This season is a beast of it's own making. I'm convinced, none suffer worse from it than moms. There are high expectations, most cooked up in my own head my husband reminds me. These things include all the decorations, moving the elf daily, the Advent calendar, buying the gifts, the gift wrapping, the super secret Santa stuff, buying more gifts because kids saw the super secret stuff in my Amazon cart, the homemade treats for neighbors, and the family holiday card - perhaps my favorite part - but ours are currently lost in the mail. Each day when I update my USPS tracker like a stalker, it tells me they will be delivered late today. It's bullshit and I'm trying to not let it ruin my year.
Add to that my internal struggle to design and build my own Gingerbread house, mixed with procrastination and running around to three stores today only to discover what I already knew from years past: they were sold out. I'm working harder not smarter. So it is 11 p.m. and I am pulling homemade gingerbread out of the oven to sit over night and harden before I construct it tomorrow in time to decorate it with the cousins. As Maddie just said to me when I was tucking her in, I don't really have to have this on my list. To which I responded that I wanted my kids to have a happy childhood. But I know a Gingerbread house won't make that true. It's more about how I show up, which is why I had to remove my project manager hat as much as I could and let her cut the pieces of dough house before we slide them into the oven. We found a brighter spot as she dug out my mom's old cookie cutters and we made a tray of embellishments for this house, our house, a very, very, very fine house.
It is my own undoing and I try to not judge it too hard, like my lack of creativity with elf positioning this season or how I've indoctrinated my kids into this consumptive culture that will kill our planet sooner than later. It's all our undoing. Why do we choose the quietest time of the year, literally when most animals are hibernating, to have the busiest holiday? We should be cuddling in bed and giving our loved ones sheer presence in their day. I think that's what I need too. Or maybe just a quiet moment in the early morning hours and at night too, to bookend all the other things.