A Present! For Me!?! *rustle*rip*rustle*tear* Well. This is Embarrassing.

'Tis the season for White Elephant exchanges. Hey! No groaning and mumbling about "useless junk disguised with a sparkly bow"! Because, dudes, they're FUN! I mean, you never know what kind of awesome you'll find under that snowman wrapping paper! Is it a singing pig? An oil painting of a shih tzu? A set of perfectly matched jaguar salt and pepper shakers? Or the most awesome game from your childhood that you never owned!?!

That's right, Katie and Ellie, Mamma's gonna break out the yoga pants! We got a game to play!

But then.

There's the truly awful presents hiding under the tree.

What? I'm sorry, what's that you ask?

Oh! What was Jon's White Elephant score at the party?

This:

Hahahahahahaha! He hates it so much!

But it's a book!

And you know what preschoolers like to have read to them, right?

Exactly.

You can't say no to their cute little chubby faces.

At least not at Christmas time.

So I did what any self respecting, educationally minded, mother would do.

I gathered all the little children unto me, and under the glow of the Christmas tree lights,

I read it to them.

And, in the spirit of all White Elephant exchanges happening all over the world this week, settle in, all cozy like, with that cup of hot cocoa, I have a story to tell.

Twilight: New Moon:

A Paraphrase for Preschoolers

Once upon a time there was a girl named Bella who liked hiking.

She liked hiking in the woods, specifically, because she thought apples were very interesting. And apples grow on trees and she wanted to study them in their natural habitat. She really liked science and stuff.


She also had a friend named Edward, that she thought was really interesting and cool and stuff, and she would invite him to go with her to apple orchards, farmers markets, botany lectures at the local university, you know, places to learn all the interesting things about apples.

But, Edward never seemed to enjoy learning about apples as much as Bella did.

In fact, he secretly thought apples were boring! (*gasp* I know!)

But, sometimes? Sometimes they seemed to have a lot of fun together.

But Bella thought they could still be friends if she pretended not to like apples all that much. (By the way, kids, this is never a good way to make friends.)


Then, when Edward invited her over to his house, Bella brought some special apples as a gift for his family to enjoy. It didn't go well.

Because they hated apples more than Edward.

In fact, the pro/con apple debate was fierce that night.

Jasper, especially, had a hard time

keeping his apple rebuttal civil.

Obviously, Edward's family was not using their polite manners.

And then? One day? When Edward leaned over and smelled Bella's hair (as he would do every once in awhile, which, let's face it, is weird and creepy) he said,

"Oh my gosh, Bella! You totally reek of apples! Don't you ever bathe? It's disgusting! I don't want to be friends with such a Stinky McStinky Pants!"

And then Edward left, and Bella was sad, because she thought Edward was her friend even though he wasn't very nice to her most of the time.

Until, one day, when Bella was headed to school, her dad stopped her and said, 

"Bella, he was a weird hair smelling guy who doesn't support your apple interests. I mean, did he even read any of your articles in the Scientific Journal about apple hybrids? No! He didn't! You're better than this. Move on." 

So, Bella found a new friend. His name was Jacob.

And they had a good time together. He seemed to be interested in her apple research.


Until he joined the swim team.

Suddenly, Jacob didn't want to hang out with Bella anymore. He returned all the botany and horticulture textbooks he'd borrowed because his coach told him to. This made Bella angry. So she confronted the swim team, to find out why Jacob couldn't be interested in apples and swimming.

It didn't go well. Because they used their angry voices. Which wasn't nice at all.

So, a little sad but still determined to be Jacob's friend somehow, Bella decided to join try and join the swim team.

And, one day, when the swim team was practicing their high headed crawl in the choppy waters of the Pacific Ocean, Bella swam out to join them. But, the combination of an extra large Grapple apple as a pre-swim snack and her open water swimming inexperience...

was almost deadly. Because, as everyone knows, you should wait at least a half hour after eating before swimming. Luckily, Jacob was there to pull her out of the water so she didn't drown. Which also proves how very very important swim lessons are.

After all that, you'd think that they would be friends again. But they weren't.

And Bella was sad again. Because Jacob didn't want to be her friend either, and it was obvious Jacob hadn't read one word of the horticulture books she'd lent him, because, apples totally float.

Bella was extra sad for awhile, until she realized that both Jacob and Edward were just really big silly heads who didn't know how to be good friends and that she shouldn't try and be someone she wasn't to keep their friendship. So, instead, Bella worked really hard on her school work and won a scholarship to Harvard, where there are all sorts of nice people, and where they have a really good botany program. While attending Harvard she was able to study all the interesting things about apples she wanted. And she was happy.

The End

Epilogue:

Edward eventually realized what a bad friend he had been, and it made him sad. So he drew dots on his face with a marker.

Which was silly. Because we never never ever ever draw on ourselves with markers. 

Jacob never learned how to be a good friend to humans, which was very sad. So he began hanging out with wolves instead. His wolf pack name was Dory.

This is how wolves smile in selfies. 

PS Like with the preschoolers, I skipped all the awkward kissing parts. You're welcome.

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