Moms, t-minus 5 days until Christmas. How are you hanging in there? If you’re anything like me, you’ve decided now would be a good time to declutter/purge every room in your house while simultaneously baking goodies, wrapping all the presents, trying to get a good family Christmas photo, and making sure everyone has a decent festive outfit to wear to parties. It’s maddening and feels extra silly this year as we are only seeing our immediate families.
Over the years, the holiday season has become a high point of anxiety and stress for me. So much so that I’ve started shopping as early as October, priding myself in being done with all the shopping, wrapping, and grocery shopping weeks before Christmas. In my head, I know none of this is the true meaning of Christmas, nor is it what I remember about my magical childhood Christmases. This year we have an infant. One who needs a lot of attention and care. There have been countless times this weekend I’ve had to stop what I was doing to feed Bray, give him some extra love, pump (what I’m doing now) or rock his sweet self for the 10th time before going down for a nap. Sometimes it feels frustrating. During a feed earlier this morning I was watching an Instagram TV by Lindsay’s Letters. Her message was so timely. She suggested we stop doing things 100% all of the time and pointed out more times than not, people aren’t going to notice whether you do something 75% or 100%. She gave the examples of making her own bows and gift tags, piping butter on plates to look fancy for rolls, and contouring makeup before family get togethers. She realized stick on bows work just as well, butter looks just as good in a nice dish (or the tub if you ask me) and she doesn’t look all that different whether she gets ready for 5 minutes or 30. It seems obvious and simple but so so against my achievement-fueled mindset. But it really hit me as I’m holding my 3 month old babe: my presence and full attention is all the presents he needs. He has 0 concept of Christmas. His handful of gifts can be placed in his stocking unwrapped and it literally would not change his Christmas Day one bit. For my olders, they won’t care if all their presents are wrapped in the same paper using packaging tape because I ran out of Scotch or if I wrap them beautifully with different kinds of papers and embellishments. So in order to be the best mom I can be this season, which for me means being more present, I’m trying to give myself the gift of imperfection (shallows hard as I just cringed through gingerbread decorating with my kids and attempted a Christmas photo earlier today). Claiming “recovering perfectionist in the making” for 2021. The things I really love to do I’m going to go 100%. We are going to have great snacks and terrible meals. The most thoughtful gifts without the best packaging. Writing more and proofreading less. A messy house with the true meaning of Christmas resounding in our home, piercing through all of the chaos and hurt of 2020. And probably one attempt at a really great matching pj picture too. Whatever brings you the gifts of this season-peace, joy, good news, go 100.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Author
Hi! I'm Haley. Archives
May 2019
Categories |