The Enough Christmas

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SCREW THE PERFECTION.

I’m struggling this year, I won’t lie.  I want desperately to feel the glorious Christmas spirit and impart some beautiful words of cheer your way today, readers, but…

This whole Christmas season I have been a beast.  In fact, it’s times like these I’m super-glad I’ve nailed my husband down with a wedding ring so he has to put up with me.  Love you, babe, xo.

I do not feel like trudging through the fourth miraculous snowstorm of the week for preschool drop-off.

I look at the ornaments from my mom on our tree and I miss her.

Hosting the annual party?  Good times, but I’m tired.

Speaking of exhaustion, whenever I try to watch a Christmas movie, I just fall asleep on the couch.  So I still haven’t seen Elf in it’s entirety this season, and that just feels horrendously wrong.  Also, and perhaps most egregious, I haven’t watched the Hallmark Channel once all season, and this is offensive to all things that define the fluffy part of myself.

The thing is, with kids, there is so much pressure as parents to make their season magical. To ice that gingerbread house, build that snowman, hang out with Santa, and slap bows on anything red or green.  It’s a lot. A lot of a lot.

While I was busy trying to convince myself the other day that my children will not require therapy for my failed efforts as a mother to provide the perfect Christmas, God sent me shot of clarity.  No, no perfect Christmases around here, nor will there ever be.  But maybe, just maybe, it is ENOUGH.  What my husband and I are doing for these kiddos is good enough.

Maybe it’s possible that they will still enjoy Christmas if the icing on the gingerbread house drips messily and the dog ate the cute gingerbread man that came with the kit.

Maybe they will just see a pretty sparkly tree and never ache for their grandma who helped decorate it.  Or maybe they will.  Either way actually seems okay.

Maybe they will somehow still “get” the true reason we celebrate the season is our Savior, even when Mommy grumbles through the icy parking lot on the way to church.

Maybe they will just see the parts that are there instead of the parts that are missing.

Maybe, even when things are off and we are so busy not getting it perfect, it will somehow be good enough and we can all still celebrate the miracle of Christ’s birth amidst the sea of shiny wrapping paper and very-likely burned baked corn.

My hope and prayer for all of us this season, dear readers, is that our Christmases, while often far from ideal, can just be ENOUGH.

I love you all and Merry Christmas, dear readers.

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Meredith

Meredith blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, In the Powder Room and BlogHer, and loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference. When she's not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting.

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