Ho ho hold on a minute

Cue the music: "It's the most wonderful time of the year." And it's one of the craziest. Regardless of how much planning I do, how much ahead of time finding and wrapping and making, I am invariably behind. It's like a rule of nature.

Of all my lists (and there are many), my list of Christmas projects is usually the longest, and the most involved. And every year, I fail to complete about 50% of it.


I should put it on the calendar:
December 19th: Have a small breakdown because today you will realize the "great Christmas list" will not be finished. Feel sad, feel overwhelmed. Worry about how Christmas will not happen because of incompleted (fill in blank here).


I know I'm not alone in feeling the pressure to "make" a good Christmas for our family. The holidays do indeed conjure ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.

For me, the ghosts of Christmas past seem to urge me to control every element of the whole season with deadly earnestness. As one might guess from my accounts of my own childhood holiday seasons, parts of my childhood were chaotic. Christmas was, for most years, a fun though limited blip on the screen of our family, something to be experienced in its entirety in the space of 36 hours, including the decorating, cooking, and gift-preparation. I am the cliche of the rebellious adult child, and I have shaped my own family life in the mirror image of the compressed holiday. Ours is a lingering, slow experience, with presents or small advent events each day of December. It sounds lovely, and it is. But I've also fooled myself into thinking that the perfect Christmas is a handmade Christmas, from the gifts to the decorations, And it's this misconception that gets me into trouble every single year.

Though I'm not sure you'd know it if you saw me, there is some part of me that shudders with fear at the thought of not making good on all my Christmas plans. Seriously, I quake at the thought of not finishing the stockings for each of us by Christmas eve. Where will Santa put his gifts? Never mind that we do have store-bought stockings that work quite well and look cute. I've dropped the ball--and I'm "ruining" Christmas.

Don't forget the handmade mouse (with babies), the flannel pjs and matching pillowcases, the embroidered felt ornaments for each of the girls, the collaged bookmarks for each of us, the gumdrop chain for the tree, the Santa outfit for Mr. Mouse, the Christmas pjs for Ada's babies, the matching Santa sacks for us to use each year, and the holiday skirt for Ada and the corduroy jumper for Esme. There is much more to add to this list, but I will stop boring you and overwhelming myself with it now.

This is where I stand today, and where I stand on so many Christmases, surveying all of the unfinished things, each in some form of progress, stacked around my studio and serving as reminders of my inadequacy. I just can't do enough.

But wait, I said I had conjured the ghosts of Christmas present and future, and this is what they tell me:
This whole month of December has been full, so full, of beautiful moments for our family. And there are gifts aplenty, even homemade ones, to give to our family. My husband would tell you, as sagely as Dickens' ghosts, that the best present I can give him and myself is to be present. For his ideal image of Christmas, I am calm and with them on Christmas eve, not fussing about the perfect wrapping, shiny bows and the best frosted cookies, etc.

The ghosts of Christmas future will forgive me if I don't finish all the great homemade projects. So will my kids. What they won't forget (or perhaps forgive) is the frantic and manic mommy that emerges on December 19th each year, fitfully aiming for a phantom ideal that eludes her each time.

I have made my lists, and the list is as long this year. But this year is different. This year, I give myself and my family a present of being. Just being, and being enough, too.

I'm signing off now to laze on the couch and watch Grinch with Ada, and then make messy, frosted cookies for Santa.

In Just One Year--a note to Ada

Thursday was a big day for us.   Ada's end-of-semester assembly, for the end of her first-ever semester.  As I watched her, sparkling on the stage in her pink sequins and shiny voice, my eyes welled up with pride and amazement as I reflected on how much she has done in a single year.  Allow me to share an open letter to her with you:

Oh Ada, you are our shiny star.  Here is some of what you have done since last Christmas:

You can now read!  You started reading in February, and you took to it like a duck to water.  You read everything you see, and scour our shelves for new books, and delight in the library at school.   You love narrative, and you love when we read to you.  James and the Giant Peach, Cherry Ames, Desperaux, and the Bobbsey Twins have been so fun to discover and rediscover through your eyes.  All of this reading is thrilling for your dad and me.   It is a pleasure you will never tire of, and one that will enrich your life immeasurably.   

