Ah Katie … this one really resounded with me. Last year was sort of the apex of the entire thing … I wanted SO badly for everyone to be decorating the tree together with exactly *this* Christmas music and exactly *that* accompanying food and drink and so forth … and it started to fall apart when we had technical difficulties with the music, and the teenagers were playing with their phones, and someone admitted they had never liked eggnog. I was so disappointed in everyone (and in myself for not having somehow *willed* them to be as into it and cooperative as I needed them to be) that I ended up going outside and crying. (that was a crazy year — we had just begun taking care of my dad, and my husband had just left us, and it was SO important to me to make things not just normal, but totally awesome in the face of these two life-altering sucktastic developments)

This year I just did it all myself. I’m the one who digs it, anyways. It took a little longer, but I enjoyed it and it gave me some nice quiet time to think and reflect (yes, once again I had technical difficulties with the music).

Merry Christmas!

Welp, I was so tired of wresting with tangled lights (you know, the ones I really try to put away so that they wont tangle), that I told my oldest, “YOU do the lights. I’ll be back when you are finished.” He conquered them in about 30 minutes, and we all proceeded with ornaments. . . . :) Yeah, go with the flow, Katie. It’s a lot more relaxing that way.

My parents, also, did all they could to make Christmas magical. All the gifts magically appeared under the tree Christmas morning and there were LOTS of them. I am the oldest of five children and my dad’s teaching salary did not always stretch as far as my parents might have liked. However, you would never know there was any penny-pinching on Christmas morning as we were well treated. We may not have received everything we asked for, but we always were gifted with many special presents. My parents tended to mostly shop for us just on Christmas and our birthdays so Santa provided most of our toys and clothing. The religious observances of the holidays were also very important.

As we grew older and left home Christmas traditions became more challenging. Christmas had taken on such significance but it was sometimes hard to blend our family traditions with the expectations of employers, new in-laws and relatives let alone sleep schedules of newborns, cranky toddlers, etc. I think it was hard on my mom to be flexible with her visions of Christmas that were sometimes difficult to realize and her intractability resulted at times in a less joyous occasion.

Now that my mom is gone, Christmas brings back so many memories — both happy and sad. I, too, tried to create a wonderful celebration for my children and believe I succeeded. However, now that my children are entering adulthood, I am trying to remember change will be inevitable and I hope I can make the best of it.

This is called “sucking the fun out of _________” (in this case, Christmas). Good for you for letting go!

Peekytoe – I definitely do NOT want to be the mother or grandmother whose rigid insistence on how the holiday traditions must take place becomes something that drives family away. Thanks for the reminder. – Katie

My brother’s family alternates Christmas/ Thanksgiving with us. They live several states away. We treasure the time together. I love our new Thanksgiving/ Christmas tradition. The whole family joins us on Black Friday. We are not shoppers that day. We decorate! We ready the tree, hang the lights, make the cookie dough, play wii, eat crap junk food out of the pantry (I’m working on the house, not cooking!), and just hang out. My 12 yr old niece takes great pride in hanging the paper plate decoration she made me when she was 3 in the upstairs bathroom, same place, every year. Lord love a styrofoam plate and yarn wreath, made with love! It’s all to gear up for the party the next day.

That Saturday, we invite the grandparents. My mom and dad are divorced. This is a BFD. The kids hang the ornaments faster than my husband and I can unwrap them. I have everything ready because they like to trim the tree marathon style. I’m surprised my nephew doesn’t use a stop watch and chart year over year time. When we’re dove it is the sloppiest damn tree you ever saw, and I love it. My husband and I rehang ornaments later that week. I fear the branch won’t hold 6 ornaments all season. ;)

Then we eat and exchange gifts. I used to make a “holiday meal”. Screw that – I want family time. Our new tradition is soup, a nice salad and a sandwich tray, all made in advance. The wine and conversation flows. Then we decorate cookies for dessert. I noticed only 60% made it to the tray. Their mouths had evidence of icing rings. And I loved it.

