Avoiding the Christmas crash

Day after Christmas - presents unwrapped, children cranky and bored, too much rich food eaten, tired and depressed, feels like the flu is coming on. Anyone else experience "Christmas crash"?

In a way, this is all tied in to the spiritual path I find myself on these days. It's December - supposedly "the most wonderful time of the year". A time when the world-at-large tells us we should be "decking the halls" and "rockin' around the Christmas tree". But I imagine I am not the only person who, as merchants and advertisers get louder and more obnoxious each year about hawking their wares - who wishes that the whole commercialized end of the business would disappear for good. Who wonders if perhaps those few unusual folks who book their Caribbean cruise to escape the whole thing have the right idea.

As a little girl, I was crazy about everything Christmas. It was also my Dad's favorite time of the year, so I got to spend extra time with him working on Christmas stuff. But I was an only child, my mom a SAHM, and my dad was home by 6pm every night. And we lived in a small suburb of a small-ish city. Pretty much everything we needed was no more than a 10 minute car ride away.

Fast forward to today - I am a SAHM of 3 children (all school age). My two sons have special needs. My husband, a music/orchestra teacher, has a holiday concert week next week. Four concerts - one each Mon. through Thurs. For us, it will be like he's on a week long business trip. Except he will sleep at home. The oldest celebrates his birthday on Monday, and has his own holiday concert the Monday after. We are a very, very busy family and we live in very, very busy area (metro DC).

I began to realize a few years ago, that if I wanted to keep my health and sanity intact, I needed to pull back from what is "expected" at the holidays. A dear friend compartmentalizes them into Christ-mass (celebration of the Holy) and X-mess (the commercialized end of the season). I know I am not the only one who wonders if we would *all* be better off without the X-mess. I mean really - just think about the many, many things that may be on a person's to-do list at the holidays (and it wouldn't matter much your religious persuasion as the whole country gets caught up in it).

1. Decorating the house
2. Writing holiday cards
3. Buying presents
4. Holiday baking, meal-planning (with accompanying extra trips to grocery store)
5. Holiday photos
6. Parties of all sorts (school, work, social)
7. Holiday performances (for those who sing, play, or dance)
8. Extra charitable work (for scouts or religious organizations)
9. Extra services, programs, and projects for church, temple, etc.
10. Visiting far-flung family (packing to travel, or major cleaning to entertain, or
both!

And....that's just the short list. Add in people with December birthdays, single parent families, a bad economy, traffic snarls, short tempers, skeletons in family closets, and flu season - well, someone ought to make a disaster movie out of the whole thing!

I don't think it matters if you celebrate Christ's birth, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or the winter solstice. Does any of us really need or want this craziness any more? Am I the only one who finds advertisements for thousand dollar laptops, giant flat screen tv's and cars wearing giant red bows insulting?

Well, regardless of whether anyone else does, I've decided that *I* do. And I'm doing something about - by doing less - a lot less. I'm doing the things that are necessary and important to our family.

For example:

1. I will bake my Grandma's homemade chocolate cake for Chris' birthday, and have a small family celebration. Christmas cookie baking optional.

2. I will not feel guilty about not sending Christmas cards - I don't enjoy doing them, and they take up too much time.

3. Holiday concerts will be attended (and conducted, in Brian's case). It's his paycheck and my son's grade.

4. Church will be attended on Sunday only - no Christmas programs, no choir, no special events - exception made for Christmas Eve (if such service is planned).

5. No holiday over-spending. Cash only, within budget. Extended family will have to live with that.

6. Christmas day meals will consist of Special Holiday Breakfast (usually special egg strata with cinnamon buns or some such) and chicken and waffles for dinner. Get your own lunch. Mom is neither Paula Deen nor Martha Stewart. (And since Mom will be starting holiday packing preparations on Christmas night, Mom needs energy to do so.)

7. Holiday decorations will consist of those things which are easy and make sense. One Christmas tree will be decorated. One door decoration will be hung. All other decorations (outside lights, etc.) are on an optional, as-time-permits basis.

