! Momma look! The deer family is back. Our family is back!” Yet again I found myself caught up in Carter’s contagious enthusiasm.

We go find the Grinch Jason and this time I have more resolve. “The deer family is back this year. We should buy one today.” The Grinch Jason launched into his list of reasons why he didn’t want the deer family, but I didn’t back down. Finally he grudgingly said, “we can’t buy the deer family today because the box is too large to fit in the car. We can buy it on our next trip and we’ll bring the truck.” I told him the deer family would be sold out by our next trip, that’s how these things work at Costco, and we should buy it today and have them hold it for pickup. Jason wouldn’t budge. Just as I predicted, the deer family was sold out for the season on our next Costco trip. The Grinch Jason didn’t try very hard to hide his satisfaction that, for a second year in a row, he had escaped owning the deer family.

Fast forward to December 2017, the week before Christmas, and Jason, Carter and I are in Canada to visit his family. It was after dark when we landed at the Toronto airport, so I told Carter we should look at Christmas lights and try to spot deer families on our way to grandma’s house. This immediately put the Grinch Jason in a grumpy mood. He snaps at me, “Christmas lights are an American thing. You aren’t going to see very many. And you won’t see any deer families.” I think he might have even slipped a “Bah, humbug!” in there somewhere.

Despite Jason’s warnings of no deer families and Christmas lights being an American thing, Carter and I saw lots of Christmas lights and a couple of deer families on our drive to his mom’s house. The next evening, as we were driving to a restaurant with his mom and his aunt, I told them that Jason had informed Carter and I that Christmas lights were an American things and that deer families would not be found in Ontario.

Fortuitously, we drove through a large subdivision at that point. The houses were decked out in Christmas lights, I mean Clark Griswold style Christmas lights. We started playing a game I called “scream out deer family every time you see a deer family.” The Grinch Jason moved from annoyed to angry as everyone in the car repeatedly screamed out, “deer family!” every time we saw one. I lost count of how many deer families we saw. At least 50 on our relatively short drive. The Grinch Jason was ready to cancel Christmas by the time we arrived at our destination.

Fast forward to October 1, 2018. Jason is making a solo trip to Costco. We hadn’t gone to Costco in three weeks because we have been crazy busy, and no one had any time for Costco trips. Jason was becoming more and more difficult to live with as his Costco withdrawals worsened, so I finally told him to take a half day off and go to Costco and rejuvenate himself.

Apparently Jason’s Costco trip was truly revitalizing and food for his soul. He texted me from Costco, “the deer family is back.” First of all let’s give the Grinch Jason three cheers for sending me that text. I wasn’t there and I never would have known. I texted him back, “buy it NOW.” Finally the Grinch Jason decided to make the right choice and embrace the spirit of the deer family. He managed to cram the box into the trunk of our car. When Carter and I came driving up to the house on the Kubota RTV as Jason returned home from his Costco trip, Jason pulled the box with the deer family out of the trunk. Carter started screaming at the top of his lungs, “the deer family!! The deer family. Momma, he brought home our family. MOMMA DO YOU SEE THE DEER FAMILY??!!”

Just in case you think Jason had a complete change of heart and ate his Christmas feast with the Whos in Whoville, this is what he posted on Facebook after purchasing the deer family:

1. It’s October 1st. 2. It’s 85 degrees outside. There is no hint of colour in any leaf on any tree. 3. The only thing it’s going to do in our ten day forecast is get warmer. I’m seriously contemplating a swim in the redneck pool. 4. It makes me angr/y/ier and (even more) volatile when stores are two seasons ahead of the calendar. 5. I argued against the purchase of the lighted reindeer family last year because I thought the whole concept was *way too redneck*. And as anyone who knows me will readily attest when I say something is too redneck for my taste that is really saying something. 6. I think Christmas is seriously over-hyped and overly commercialized. 7. I’ve ranted at length on each and every one of these topics.

So, what did I do when I saw the reindeer family at Costco today? I texted Melissa who texted me back that I should purchase them immediately. So I bought them and shoved them in the trunk. And here we are. I own Christmas decorations that I bought voluntarily in late summer. Maybe I’ll plug them in just to see if they light up.”

Welcome home deer family!