No Kids at the Christmas Party

We’re in the thick of the holiday season and Christmas is looming just around the corner of tomorrow. Most people probably already have their plans set, but it bears keeping in mind that nothing is set in stone and that it’s not too late to undo mistakes and avoid catastrophes.

Key to this: you do not need to include children.

If you want to have a good time this holiday season, you shouldn’t invite children. This will seem anathema to some folks. No children at holiday events? Let alone Christmas? The madness!

But what is true madness is inviting children into one’s home and expecting them not to behave atrociously and ruin all the damn festivities. To be clear, I’m not saying that you should exclude your own children. If they’re your kids, you can’t eliminate them from the equation. Not ethically or legally. What you have to do is keep other people’s children away. This can be difficult. As you get older, more and more of your friends and family members will make the mistake of having children, and they will commit the offense of forcing those children’s presence upon you. It will be taken for granted that their children are welcome at events and gatherings. It is therefore incumbent upon you, as host of these gatherings and events, to make clear that they are in fact not welcome.

This can be a difficult thing to do. Many might take offense at being told that they cannot bring their semi-sentient, narcissistic, independently-ambulatory appendages with them everywhere they go. But they need to understand that they cannot, not if they are going into your damn house.

Yours is a fine, child-free house. It is clean and orderly. It has nice things, some of them quite expensive. The average child is suited only for padded shacks of squalor. Your home is too good for them and unprepared for their selfish ravages. Your fine wood coffee table is not made to have blocks and other hard objects banged on and dented into it. Your enormous high-definition television will not appreciate having mucus, spittle, and greasy handprints left on its priorly pristine screen. Your ornaments, decorations, and collectibles, some of them rare, acquired over years of world travel, and sometimes at considerable expense, are not intended to be played with, especially not by the indelicate hands of malicious toddlers. And your impeccably decorated Christmas tree may never fully recover after the greedy and uncaring hand of a poorly trained child takes hold of one of its branches and pulls it crashing to the floor.

The problem, as with many child-related problems, is not of the children themselves. Children are too stupid and ignorant, or “innocent,” to be held accountable for the reckless and destructive consequences of their inexplicable, self-centered actions. It is the parents that are to blame. And they should know this. If they do not train their children to behave decently, or adequately supervise their behavior to prevent unacceptable actions, then they are hardly qualified to be parents. They certainly have not earned the right to bring their children into nice places around decent folk. Unless and until such time that they are able to be responsible and respectful on behalf of their terrible children, they and their children both are not welcome.