Those Happy, Horrible Holidays
Well, here it is, folks. The final exam of housewifery. The Grand Championship of Giving and the Pillsbury Bake-Off all rolled into one. The holiday season is upon us! Are you cute? Organized? Thrifty? Creative? Then you’re probably not reading this.
This column is for the rest of us. The brave, the proud, the many—the ones who Just Don’t Get It. The ones who’s genetic makeup does not include the ability to distinguish the color “lightly brown” through the heat waves and can’t decide why anyone ever thought it up—and so are destined to never make cookies that don’t taste like homemade charcoal. The ones who can’t ever visualize a complete meal and so always forget something critical—like turkey or the dressing, or the gravy or the plates.
The ones who can’t make neat square corners on packages and never think of anything more original than Scotch Tape to decorate with, and so every year, give presents that look like wads of wrapping paper that rattle when shaken.
The ones for whom the perfect Relief Society craft is something they can throw in the trash on the way out the door to go home-and still not feel guilty.
The ones who only see dead, dry, pine needles in carpet when they look at Christmas trees.
The ones for whom the word “should” is a battle cry to rebellion. For this truly is the season of the Great SHOULD. This is the season when, above all else, you SHOULD be jolly.
You should have all your kids presents brought by now and you should know what they wanted. The true miracle of Christmas would be if THEY actually knew what they wanted and could hold on to that concept past the next Saturday’s cartoons.
You should be thinking of the poor and needy and budgeting them in. This is something I’m really for—but talking my kids into the idea of giving up anything of ours in order to help someone else is like training an elephant to stand on a basketball. I know it can be done, I’ve seen it in the circus, but I can’t imagine how they talk them into it.
This is the season when above all, we learn to love our neighbors. This is to me a little like speaking well of the dead. You know how you sometimes feel at the funeral of the stinker? “He was a stinker before he died, and somewhere right now he’s still being a stinker.” It’s an old custom in which we deny our real feelings and go for “make believe.”
You can give out the cookies and go carol at their house, but that doesn’t mean that come December 26, you’re not going to call the police and have their car towed for parking in front of your house all winter, or let their snotty little kids anywhere near your bathroom in an emergency.
Every year I want so much for Christmas. I want us to love one another and remember the Savior’s birth. I want to do something really meaningful in the lives of the unfortunate besides contribute to this kids’ pile of useless, plastic, commercially-oriented amusement. I want Christmas to make a difference in our lives that lasts longer than it takes to eat all the Christmas stocking candy.
Tomorrow we’ll go ahead and start our usual imperfect Christmas season. For Thanksgiving, better known as Opening Day, I’ll serve our unspectacular, unmagazine photo-like dinner including the two frozen pies I bought. And we’ll muddle on through the month of December surrounded by others who are serving their kids homemade cookies that don’t have their bottoms scraped.
I’ll feel terrible because our house doesn’t look as cute as the ones on the Art Museum Home Tour, and I’ll be thinking of things I should have done right up until midnight Christmas Eve.
On Christmas morning, someone will take the annual picture of me in which my sleepless, swollen eyes make me look like someone recovering from a long fall off a high bridge.
But somewhere in the midst of all this, there will be a moment or two when we feel the spirit of it all and our hearts will truly sing “Glory to the newborn King!”
And for those few moments it will be worth whatever it takes to get there.
This column is for the rest of us. The brave, the proud, the many—the ones who Just Don’t Get It. The ones who’s genetic makeup does not include the ability to distinguish the color “lightly brown” through the heat waves and can’t decide why anyone ever thought it up—and so are destined to never make cookies that don’t taste like homemade charcoal. The ones who can’t ever visualize a complete meal and so always forget something critical—like turkey or the dressing, or the gravy or the plates.
The ones who can’t make neat square corners on packages and never think of anything more original than Scotch Tape to decorate with, and so every year, give presents that look like wads of wrapping paper that rattle when shaken.
The ones for whom the perfect Relief Society craft is something they can throw in the trash on the way out the door to go home-and still not feel guilty.
The ones who only see dead, dry, pine needles in carpet when they look at Christmas trees.
The ones for whom the word “should” is a battle cry to rebellion. For this truly is the season of the Great SHOULD. This is the season when, above all else, you SHOULD be jolly.
You should have all your kids presents brought by now and you should know what they wanted. The true miracle of Christmas would be if THEY actually knew what they wanted and could hold on to that concept past the next Saturday’s cartoons.
You should be thinking of the poor and needy and budgeting them in. This is something I’m really for—but talking my kids into the idea of giving up anything of ours in order to help someone else is like training an elephant to stand on a basketball. I know it can be done, I’ve seen it in the circus, but I can’t imagine how they talk them into it.
This is the season when above all, we learn to love our neighbors. This is to me a little like speaking well of the dead. You know how you sometimes feel at the funeral of the stinker? “He was a stinker before he died, and somewhere right now he’s still being a stinker.” It’s an old custom in which we deny our real feelings and go for “make believe.”
You can give out the cookies and go carol at their house, but that doesn’t mean that come December 26, you’re not going to call the police and have their car towed for parking in front of your house all winter, or let their snotty little kids anywhere near your bathroom in an emergency.
Every year I want so much for Christmas. I want us to love one another and remember the Savior’s birth. I want to do something really meaningful in the lives of the unfortunate besides contribute to this kids’ pile of useless, plastic, commercially-oriented amusement. I want Christmas to make a difference in our lives that lasts longer than it takes to eat all the Christmas stocking candy.
Tomorrow we’ll go ahead and start our usual imperfect Christmas season. For Thanksgiving, better known as Opening Day, I’ll serve our unspectacular, unmagazine photo-like dinner including the two frozen pies I bought. And we’ll muddle on through the month of December surrounded by others who are serving their kids homemade cookies that don’t have their bottoms scraped.
I’ll feel terrible because our house doesn’t look as cute as the ones on the Art Museum Home Tour, and I’ll be thinking of things I should have done right up until midnight Christmas Eve.
On Christmas morning, someone will take the annual picture of me in which my sleepless, swollen eyes make me look like someone recovering from a long fall off a high bridge.
But somewhere in the midst of all this, there will be a moment or two when we feel the spirit of it all and our hearts will truly sing “Glory to the newborn King!”
And for those few moments it will be worth whatever it takes to get there.
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