We hit up the tree lighting ceremony in our little town last weekend. It’s very sweet and quaint.

Elementary kids sing carols, there is hot apple cider and Christmas cookies, everyone does a big countdown and the tree gets lit up.

There was no way to know ahead of time that it was going to become the scene of a physical altercation involving yours truly…

After the tree lights were turned on, Santa came via decorated firetruck and pulled into a parking lot adjacent to where we all were. Having attended this ceremony before, I knew from experience that everyone would rush toward Santa but that he would be making his way to the tree.

So, I stayed at the tree with Bennett and started calling for Jack (he was off playing some video game with his friend who brought his phone). Bennett and I were the first in line. We were totally hacking this whole Santa thing!

Only in Washington

Behind me I hear a male voice asking “did you get the shot” and then a woman’s voice saying “no because everyone is in front of me”. I turned around and see a shorter woman in her 60’s with a camera trying to take a photo of the Christmas tree. She is craning around my like I am the freaking Eiffel Tower and being extremely exaggerated about how I am clearly impacting her tree photo.

I tend to go out of my way to be nice to strangers. I’m more than willing to accommodate polite requests and generally have a policy to just use grace, civility, and act like a human being. But this crazy hosebeast then puts her hand on my arm and very deliberately pushes me to the side.

I turned around and snapped “hey, you didn’t need to push me, I would have moved out of the way if you had asked. And also, if you step one foot that way you can get the photo you want. I’m standing here waiting for Santa for my kids”. Her response “I was trying to get a photo until you stepped in front me”.

Deep breath Sarah, deep breath.

I then replied with “considering I’m at the front of the line, you got behind me, I didn’t stand in front of you on purpose”. She gave me a snarky look and definitely would have pushed me out of the way again if Santa hadn’t called the boys up right then.

I’m not 100% proud of what I did next.