A Christmas Story: If You Need a Good Laugh

I have been in desperate need of a good laugh after the last several weeks, thanks to Maleficent and my poor exwife-bullshit-coping skills.
This email was from Stepmom #2 did just the trick...

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all the cider and hidden the rum. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.
The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

I'd like to wish that Maleficent would be my Christmas Angel, if only for one moment.

Communication Roadblock

Cinderella comes home with a note last night from school.
She has a MANDATORY choral concert next Monday. It counts as a test grade for her class.
Mondays are Maleficent's visitation days, so the onus will be on her to take Cinderella.
With her recent claims of health issues and excuses of not being able to drive her daughter anywhere, we are concerned over Maleficent's ability to come through.
(Maleficent bailed out on bringing Cindy to drama rehearsals last week.)
Prince Charming tries calling Maleficent to give her the courtesy of as much of a heads up as possible.
Diablo answers the phone. He has taken to running interference, going so far as to call the house for Maleficent when she wants to talk to Cinderella and answering the phone whenever Cinderella calls there... just in case.
Diablo refuses to give the phone to Maleficent, instructs Prince Charming to communicate in email and tells him "I pay the phone bill here, so don't call again."
The rest of the call was a blur, but it ended badly. Threats were made, names were called, Diablo hung up.
Prince Charming regrettably allowed Diablo to pull him down to his level.
Diablo is trying to protect his lady love. I get that.
But he has no business putting himself in the middle of a pre-existing court order designed to facilitate ongoing communication between Cinderella's parents.
They have enough trouble on their own, they don't need a macho bully fanning the fires.

In Which Maleficent Sinks To a New Low

It wasn't too long ago that I had extended a helping hand to Maleficent by driving Cinderella to her house. And that wasn't the first time I helped her out in that department either.

So why where we surprised when Maleficent did not take that into consideration when she recently was LATE dropping Cinderella off at the farm where we volunteer (an activity she does not let Cinderella participate in), leaving me WAITING in the car in the DARK and COLD with Hansel & Gretel and then REFUSED to bring Cindy home when I had to GO HOME TO COOK DINNER.
I called Prince Charming before I left, to let him know what was going on and that I needed to leave.
No problem, I will call Maleficent and ask her to take Cinderella home instead.
That did NOT happen.
Instead, Maleficent called him SCREAMING that HE would now have to come to HER HOUSE if he wanted Cinderella.
Then proceeded to hang up on him and turn OFF her phone.
The hostility and anger she felt from that night was offloaded on Cinderella for the entire time as the child sat waiting to see what would happen. Not knowing if she would be stuck spending the night at her Mom's or if her Dad would come to rescue her.
He did. And she was brought safely home.
It doesn't end there though.
(Does it ever?)
Maleficent's spitefulness reared it's ugly head a week later when Prince Charming asked if Cinderella could be allowed to come to Gretel's third birthday party. A party that was unavoidably taking place during Maleficent's weekend.
(In years past, we have always planned family celebrations for weekends when Cinderella was HOME, but this year we could not.)
(Not that it should matter, for during the sumer Maleficent was in the SAME situation with her parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary that was scheduled for a weekend Cinderella was home with us. Prince Charming was happy to allow Cinderella to go to that party, WITHOUT asking to make up for the time. It was a family celebration, afterall.)
Cinderella asked her Mom if she could come to her sister's party. Maleficent refused.
Prince Charming then asked and was told Maleficent had special plans for Cinderella that day which Cindy was quite excited about.
Oh yes, those must have been tears of JOY we saw on Cinderella's face.
In the end, Cinderella missed out on the only celebration we had for Gretel and seeing her family in exchange for going to a CRAFT STORE with her mother.
And here I thought she couldn't get any lower.