Hearts At HomeOur topic this month is "No More Perfect Holidays". Most appropriate seeing as how we are fast approaching what I lovingly refer to as the "Holiday Hyper-Drive". You know what I am talking about. That time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, where no matter how hard you have tried to shop ahead, plan ahead and schedule margin into you schedule, everything seems to speed up and run at the speed of light (Christmas lights that is). Last you looked, you still had 30 days til Christmas, plenty of time to decorate the house, bake cookies, shop for presents and wrap, then you blink and you only have a few days and it looks like Santa's Workshop vomited all over your whole house.
I admit I have dreamed about the "perfect" holiday. In my mind it looks like the house beautifully decorated, clean, neat and organized, time to bake lots of Christmas cookies and make some thoughtful homemade gifts, presents under the tree with pretty bows, lights on the house, attending Christmas parties and, of course, spending quality time with my family making warm holiday memories. What really makes it all "perfect" is that I am able to gracefully navigate all the events and activities while remaining stress-free and looking cute! Then I wake up.
Honestly though, looking back, the holidays I remember are the ones where things were not perfect. Like the year we had an ice storm and there was no power when my son was only 3 months old. There was the year my oldest daughter spent Christmas morning alternating between unwrapping presents and vomiting. Then there was New Year's Eve when my son clogged the upstairs toilet and it overflowed. Water was cascading down the dining room chandelier onto the table set with crystal and china for our dinning party in an hour. The next year my daughter fell and broke her arm while I was in the shower with shampoo in my hair. I told my son she would have to wait a minute.
Looking forward to this holiday season, I don't want a crisis to remember (nobody does), but I do want to remember what is really important. When you look at the word "perfect" in the Bible, it really means completion, something that is mature, integrity, wholeness, authenticity, consistency. So a perfect holiday would be one that is real and authentic. I want to bake cookies because I enjoy it and I want to spend time with my kids, not because other people expect me to. If I get a little sleep deprived and cranky, it is okay, and I should be kind to myself. The holidays are times where ordinary moments like sharing a meal, reading a story, tossing reindeer food, giving gifts, and spending time with friends become special memories. I want to embrace the whole holiday season and be okay when things don't go the way I expected or look the way other people want.
Maybe I'm still dreaming, but don't pinch me yet. I'm enjoying the vision of frazzled hair, flour on the counters, dog hair on the floor and happy kids surrounded by piles of wrapping paper.
