How to Weather The Challenges of Christmas When Your TV Remote Goes Missing

People will advise you to focus on things that matter rather than stressing at Christmas. I have some additional advice.

“The remote’s gone. I forgot to hide it,” I said.

“Oh no, not again,” my husband replied. But he couldn’t blame me because he forgot to hide it, too.

Every time the grandchildren come over, they do something with the remote control. I don’t know what because they don’t fess up. They deny, deflect, and disclaim any knowledge of its whereabouts.

We should frisk them before they leave, because once they’ve gone and we realize the remote is missing, we will never find it again. Ever.

One year my son tore down the wall in a bedroom to do some remodeling and discovered 10 missing electronic devices behind the wall, which doesn’t bode well for us finding our remote.

My husband ordered a new one from Amazon which was DOA (Dead on Arrival). Meanwhile the television won’t work without a remote.

But there is one consolation. With the Christmas season in full throttle, we don’t have time to watch TV.

For example, yesterday instead of watching TV, I stood in line at Hobby Lobby to return a strand of light up garland that didn’t light up, even after changing the batteries twice. I had the receipt, the bag, and the unlit garland, so I thought I was all set. But the cashier said, “Your garland doesn’t have a price tag.”

The price is on the receipt,” I replied.

“The receipt doesn’t say which item is the garland.”

“I don’t usually leave price tags on Christmas garland after I put it on the mantle.”

Following ten minutes of this back and forth, the cashier summoned a higher authority to steer us through our conundrum.

“Refund her money,” the manager said after ambling over and glancing at the receipt. Then she ambled off to settle another dispute.

“I’ll credit the refund to your account. Have a blessed day,” the cashier smiled sweetly at the end of our 30-minute transaction that should have taken 30 seconds.

“Bless your heart,” I replied.

After Hobby Lobby I swung by the mall, but the mall was closed. Who closes a mall at 10:35 during Christmas?

“Don’t buy me any gift cards at the mall,” I texted my husband, who likes to buy me gift cards. “The mall is observing Covid hours instead of Christmas hours, so I predict they will go out of business by spring.”

My next stop was the HomeGoods Store, where everybody who had unsuccessfully tried to shop at the mall was in line to buy something.

I found hostess gifts for Christmas parties we’ve been invited to, waited in a line as long as the Hobby Lobby line, then made the mistake of leaving my hostess gifts in the car.

The reason this was a mistake was because my car malfunctioned outside the HomeGoods Store and I was forced to drive home without power steering. Error messages lit up the dashboard as bright as a properly functioning Christmas garland.

This major vehicle malfunction had happened before, but our car dealership did not fix it. Even worse, they claimed nothing was wrong.

“We drove your car 50 miles and it did just fine, ma’am. No problems,” said Armando, the car mechanic. He charged me $89 to tell me this, and the car has malfunctioned twice since then.

My husband installed an app to diagnose the problem and encouraged me to run the app next time the car had a problem, only I forgot the name of the app, so I drove home, left the motor running, dashed inside and told him to run the app.

This time, Armando could see that our car was malfunctioning because of the app, but when we dropped the car off at the dealership, I left my hostess gifts in the trunk.

And if the car isn’t fixed before the parties, I’ll need to drive back to the dealership, which is in a different town, to retrieve them.

Meanwhile, other obligations are pressing. “We need to send Christmas cards,” my husband announced that night during dinner. I glanced at the kitchen window where we scotch tape Christmas cards from friends, and one lone card hung from a bit of tape.

My husband, noticing my glance, said, “We don’t have many friends anymore, if the number of cards on our window is any indication.”

“Nowadays people wish everybody Merry Christmas on Facebook instead of sending cards,” I replied.

Besides, Christmas cards aren’t what they used to be. In past years, my kitchen window was decorated with cards of snow scenes, Santas, Wise Men, and cardinals. Now all we get are pictures of people we don’t know.

The one, lone card scotch taped to the window proves my point. A family I’d never seen stared back at me. They obviously know us, or they wouldn’t be sending us a family Christmas picture.

But who in the hell are they?

Which presents another dilemma. What do you do with family photo Christmas cards when Christmas is over? It seems wrong to throw a person’s family photo in the trash, even if the people are total strangers.

I didn’t take time to make family photos, so I guess I need to buy Christmas cards, because if I stop sending them people might stop sending them to us, and we’ll wonder if we have any friends.

But I need to order them from Amazon, because my husband just drove our one remaining vehicle to Walmart for more outdoor lights, since the ones he put up flickered briefly, then went dark, and I can’t get him to respond to my text message to buy cards while he’s in Walmart.

“Everything’s made in China. I think they have the lights timed just right to go out after one year,” he complained after ditching last year’s reindeer because the lights don’t work.

I interrupt to bring you a car update: We got a call from the dealership, and it looks like the car’s computer has gone bad, which means we need to buy an expensive new part. The car was under warranty until two weeks ago. Since the new computer will take several days to arrive, I drive my husband’s car to the dealership to retrieve the hostess gifts from the trunk.

If you go to church during the Christmas season, ministers will tell you not to get caught up in the Christmas rush, but to focus on Jesus.

That’s good advice, but I have some additional words of wisdom for weathering the challenges of Christmas. Wait until January.

By January, this will all be behind us. We will have either torn down a wall or ordered a new remote, paid an exorbitant amount to get the car fixed, tossed family photo Christmas cards in the trash and gotten them back out to tuck beneath last year’s Christmas ornaments, and taken down the lights.

But until January, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!