You can swim!  For you, getting into the water was not as easy as getting into a book, but true to your strong self, you tried and tried.  This year, you not only shed your "floaty suit," but you also managed to get your face in the water.   And then at your lesson this Thursday, you swam real strokes, face in the water, no floaty needed.   Better yet, you wanted to stay and swim and swim and swim!  Oh dear girl, you are proving to yourself you can do anything you set your mind to.  We are so proud of you!

This September, you stood up to your fear of meeting new children, and you strode bravely into school.   Again and again, you proved to yourself and all of us around you how grown-up you are, how caring and outgoing and wise you are.  You not only made friends with all of the kids in your class, but you've become known as a go-to gal, a real friend.  You help G. with his shoelaces and N. with his rowdy behavior.   You comfort friends like G. when she is sad.  When E. was rude to you on the playground, you stood up for yourself, strongly and politely , saying "I will speak to you when you apologize, E."  E apologized, and you forgave her easily, explaining to me, "E just had a rough day. She won't act like that to me again."  And you were right.   Your generosity extends beyond your forgiveness, too.    If you have something nice, you love to give it to someone else, too.  You share your snacks and bring treats and pictures for friends (and their dogs, sometimes too).  

There are a million other things you have shown us in the past year  Here are a few more:

• You care for creatures smaller than yourself.  We were impressed with how you cared for your pets, the snails.
  
• You can take amazing photos.  You already know how to share your beautiful viewpoint with the world!
  
• You are brave!  With school, with swimming, with trying things new.  This year you were brave enough to talk to Santa.
  
• You are responsible.  You can get yourself ready each morning, including brushing teeth and putting on a headband!  
  
• You take a commitment seriously.  You get to work on your homework first thing, even on a playdate.  You know that when the work is done, you will be free to play.
  

Ada, you are a wonderful girl, and once again, you have given us a wonderful year.  Your daddy and I know that each year will bring you closer to adulthood, and those years seem to trip away at an ever-accelerating speed.  I remind myself all the time to stop and feel how much beauty you bring to my world and to everyone you meet.  

love, Mommy

A long Christmas post for a long Christmas season. Part 2

I will start by saying that there is no tragedy here. I didn’t fall out of the attic hatch, I didn’t get freeze or starve up there. The “adventure” was over before it started. Still—the memory stays with me for a reason.

I was always a good climber. Family legend says that when I was 11 months old, I was found on top of a Danish credenza/bookshelf at the dizzying height of 6 ft. According to the story, my mom plucked me off the highest shelf just as the whole thing was beginning to sway.
As a toddler, I was into countless things tucked safely into the tallest kitchen cabinets, and as a kid I routinely climbed trees all over our neighborhood. Even now, as we were building our current house, I climbed the chimney several times to sit in the top rafters of the attic and look down at the site. This is all a long way of saying I’m not afraid of heights.

But that December day, as I peered over the attic frame, I did feel a bit dizzy. I was giddy with defiance, then unexpectedly struck with a sudden lack of confidence. I had no idea what I was doing, and the clock was ticking—my parents would be home soon. The plans I had thought of so carefully before went from building a tower to the end result of dazzling decorations perfectly placed all over the house. As for the middle—nothing. I was in the middle of the plan, now, and as I realized its failure, I felt the kind of eight-year-old shame that makes you hang your head with tears. That’s what I did, up there in the attic.

Through my tears, I came up with the unsatisfying idea of tossing the boxes down. This plan I modified when I saw I could use the twine on a few of the boxes to sort of dangle it down through the hatch. It didn’t reach the floor below exactly, but it was better than an 8-foot drop. This I did, with the two boxes that had twine. With the other three, I took my chances and just let them drop. One of them made a crunchy rattle on impact, and my confidence dropped further.

Finally, I took a deep breath and thought about getting down myself. In dangling the boxes, I had hit the tower of books and stools, and it tilted even more precariously. The stool had slid completely off the stack, and to even reach the phonebooks, I was going to have to hang by my fingers.

Climbing down the tower was less a climb than it was a decelerated slide down books and leather. Once I had the momentum started of launching myself down and backwards through the hatch, my toes hit the books, which slid, and I was pulled down with the remains of the tower. I ended up on the floor between a twine-tied box and the Danish stool, my legs splayed out on the phonebooks.

