The Young and The Restless | Christmas with teens is a different beast

It would be easier to wrap all the Christmas presents he’s ever received again in a single night than to wrap my head around that.

As my children have grown up, our festive seasons have evolved more drastically than a year’s four seasons do, so it’s not like Christmases now look anything like they once did.

At 17, 15 and 14, gone are the days of scattering reindeer food made from muesli and chopped carrots on the front lawn.

There’s no leaving milk and cookies out for Santa, writing him letters or changing their wish lists on Christmas Eve; they now know once they’ve tossed a gift idea into the realm of possibility, it can’t be retrieved because ‘Santa’ might’ve already locked that one down in a Black Friday sale.

Instead of getting excited to put the tree up, I can almost hear a collective groan that whispers into the air how irritating Mum is to call on them for this mundane task once every 12 months.

“And Mum, if we must do this, please don’t subject us to traditional Christmas music or that gaudy heavy metal Christmas stuff you tortured us with last year.”

No, no, no. One year on and they’re demanding they queue the playlist full of Christmas hip-hop tunes.

Ho, ho, ho is not a new lyric to a rapper, but the context in which it’s used in their Christmas-themed offerings varies slightly. Only slightly, and only in some cases though.

But no matter how grown-up they want to pretend to be, some traditions can’t be left in my children’s pre-teenhood.

My 14-year-old, despite knowing the deal, nagged me to invite an elf on a shelf back after just one festive season without one and the energy-sucking demands he brings to the adult of the house in the year’s final chaotic month.

No, no, no, I kept saying. Until one day a festive mood caught me by surprise and I obliged.

I wasn’t dragging that old, tired, annoying-faced elf out of its 11-month hibernation again though.

In sticking with the hip-hop theme of Christmas 2024, our sleeping elf Alfred stayed comatose in a drawer while Snoop on a stoop filled his bell-adorned boots.

For those who don’t know, ‘Snoop on a stoop’ is just an elf on a shelf with Snoop Dogg’s head.

In our case, he came accessorised with a gangsta-looking self-branded T-shirt, heavy gold neck chain and Snoop’s trademark sunnies.

Much to my amusement, it was ridiculous.

But as a fan of the man, it made the task of remembering to move him every night (or at least 17 of the 24 I was supposed to) somewhat bearable.

I chuckled as I hung him from a chain seated on a Christmas bauble from our ceiling fan with Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball amusingly playing on repeat inside my head.

“I came in like a wreccckkkking ballll, I never hit so hard in love.”

Look, I tried to keep his daily poses a surprise, but a bout of glandular fever meant I beat the kids to bed most nights, so there was no chance I was staying up later than them just to play dress-ups with a freakish plush toy alone in the dark.

Another tradition my non-believing youngest didn’t want to let go of was his personalised video message from Santa via an app called Portable North Pole.

Every year I’d buy the season pass and choose three different settings for my three boys, enter their details and some pics to get an authentic-looking video to download.

I used to burn the magical footage on to DVDs or copy them to USB sticks and put them in the letterbox or in the elf’s lap early in December each year and we’d all snuggle up excitedly on the couch to see and listen to Santa speak directly to us from the TV.

It was more work to make December more hectic, but it was work worth doing to maintain some magic.

I got sucked into making the videos again this year, too, for much the same reason: to maintain that magic of Christmas we’re clearly losing our grip on.

But I only got around to it in the final hour; on Christmas Eve. I only grabbed the free versions, so shorter, less personalisation options and no included downloadable file.

They were delivered directly to their iPhones — something they didn’t have a few years back — and I had to ask two of them if they even received their messages, such was their enthusiasm about it that they failed to volunteer that information.

We also left our annual Christmas lights tour too late this year, encountering crowds larger than I’m comfortable with.

We arrived in Kialla’s Riverwood Estate to wander down Wanderer’s Lane for the Joyce family and their neighbours’ spectacular displays and had to park blocks away because it was so busy.

If confined to the car, the boys can argue with each other without offending anyone around them. Even I’ve trained myself to tune out.

On the street, however, they sometimes fail to notice who the majority of the audience surrounding them is when they’re too focused on pushing each other’s buttons.

I heard myself asking them if they thought other parents were thrilled about their small children hearing my big children swear at each other.

When we made it back to the car, I exhaled exasperatedly, threatening that I would not take them again next year if they behaved like that.

Of course, my oldest, as he so kindly reminded me before Christmas, will be 18 by then and able to drive himself anyway.

And maybe if his brothers stop swearing at him and ask him nicely, he’ll take them too.

But there’s probably as much chance of that happening as there is of me escaping another year of puppeteering a flipping Snoop Dogg-faced doll.