Naughty Day

My most valuable bargaining chip as a parent is gone. The naughty or nice list. I only discovered its powers mid-December but it was a sure-fire way to get my two year old to be good. "Pixie, you better put down that flame-thrower or Santa won't bring you any presents." Or, "Pixie, if you don't stop suffocating your sister Santa will put you on the naughty list." The powers of the naughty list made all my parenting dreams come true. Up until then, I'd used the line, "that makes Jesus sad," but she didn't seem to care. Santa was a much more effective motivator.

On Christmas Eve, Pixie was up to her usual tricks and I reminded her about the naughty list. "You want presents, don't you? But don't worry, after you get your presents you can be as naughty as you want."
"Really?" she asked.
"Yup. After you get your presents on Christmas, it's Naughty Day because you don't have to be good anymore. What are you going to do on Naughty Day?"
Without hesitation, Pixie rattled off her list with glowing eyes. "I'm going to pull all my clothes off their hangers and stick my hands in the toilet and run in the street and hit Daddy and be mean to Grandpa -"
My screaming laughter drowned out everything else she said. But the damage had been done. All of Christmas Eve, all Pixie could talk about was the upcoming Naughty Day.

That night when I put Pixie to bed, I told her that when she woke up it would be Christmas! She burst into tears. "I don't want Christmas! I want Naughty Day!"
"Oh. We'll it will be that too." I put her to bed, hoping that maybe she'd forget by morning that I'd given her a free pass to evil.

Luckily, the present opening the next morning took hours since family kept arriving with fresh waves of gifts. But finally there was nothing more to be opened. We were sitting at Christmas dinner when Pixie poked my side. "Is it Naughty Day now?"
'Here it goes,' I thought. 'How to do you break it to a kid that there is no such thing as Naughty Day? It's like telling a kid that Santa got stuck in the fireplace and burned to death.' But I had to do it. "Pixie, I was just kidding about Naughty Day. We need to be good and nice all the time otherwise everyone will get hurt and sad." Pixie's bottom lip began to tremble.
"But you said..."
"How about I let you poke me for a while?" I offered. Her face lit up and she brandished 10 pokey fingers.
For the next few minutes I was the poor girl's poking bag. I deserved it. I'd been oh-so-naughty.