Things to Do When You Can’t Leave the House and Everyone on Facebook is Clearly Being Very, Very Merry

We canceled a full roster of holiday plans to accommodate this wretched bug. Team sleepover; Festival of Lights; shopping and a girls’ lunch; a birthday party for a baby of whom we are very, very fond and never get to see.

So far, I am not dealing with a sky-high fever. And because I just wrote that, I will have one in an hour. In the meantime, I’m left with a lot of free time in between checking foreheads and administering Advil and Gatorade. I’ve spent a little too much of it glued to Facebook studying everybody else’s holiday activities, so in the interest of helping other mothers who are stuck in the house during what will one day be known as the Worst Flu Season Ever, I’ve come up with this little list of Things You Can Do While You Wait for Your Children to Function Again. You’re welcome.

•  Peruse Facebook. Over and over. Check out the different Christmas parties everyone is going to. Be very, very envious.

•  Wish you had a Christmas party to go to. Mentally debate which you prefer: ultra-glam, everyone is dressed to the teeth and looks like a magazine spread; Ugly Christmas Sweater party; Girls Night Ornament Exchange; or Red and Green Jell-O Shot Paleo Party. Decide on a combination of glam and Jell-O shots. Because you have sequins and leather leggings and sky-high booties, and these need worn. Lots.

•  Wonder why you don’t just host a Christmas party yourself. You have a nice house, a pretty tree, lots of fun friends, and you can cook. Realize it’s because your friends are scattered all over the freaking country and you miss the stuffing out of Every. Single. One of them. Happy holidays, y’all. You know who you are and I love all of you to bits.

•  Check out the happy, happy photos of people you know full well are miserable, and wonder how that night turned out once they got home. Then realize – oh, they’re hammered. They just went home and passed out. Game over.

•  Stalk. Stalk every single person you’ve ever dated, thought about dating, or looked twice at. I mean going back to 1986. Check out all their photos. Cross-check via FB search. Wonder how he ended up married to HER. Realize you’re looking at photos from 2008 and he’s not married to HER anymore.

•  Then stalk every single person all those people have ever dated, married or apparently hooked up with. Play with FB search more and learn way too much about people you don’t know from Adam. Wonder again how these people got together. Wonder if they’re all that pretty (or that wasted) all the time. Make a mental note to download new photo filters so you and your friends can look that airbrushed and pretty too.

•  Cross-stalk via Google. Marvel at how many people have mugshots online. Wonder if they realize this.

•  Make sure you don’t have a mugshot online. I mean, you could have forgotten. Breathe a sigh of relief that there’s nothing dogging you from Spring Break 1993. That was a very festive spring break. But I’m not naming names.

•  Look up everybody’s old MySpace accounts. Laugh until your sides hurt. Be grateful you didn’t have a MySpace (unless you did). In case you forgot: if you ever posted it online, it’s STILL THERE. Even if you thought you deleted it. Make another mental note to continue beating this message into the girls’ heads and be grateful there was no internet when we were in high school and college.

•  Shop. Black Friday clearly became Black All the Way to Christmas Day, because your inbox is chock full of ridiculous sales. Athleta has lots of things you really have to have. Rack up the credit card buying your own Christmas presents.

•  Panic because you realize you’ve barely bought anyone else’s Christmas presents. Shop some more.

•  Systematically try to unsubscribe from email lists. Realize this is a 12-step process akin to trying to break into the Federal Reserve.

•  Ponder the fact that Junior Strength Advil should really be sold in bulk.

•  Explain again that no, we are not baking anything while the Advil is working because no one wants to eat anything we touch.

•  Edit stuff. Because there’s always a deadline and who knows when the kids will go back to school?

•  Start filling out your January planner/calendar. Dread January.

•  Get a big black lawn bag. Fill it. Fling everything you can into that sucker while the children are too out of it to notice you just threw out their VERY FAVORITE TOY EVER THAT THEY HAVEN’T TOUCHED IN TWO YEARS. Declutter, sister. Christmas is coming and you will be grateful. Put the bag at the curb so the junk guy will take it.

•  Look at your hardwood and wonder when you polished it last. Realize the answer is never.

•  Look at your kitchen cabinets and think about the fact that in September, you swore you were going to chalk paint those bad boys in January. Dread January again. You have lots of cabinets. Plus an island and a planning desk.

•  Open up your Messages app on the laptop. Read old messages and wonder what in the world you were talking about.

•  Watch the Hallmark Movie Channel. Lots and lots of Hallmark movies. Because your baby loves them. Wonder how Candace Cameron went from being DJ on “Full House” to being that freaking gorgeous.  Also wonder how all these single moms find hot firemen with hearts of gold. Maybe you can hire a scriptwriter for your life.

•  Research races. Wonder if you can find the discipline to train again. Remember the thrill of the finish line and decide you can.

I could go on, but I have decluttering, editing, and shopping to do. Plus my girls are starting to talk again. A lot. And I really need to change my clothes. This should, at least, get you started. Print it out and put it on the fridge right next to January’s calendar and the cabinets that need painted.