Being a Mom at Christmas



My parents and all the grandkids last year

 I saw a quote recently that said there are four stages in life:
1)  You believe in Santa Claus
2)  You don't believe in Santa Claus
3)  You are Santa Claus
4)  You look like Santa Claus

This year I'm entering the third stage of life - somewhat late for my age group, but I can feel the baton passing nonetheless.  It's definitely a fun stage, but it is also kind of exhausting.  When I was a kid, it felt like the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas felt like it was endless!  Now I feel like I barely get through Thanksgiving before it's time to haul all the Christmas stuff out and then something like three days pass and I'm supposed to get all the gifts, wrap them, make the house look cute, go out to parties, send out cards, make neighbor gifts and then box everything back up in the attic for next year.  I don't do so well on such a tight deadline.

I'm exaggerating, of course.  As I get older though, I recognize the sincere and often thankless effort my mom put in to Christmas to make it magical for us growing up.  My mom was always one to come up with some really time-consuming Christmas craft or project to give herself for the week between Thanksgiving and December 1.  One year, it was baking 24 little gingerbread cookies for all the girls in my brownie troop (something like 30 kids) to use in a countdown calendar.  Even recently, she made quilted countdown calendars for my sisters and me...and of course, all of my cousins.  (Although I just now spotted the countdown calendar trend in her life.)  When I was in high school, she personally baked gingerbread houses for me and all my friends to decorate after a dance.  This was back before Trader Joe's offered a kit for these things.  (Although she probably would have eschewed the kit and remarked that it wasn't as good as homemade!)

My mom made sure that on Christmas morning my sisters and I all had equal numbers of gifts displayed beautifully for us in the living room, so that our initial voyage down the hall was always bursting with excitement.  She included neighbors in our Christmas Eve celebrations that we loved.  She made me and my sisters matching Christmas nightgowns.  She played Christmas music all the time on records.  Back when people used records.  I think we wore a couple of them out:  Johnny Mathis in his crazy looking ski sweater, Ray Coniff, Mitch Miller.  She put little light-up Christmas trees in our rooms so that we would have something special by our beds.  I remember she would rock us to sleep in the living room with the Christmas tree lights on and all the other lights off and we loved it because the lights would reflect in her glasses.  Isn't funny how some of those little things stand out in memory?

I hope I can make Christmas have as fun for Punkin.  I'm definitely trying, but it is a challenge!  I've got to be more organized further in advance next year.  My husband can be a little grinch-y, so sometimes it takes a lot of spirit to get the ball rolling.  The bad thing is that Christmas is always when performance reviews are going on at work, so I need to be extra focused there too!  But I've got to do better at meeting the standard of Santa.  My mom laid out the roadmap.  I just need to follow the compass.  But I might use that Trader Joe's kit instead of baking myself!  ;)