Top 5 Tips for Surviving the Holidays from the Mother of 8
The Holidays: Love em or hate em, they are here. “God help me to accept the things I cannot change…”
Wrapping: I hate wrapping presents for 8 kids. Don’t hear me wrong, of course I’m grateful to be able to buy the stuff and I’m not resentful about Christmas in that way, and I’m grateful to have these babies and all that so please don’t email me with a lecture. But nothing zaps any sense of Holiday Magic right out of me faster than a pile of stuff, scotch tape and wrapping paper, scissors and about 65 thousand hours. I have carpal tunnel syndrome after and I want to pull my hair out, but my wrists hurt too much to do that. So, I pay one of my house angels to do it. Simple as that. You CAN do this- and don’t you feel one but guilty about it. I also Christmas shop all year round, and I have a multi-shelved storage unit for gifts. Each kid has a large bin on the shelving unit, so I place purchased gifts straight into the individual bins. I have name stickers with each kids’ name on each bin (and color-coded name stickers for younger non-readers), so a house angel can periodically check the bins, and if there’s anything unwrapped in there, it’s like a game: wrap that present up and slap a name sticker on it before another one appears. (I like to *tell myself* it’s like a game anyway. The power of wishful thinking. *Shrug*) This not only makes the wrapping burden during less in December, but it also is super fun on Christmas Day because everything is a surprise for me too, since I cannot remember what’s underneath that wrapping paper from last July, for the love of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Activities/Events. Of course, there are a million things that you can do- each city has its holiday festivities. Generally, I am a mostly a spontaneous mom; but I have experienced the fallout of when that backfires, and it ain’t pretty. So to stay out of a straight jacket by the time January arrives, I’m going to just give you that old-but-true adage, straight with no chaser: “FAIL to PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL”…drop mic. Since you can’t do everything, choose a few things based on common sense (i.e. don’t take your toddlers out to a 7 course fine dining experience) and then, make a freaking plan, friends. Most of this crap requires tickets, many of which need to be purchased way ahead of time (like in November.) Pick events that will not drive the holiday spirit right out of you. I can think of nothing worse than standing in line for 2 hours to see Santa or some such nonsense. No, ma’am. This is going to sound like the “No Duh” moment of the day, but it bears reminding: If the event does not require tickets and is on a first come, first serve basis, Pick “off-hours” to do things, and if that requires pulling them out of school early one day, sobeit. This is kindergarten, people: they aren’t defending a dissertation, it’s not like they can’t miss an afternoon of school. Especially at the expense of your Sanity. If you absolutely cannot attend something you want to do on off hours, pay the extra $ for the “Enhanced Experience” or whatever it is at the event that is basically the equivalent of a Disneyland Fast Pass. It’s just not worth it otherwise. You will have tired, cranky kids if you wait in fat lines, and as a result you will be exhausted and pissed off. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a bitchy mom on the brink of a nervous breakdown, and that’s not how you want your kids to remember you. It’s just not worth it.
Paper Plates. My grandmother, God rest her soul, gave me a lovely set of autumn/harvest China plates before she died. My mother must have said 10 times on Thanksgiving Day this year how much my Grandma would have appreciated the fact that I used those plates. Well, that’s nice, and I guess technically I did….. but I kinda fudged it, I used those plates as kinda or makeshift chargers…. and *guess* what I put on top of them? Yeah, you’re no fool and you know me too well by now: I put see-through disposable plates on those puppies. I know, I know. Drop your jaw and clutch your pearls. Well, let me tell you what I’m all about during the holidays. I’m all about lazy, unshowered mornings in flannel jammies, cinnamon rolls eaten right out of the baking dish with multiple forks, and MINIMAL DISHES in the sink, therefore giving union breaks to our poor, overworked dishwashers. (Sidenote: Next to marrying my husband, having 2 dishwashers installed in our kitchen was THE best decision I’ve ever made, hands down. It’s like, life changing.) But let’s put it this way: on the holidays you’re just kind of blending from one meal right into another, am I right? Like, there’s not even a chance to physically get hungry again before someone busts out the leftovers from last night’s meal efforts and you find yourself grazing around the kitchen island, gnawing on a cold chunk of day old Honeybaked Ham, and maybe a Christmas Cookie or two. So at least for me, I wonder what’s the freaking point in making everyone crazy with this constant “dishwashing/ setting/clearing fine china places with pretentious freshly-polished silver” nonsense all day long? Lord knows what cruel and unusual person came up with that rubbish. F that noise. Speaking of garbage, since you’re generating about 745,032 extra bags of it at this time of year anyway, why not treat yourself and go ghetto: use paper plates.
