Blatantly Ruining Families' Christmases since 2008!

I've written here before about the Mom's group that I belong to. Back when Anna was a wee little thing, the playgroups were a good exercise in getting out of the house and navigating our way through the social dynamics of new parenthood. After awhile, I lost interest in the playgroups because, while I did click with a few of the moms, there were a few moms that consistently kept me away. Now, my affiliation with the group is by and large via the computer. We have a very active message board and marketplace. I've read a lot of interesting parenting tips on the message board and scored a lot of good loot on the marketplace. The thing with this group is that a lot of the women are hard-core piranhas with iron-clad views on parenthood. I've seen other moms ripped to shreds for posting about controversial parenting techniques, such as "Crying it out" or other atrocities like formula-feeding. I'm honestly not sure how much of it is truly intentional snark and how much of it is sarcasm that just doesn't translate well to written word--either way though, it takes a lot for me to post a question or comment. I deliberate for days before I act because it really does feel like being thrown into the shark tank with a bucket of chum.

I guess I was feeling giddy last week due to the Holidays, because I put on my big girl knickers and posted, not once, but twice on the message board. First of all, we had such a good experience at the place where we got out Christmas tree that I felt compelled to put a plug for the nursery on the message board. I knew that in posting this message, I was setting myself up for the following, possible commentary:

A real tree? Wow, don't you know how many children are allergic to pine? How dangerous to bring a virtual army of allergens and pollutants into your home. What kind of mother are you?

Or

How sad that you sacrificed a living thing in order to showcase the gluttonous display of consumerism that you're teaching to your child. At the very least, I hope that you decorate your rotting corpse of a deceased tree with LED lights and don't chose to kill the Earth with energy-consuming twinkle lights.

Instead, the actual response that I got went something like this:

We were so excited to go and get our tree from Houston Garden Center, after the glowing review that the above poster (Hi! That's me!) gave. Everything went well until we got the tree home and realized that the base was leaking water all over our floor. Now, we're having to take all of the decorations off of it and try to figure out the problem. Our daughter is devastated to have to un-decorate the tree. What a disaster. The above poster has effectively ruined our Christmas and is responsible for the irreparable damage done to our 1923 pine floors in our perfect little Heights Bungalow. Shame on you.

Ok, so it wasn't that bad, but there were words used like "disaster" and "devastated".

Oh, but wait! I actually managed to ruin another family's Christmas too. Read on.

Then...another mom had posted early last week (before I selfishly ruined the Christmas of that other family due to my Houston Garden Center recommendation) asking if anyone knew of a way for her to find out what Holiday specials were coming on tv and when, as she wasn't having any luck finding that info on her cable guide or online (Amazingly enough, she didn't get ripped a new one about the dangers of letting children watch tv. I thought that was a given and was cowering in the corner, waiting to see that fight begin). Well, it just so happened that, earlier that week, I had received an email with a link to that very thing: A great, comprehensive list of all of the Holidays specials coming on tv in the month of December. I sheepishly commented on her query and included the link. While I did get a couple of nice responses, such as, "Thanks! That's exactly what I've been looking for" or "Oh wow...this is great!" I got the following response from another mom:

Well, I hope that everyone doesn't make the same mistake my family did. Apparently all of the times listed are EASTERN time, not Central. Therefore, we missed the show that we were so excited to see. Thanks for ruining our Christmas.

Again, it wasn't that bad, but it was very rude and, again, I got blamed for someone else's screw up (just to clarify, on this website of Holiday specials, it does say at the top of the page, "All times Eastern").

So, I'm going to refrain from posting anything else on that message board, probably for the rest of my life. I just hate ruining people's Holidays and their lives.

You're a mean one, Mrs. Grinch. You really are an eel. You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel. Mrs. Grinch. You're a bad banana with a greasy, black peel.