I find the joy in the imperfect moments. Slow down, and soak it up. Your kiddies favorite memory may very well be the dog pile on the couch, watching you decorate and make the house festive for them. Those are the real moments.

Happy holidays, Katie! Take time to join the tater tots on the couch. It’s good stuff.

Katie, just that fact that you wrote this says you are self-aware enough NOT to become that mother/grandmother. Invariably with my mom, something would go “wrong” or someone who was sick of the “show” would snap and my mom would end up in tears, usually in her bedroom with one of us coaxing her out again. Talk about putting a damper on things. My mom had a very hard childhood, but some nice memories of Christmas when people showed kindness to her and has childlike wonder about Christmas but along with that can be rigid and well, childlike. She wants everything to be perfect. By the time she’s got everything “perfect” the fun has long gone. We’ve tried everything to get her to relax and just enjoy the holidays but it’s not going to happen. We’re used to it and are getting better about understanding and trying to make sure that everyone enjoys themselves–especially our mom/grandma.

I have let go slowly but surely…didn’t do cards last year…bought a ..gulp..artificial tree..this year. Bad mommy. But we moved over the summer to a bigger house, and that means more room for the kids to have sleep overs, and less money for Christmas.

Can I just say YES to this? YES. Yes to being spontaneously relaxed during the holidays!

My mother had a hard childhood growing up, and the holidays always highlighted her family’s dysfunction. One of the reasons she fell in love with my father, she says, was that she loved the way his huge extended Italian family did Christmas, especially Christmas Eve. When I was growing up, she decided that our holidays must be PERFECT with a truly overwhelming amount of presents and everything just so… except… she frequently got stressed out by the strain of making everything perfect and was so very, very disappointed if we didn’t give exactly the “right” (joyful! grateful! enthusiastic! never sleepy or tired or ove like normal children) responses to every gift.

Honest to goodness, to this day, I freeze up when opening presents. I get so worried that I won’t give the “right” reaction that when I’m truly happy with a gift, I go non-reactive. My fear of opening gifts “wrong” is so strong that I dreaded my bridal shower to the point that my sister wrapped up tissue boxes and cereal boxes for me to “practice” before the shower. Not good. To this day, I wish my mom would be self-aware enough to realize that walking on eggshells around her makes the holidays so much less picture perfect than they would be if she would just stop sweating the small stuff.

Of course, I can’t wait to start hosting the holidays in my own home with visions of all the ways I want to do it better than my mom. I am so much like her in so many ways. I don’t have kids yet, but when I do, I am going to try so hard to unclench. Good on you for realizing it.

Good for you, Katie! Even though I’m not a mom yet, I can get a little crazed about holiday “traditions” instead of just cooling my jets and enjoying the moment. Thanks so much for writing this post. My MIL is rather unpleasant this time of year because of her desire to create the “perfect” Christmas with traditions that are rigid and don’t reflect our changing family. I always thought it was just because she’s overbearing in general and must enjoy being a pain in the @$$. But after reading your post, I think Christmas also represents her aspirations as a mother….trying to keep it all together as her babies fly away from the nest. She’s been better this year but it’s nice to have some insight and understanding into what’s really going on.

This year, even though my hUsband and I have the whole week off, our kids will be doing two full days of preschool the week after Christmas. This is our gift to each other. Last weekend my son and I were sick in bed so dad and daughter did the tree. It’s okay though cause we sick people got to spend all day reading in bed. None of this actually makes sense… I am just one working mom who is trying to stop over compensating.

Happy holidays to all of us tired moms!

Katie, as your kids get older, one thing to think about: my husband and I no longer go to his parents’ house on Christmas day because his mother’s expectations make the holiday miserable. Nobody wants to feel like the prop in their mother-in-law’s Norman Rockwell tableau, and since my MIL insists on dictating exactly what specific roles each of her children and their spouses will play, we simply don’t spend the holidays with them. If you want to have your family together, let them enjoy the holiday how they wish instead of how you think it ought to go.