8. Holiday preparations will *not* be made at the expense of sleep, meals, or sanity of either parents or children.

9. Time will be made for quiet reflection and family togetherness.

And, maybe those of us with a religious bent - I can only speak for Christians, but perhaps other have this too - should implore our churches, etc. to not add to the burden. I can't tell you how many years I have spent wearing myself out "in the service of Christ" at the holidays. Choir rehearsals, drama rehearsals, dinners, service projects, toy and clothing drives, Sunday school productions, parties, evangelism outreach, extra services. Countless Christmases (and Easters) I've spent sick and/or with laryngitis from singing 2-3 holiday productions a day. In the service of Christ (or so we say.) Perhaps we (and our neighbors) would be better off if we stopped contributing to the craziness and ministered to our families and the poor and lonely at the holidays - and skipped the glitz and glitter.

Me, I'll be at home, quietly lighting candles and contemplating a Light in the darkness...

December mishmash

I've been telling my friends and family lately than I've only got 2 brain cells functioning right now, and sometimes one of them is sleeping. This is making it difficult to finish anything - a project, a task, a thought. Or a post. I've started and not finished half a dozen posts in the last week or so, and since I can't seem to write a few coherent paragraphs on any one topic I'm posting a mishmash of all the various topics that have buzzed around my brain this last week.

1. I've been preparing for #1 Son's birthday this week. I try really hard to make sure his mid-December birthday doesn't get swallowed up by Christmas or Christmas-ized (i.e. wrap his presents in Christmas paper or "combine" the 2 because it's easier). It kind of makes my world topsy-turvy trying to accomplish this but then, he's made my world topsy-turvy from the minute my water broke at 4:30 AM four and a half weeks before his due date. From the moment of his impending birth this child has defied and scrambled our expectations. Too smart for his own good (and ours!) he's a musical genius with the memory of an elephant, currently obsessed with fighting "baddies" on his video games and voraciously reads Calvin and Hobbs. He can remember an incident that happened 4 years ago in perfect detail, has perfect pitch and the ability to transpose music, but is unable to get himself ready for school without intervention. Parenting this child is like trying to fly an aircraft by trial and error. We crash and burn a lot.

2. My dad passed away four years ago this coming January. The last time I saw him was Christmas of 2004. I've been thinking about him a lot this year. It's funny the things you remember about someone after they're gone.

My dad loved Christmas, everything about it. But Christmas always brought on the one and only fight I ever remember my parents having. It was an annual fight. The Annual Christmas Tree Fight. All other times of the year, in all other situations, my folks may have disagreed or sniped at each other in vague mutters, but the Annual Christmas Tree Fight became legendary in our family. That's because my mom wanted the Christmas tree to be as Easy as Possible, while my dad wanted it to be as Traditional as Possible. Given her druthers, mom would have been perfectly satisfied with a little, even (gasp!) artificial table tree. Dad wanted the biggest, bushiest, Christmasy-looking tree that could possibly fit in our living room. Of course, I sided with Dad.

Daddy wanted to go to the nearest place, find the first tree that fit the bill no matter the cost, and go home, mission accomplished. Mom wanted to look over every tree, agonize, and bargain hunt. NOT a good combination. Especially when 3 out of 4 years our Christmas tree shopping day turned out to be the coldest, windiest day of the season (sometimes it snowed). So what usually happened was Daddy and I picked the "perfect" tree, Mom pronounced it "too expensive" or "too tall" or both, and then we all walked around looking for a "runner-up" but usually ended up coming back to the first one when Daddy complained that he was starting to freeze solid.

Then he would wrestle the huge tree into the trunk of the car, tie it down, and cautiously drive home. Once home, Mom would get to gloat silently (or not so) as Daddy swore at the tree that was too big to fit through the door, too big to fit in the tree stand, and nearly too tall for the ceiling. Ah, Christmas memories.....

Daddy and I would labor over putting the lights on just right, Mom and I would decorate it, and then we'd all congratulate ourselves on the beautiful tree that "we" had picked out.

3. My 5 year old daughter is currently obsessed with My Little Pony. She has begged for the big Pinkie Pie stuffed pony since summer. (Santa was smart and went shopping in September and hid it away.) I just found out that my friend D is using the two Pinkie Pie ponies she got for her granddaughters as props for our Christmas drama at church. Which Charlotte and I are in. You parents see what's coming don't you? Ay yi.....

Well, time for me to go and bake a birthday cake.