Like many moms, when our kids were little, I turned myself inside out to create the right holiday environment, whether convenient or not. Sleep, serenity and joy were sacrificed to the Gods of Christmas Perfection. A few years ago, our kids became young adults and for a while I tried vainly to keep up the charade. I felt guilty if they came home for the holidays to a half-decorated house, even while I was the full time pastor of a busy church with lots of joy and cheer to produce in that house too.
At that point fate intervened and I hit the skids literally and figuratively with successive knee and wrist accidents that made it all but impossible to cope with the holiday boxes for two to three winters in a row. No one in the house cared enough about the decorations to help me put them up or take them down, so it was increasingly ludicrous to pretend that I was doing it for them.
This year, as I have transitioned out of being the pastor of a church and my husband and I settle into what promises to be a long (and perhaps permanent) stretch with no young children in the immediate family, I find myself having fully decorated the house again.
This time it’s different.
I did it slowly over the month.
I did on full night’s sleep.
I did it without a barrel of sugared treats under one arm and resentment under the other.
And most of all, I did it for me.
Next year, who knows what I’ll do for me for Christmas?
