Here’s a post I wrote when I was newly pregnant with Elsie and Ivar was just over a year old. I was so sick that Christmas and even though I had brought the Christmas decorations up the stairs, barely anything got unpacked. After December was over, we just moved those boxes right back down the stairs again. This is what I wrote back in December 2011.
Now this thought I’m about to share isn’t totally new to me. I’ve felt it since Ivar was born, but this Christmas it became quite pronounced. This year I hardly decorated, cookies made me nauseous and we didn’t have any snow. It was an odd Christmas to be sure. But it made something very obvious: If I don’t decorate, the house doesn’t get decorated. If I don’t bake, we don’t nibble and munch all season. If I don’t make my house merry and bright, December can slip by like any other month. I am the magic maker.
I get really nostalgic for Christmases in the past. But what I’m realizing is the ones I am dreaming about are the Christmases where I merely took in the magic. The ones where somehow it all got done. Someone mysterious was doing all the gift purchasing and then wrapping those gifts into the wee hours behind a locked bedroom door. Someone else bustled in the kitchen for our ham and hot fruit and creamy potatoes. Someone else did all of the organizing of company, planning of special festive outings, decorating and party planning.
Turns out, my mom was busting her hiney every December. My mom was making the magic. And I’m just realizing this now, at age 30.
I mean, I knew it, I just didn’t really know how much work it entailed.
It’s a big responsibility! My sister-in-law Lisa told me that at some point the week before Christmas it dawned on her that she simply was not going to get it all done. She knew it days before execution. There just wasn’t enough time. And so after Christmas dinner, Lisa disappeared and wrapped the presents we were about to open just moments later. She was doing her magic, you see.
So to all the mom’s who met each other at Walmart late at night, to all the mom’s who ran to the corner store for another pound of butter and some more vanilla, to all the mom’s who got out all of the Christmas decorations and now are staring at them hoping they’ll put themselves away, I guess I just want to say, You’re magical.
And it is worth it. All the love and attention to detail my mom poured into my childhood Christmases were not lost on me. And now it’s what I’ll strive for with my own kids. Starting next year. When smells are lovely again and feeding my son lunch doesn’t take every ounce of energy I have. But look out Christmas 2012. I’ll be back. And I’ll be magical.
