Happy Holiday Memories

On Saturday we decorated our house for Christmas. The lights went up, we trimmed the tree, we hung stockings and we set up the nativity scene. We played holiday music and lit candles in the fireplace. Hannah was front and centre through it all, loving every minute. She helped her dad outside, she acted out little scenes with the nativity, she created ornament tableaux. Preschoolers and Christmas are a match made in heaven.

Jon hung the lights outside, and then came indoors and held Jacob so that Hannah and I could decorate inside the house. And the cat, well she just sat on a shelf beside the tree and ate her fill of plastic pine needles. If anyone prefers a fake tree to the real thing it’s Dorothy.

My great grandma, in front of the Christmas tree

So what about me? Where was I? Stringing garlands, yelling at Hannah to please put that down, picking up broken Christmas ornaments and moaning about how it wasn’t fun anymore, that’s where. About 45 minutes in our entire house looked as if a bomb had gone off, the work wasn’t finished, and Hannah was taking ornaments off the tree. Jacob started crying, needing me, and I was so finished with it all. I looked at Jon in exasperation and wailed that I was trying to create happy holiday memories and failing miserably.

My mom talking to Santa

My husband can be very wise when the situation calls for it. He asked me if I really thought that holidays in my childhood were any different. Didn’t I remember the stress and the bluster of Christmas? How the adults never seemed to be enjoying themselves quite like the kids? The boxes of wine that were consumed to keep everyone sane?

Jon visiting with Santa

I did remember. In fact, my mind traveled back to one Christmas in particular. My sister and I were teenagers, and we were living in our little house on the hill. We made a grand trek to get this giant tree, and when we got it home it didn’t fit the old tree stand. We tried to saw it and shave it down but it just didn’t work. After spending forever wrestling with the thing and getting nowhere my mother threw the stand down the hill, crying and spewing forth sanitized expletives of the kind you say in front of children. Like ‘For the love of Mike’ or ‘Hocus pick’ or ‘Son of a birdbath’. It was probably her lowest holiday moment. But the thing is, it’s now one of my funniest memories. Eventually we bought a skookum new stand and Christmas was saved, no lasting harm done.

Amber, Gretchen, and our cousin Kevin visiting Grandma and Grandpa Krause

After my walk down memory lane I felt much better. And not only because I hadn’t thrown anything yet. I realized that trying to get all this stuff done can be very stressful. Making the magic happen isn’t always so magical. But that’s not what I remember about Christmas when I was a kid. I remember the good stuff. And even the not-so-good stuff isn’t so bad in my memory. It’s dwarfed by things like Christmas cookies and caroling and scanning the skies for Rudolph’s nose. Or it’s a funny and enduring family joke – at least Mom hasn’t thrown the Christmas tree stand yet!

Hannah in a lighter moment after the Christmas pageant

Once I let go of the guilt and the fear and the false expectations, things got easier. I am not a perfect mother and things don’t always work out in the way I would like them to. Stuff breaks, I raise my voice, the cat barfs because plastic pine needles disagree with her digestive tract. That’s my life. But I actually sort of love it, at least most of the time. And I have some confidence that my kids will remember the good stuff and gloss over the bad stuff just as I did.

I’ve loaded some more photos of our happy holiday memories-in-the-making in the gallery. You can see them for yourself here.