I wanted to rest and let my hands stop shaking, but I had wasted too much time already. I did my best to weed through the tissues and twine and shattered glass ornaments (yes, there were many). I found my most beloved ornaments—thickly-scented candles molded into Santas, snowmen, and angels. These I set ceremonially around the room. Using the broom handle as a lifting pole, I nudged the macramé Santa onto its hook in the living room, the macramé snowman onto the front door. The red felt stockings I hung on the mantel, making sure our gold rick-racked names were all facing the right direction.

To my dismay, I realized I hadn’t gotten the aluminum tree down. The now-dissolved tower of books just made me mad, now, and I was too tired to try to go back up. I made do by pulling out my favorite tree ornaments, plastic bears and reindeer, Santas and snowmen, each flocked in fake snow, or fur, or both. I propped these beauties up among the candles on the stereo, making sure the Santas, snowmen, and reindeer were properly mingled with each other in the right combinations.

As I recall, I was in the middle of this very particular arranging when my parents came home. Of course, it had been my intention to have it finished by the time they came home, but I thought it was close enough to done that I shouted, “Surprise!”

Surprise doesn’t begin to describe what they must have felt. Here are my parents, the very definition of harried. Here is me, a bouncy eight-year old in the thick of “decorating” and “helping.”
At that moment in time, our worlds and values were galaxies apart.

I will preface this by saying that my parents are good people, kind people, and they loved me. Poor and just starting a business, they were also were struggling to keep our family in clothes and food. That year in particular they were so burdened with work that they must have dreamed of simply skipping Christmas altogether, with all the work involved with cleaning and taking out and putting away, preparing and planning. I’m sure they saw the Christmas season as one more thing to do on a long, joyless list of chores.
I, on the other hand, was a dreamy little girl, single-minded, and lonely. I wished I could always have the magic of the Christmas season, with all its shininess and possibility. How could Christmas be a burden?

You know what happens in this part of the story, the part where my parents enter the room. As in some fairy tale, the “beauty” of the scene was visible only to my eight-year-old eyes. Far from noticing the magical ornaments and the Christmas possibility they brought, my parents saw instead the flaws in my plan—the broken ornaments, the candles on the dusty mantel and tables, the pile of books and stools, boxes, twine and tissue. They were furious at me for climbing on furniture and irritated that the open attic hatch was leaking all the cold air out. They were angry about the extra mess I had caused and the work it would take to put it back. Mostly, they were baffled about why I would do such a senseless thing. “What was the big idea?” they asked.

I don’t remember what I told them. In fact, my memory of that afternoon is vivid, but only up until the time my mom and dad returned. I have little memory of what happened after that. I imagined I was punished. I imagine there was yelling. I imagine I probably helped put away some of the mess. But how I explained my big idea? I have no idea.

So let me tell you now what I might not have been able to say then.

The big idea was this: I loved Christmas with my family. That day was the most special day in the world to me. I loved spending the day with my mom and dad at home, playing with the toys I received, eating the food they cooked together. It was the single day of the year they did not work, and it was one of the only meals we ate together at home. The hush that fell over the house when there was only fun to do was magic.
Eight-year-old Kirie believed that that magic came from the trappings of Christmas. The ornaments, candles, shiny trees and carols—the power was there, and I longed to bring it out from the attic boxes and into my house. I wanted the calm, and the togetherness, and the possibility, and in my child’s mind, I associated those things with the flocked snowmen and macramé Santas.
To get this feeling then, to feel in control of my world and able to harness such special power—of course I would risk a climb to the attic. Looking back, I would have risked much worse, I believe.



Now I am a grownup, and with my own family, we celebrate Christmas all December. I notice each year that I am filled with an excitement similar to what I used to feel as a child. I notice also that am still trying to untangle some of the childlike associations I’ve made over the years. I still grapple with how I might best control my environment and bring calm and peace to my family. I am working on letting go of that need to control things outside of myself. Even as I realize this, I know that my letting go brings a peace in itself.

These are some of the things I think about as Christmas comes. Of course, there is the magic that the symbols bring—and I see it played out again on the faces of Ada and Esme when they play with the elves and toys in their Santa house. Their smiles light the room when they dance with the same flocked tree ornaments I used to play with. “Christmas is like magic,” Ada says.

I’m letting them feel the magic, and I’m also going to keep pointing out that it’s coming not from outside, but from us ourselves. The decorations are fun, the glittery things are pretty, but the real beauty is in the calm we feel together. Now when we put out the decorations, that is what I focus on.

Thanks for indulging one of my Christmas memories....Kirie