Here it is! The countdown is over. The anticipation, the hard work of shopping, planning, wrapping, fixing a feast, concerts one after another, baking, putting up decorations (including over a hundred nativity sets), setting the holiday table for family dinner–it’s all culminated in today.
For me, while I enjoy all the activity, it is stressful. This year, I realized last night, I have been “pushed, shoved, replaced, put into the role of observer) as I watch my daughter make five different cookie reciples, a ginger cake, the Baby Jesus Cake, and meal after meal. So what did I have to stress over?
I guess it’s the feeling that as homemaker for fifty-four years, it’s always been my responsibility–actually my joy–to “do it all!” I was choir director (three services on Christmas Eve), mother (plan, buy, wrap, and watch present opening, and then see the drama) and now grandmother, hoping not to overshadow Kaley and Emily’s parents, but indulging in “just one more gift” or saying to myself, “Emily wants to be an architect: just one more book about design, or just one more saved cardboard piece for her to use to build something) or find just the right books for Kaley.
Slowly but surely, Papa and I will relinquish our “in charge” roles and become the doddering old folks our grandparents were. We’ll nod (perhaps asleep), we’ll miss much of the converation (hard of hearing), we’ll not understand all the technology stuff (yet we taught them how to hold a spoon–it took great patience to teach table manners– or we’ll not be able to chase the frisbee or roller skate. Our role is to be the observers, the laps to sit on, or the ones to show enthusiasm when we’re shown their favorite gifts. Sometimes we have to ask why a stress ball is so important.
And alfter all the clutter, confusion, dirty dishes, and discarded wrappings, everyone will leave, and for just a few moments, we’ll slump our shoulders and miss it all as we settle back into our recliners, put our weary feet up, and take a nap.
What’s it like at your house? Do you eagerly look forward to the new year, or do you wish things moved just a little slower, longing for the “good old days” when life was indeed, in our memories only, was just a little simpler. It wasn’t. So many of those years, there were wars. Then it was Islamic terrorism. Then it was 18% inflation. Then we stretched dollars a whole lot better than today’s people do. We knew wants, needs, and forgot about frills. Yes, there was an orange in the stocking. Yes, we got the pair of shoes to replace the ones that stabbed our toes and needed polishing every Saturday night. We delighted in the Saturday Evening Post covers and wondered who would be Time magazine’s Man of the Year. None of this gender stuff. Certainly not arguments over Woke pronouns. No open borders. No madness. Really?
With that, Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanza. Happy Holidays, or whatever wishes you may accept as possibilities this year. Happy and Merry may not be possible, but we can still hope, right?
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