Decorating. I remember one Christmas in Boston with my Aunt and Uncle spent fireside on Christmas Eve with snow softly falling, literally stringing popcorn by hand with a needle and sewing thread while my beloved cousin played a Christmas medley on her violin, as if we were Amish, or posing for a Norman Rockwell painting. That was nice, but fast forward to 8 kids later in 2018 with an executive husband, 8 full schedules and a busy household and I can assure you, Homie don’t play that. Kids love decorating for the holidays- there’s no getting around that (trust me, I’ve tried). So I say get their cute tiny, high and muscly little butts to help you. Now, if you like your house looking like the Frontgate catalog at all times, this ain’t gonna work. But here’s a little trick I’ve learned: If you purchase things that YOU like, then the choices are limited. Now. Good reader, if I took my kids to Target and had them pick out Christmas decorations, I’d wind up with a cart full of items from the gag gift section, like fake dog poop with google-eyes wearing a Santa hat, a framed poster of Dolly Parton’s “Smokey Mountain Christmas”, and THE white elephant joke present of 1999: The animatronic singing fish, Big Mouth Billy Bass, (Holiday version) which features the fish flailing about on the plaque whilst wearing a scarf adorned with reindeer and singing the song “Marshmallow World” instead of “Take Me to the River”. Pass. Hard Pass. Instead, I purchase items I wouldn’t mind having in my house, and place them in the Christmas bins in my storage room because, well, I know it may not look like it but: shocker of all shockers, it is actually MY house, believe it or not. Then I allow the kids to pick out a section of the house they would like to decorate, and I let them pull from the bin and use whatever they want to accomplish their vision. (Sidenote: Did you notice what I did there? I basically pre-approved all the decor items. So then everyone is happy, reveling around the house with and exuberant Christmas Spirit, like we’re auditioning together for the Lawrence Welk and the Champagne Singers’ Christmas Special.) Done, and done.
Consider Going Alcohol-Free. Speaking of champagne, the final tip is try No Alcohol. Look, you all know I don’t drink anymore- and Jesus, Joseph and Mary all agree that me not drinking is just about the best idea since the invention of screw-top bottles of wine. I also know that many of you will skip this last paragraph because in your mind, going alcohol-free at the Holidays is about as useful as someone suggesting you go Paleo or Keto for Christmas. I get that. But remember: each of these tips is to make your life easier, not harder. When someone first suggested to me that I consider giving up alcohol (and that was BEFORE it got bad, people), I would have suggested right back to them to consider running to the mall wearing only your birthday suit to shop for Christmas gifts. Equal ridiculousness. BUT. Here’s the thing. December is just too freaking busy to be spent hungover. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Plus, alcohol creates a false sense of camaraderie and closeness, a false confidence, a false sense that you think you can’t drive when you shouldn’t, did you pick up the key word here? FALSE sense. If there is one thing I don’t want to be, it’s false/fake/inauthentic/disingenuous. Just not my thing, and alcohol is fun until it isn’t. And trust me when I say most of us who don’t drink anymore reached that point where we realized there was more to life than hangovers and feelings of shame swirling, and trails of next-day text messages apologizing for behavior from the previous nights’ escapades.
So my best tip on this is to select and use tools that actually work. Alcohol is just a temporary band-aid which will ask one to pay a price that requires selling small pieces of one’s soul with each seemingly harmless glass of wine. It may take years, decades even-but eventually lots of us tire of thinking we operate perfectly fine while drinking- when the opposite is true. The repeated conversations, the red nose, the slurred words, the beer belly, the inability to recall the events at the party, the gross breath, the mascara running down one’s face- there comes a time when none of that is cute anymore. Some ideas of tools that actually work to relieve stress are: meditation, yoga, therapy, various forms of healing and self-care, reiki, etc. These tools actually enhance one’s life; they add to it instead of detract from it. Personally, I sold myself short for many years by convincing myself it’s glamorous to drink- it’s not glamorous when years go by and one realizes they have simply doused years of problems and social insecurities with alcohol, and it never solved anything, except amplify one’s misery. And here’s the part where it hurts and I can say this because I’ve been there: the KIDS will start to notice when their parents drink and they DON’T respect it. They watch the personality changes, and we parents like to lie to ourselves and think we’re not obvious, but we are. An alcohol free lifestyle is possible (Remember: I’m the wife of an Executive, and we are surrounded by booze constantly, in an environment where it’s expected/assumed that we drink), and with practice of non-drinking, it becomes a treasure: It’s just so worth it, on so many levels: one’s mental and physical health are just for starters. Anyway…..Something to consider.
That’s what I got, folks: that’s all she wrote. Wishing you and yours Sane and Silent Nights, and remember: YOU can handle the Holidays like a boss.
You got this.
A Team Mom xoxo