It’s that time of year. Holiday season. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. One holiday after another. Mass amounts of cooking, shopping, and family time. Killing ourselves to make everything perfect. Wrapping endless amounts of presents. Coming up with ideas for the elf on the shelf. Watching our kids light up as the holidays come and go waiting for Christmas morning. The busiest time of the year. The most stressful time of the year.
I love the holidays. Halloween with its spooky decorations, fun and creative costumes, carving pumpkins, and of course all the candy. Thanksgiving with its copious amounts of food, spending time with family, and being thankful for everything we’ve been blessed with in life. Christmas with its beautiful light displays, decorating the tree as a family, shopping for your friends and family, watching your kids faces light up on Christmas morning, gingerbread houses, and spending time with family. New Years where you say goodbye to the year in hopes the next will be better and ringing in the new year hoping for the best and setting goals you hope to obtain in the new year.
This year is different. This holiday season I’m not feeling so holly jolly. Halloween has come and gone. Thanksgiving is over. I was excited to put up our tree and decorate, but nothing feels normal. We are on a “pause” right now. The kids are distance learning and haven’t seen their friends since March. This isn’t a happy time of year for me right now. I want normalcy for my kids. I know to do that I have to make things as normal as possible at home, but I just don’t have it in me this year.
I should be hanging Christmas lights. Putting the stockings up. Decorating the tree. Planning the arrival of our elf on the shelf Snowflake. Baking cookies. Making candy cane reindeer. Building gingerbread houses. Wrapping presents. Enjoying the holidays and being thankful for everything this year has brought and taught. I’m not looking forward to any of it, but I want to. This year sucked. Everything bad that happened took its toll. One thing after another until my mental health suffered to its worst. Things are better now. My mental health is great, better than it’s ever been actually. All the bad stuff we went through was worth it because of all the good that happened after. We’re doing good overall now, but I just don’t have it in me to enjoy the holiday season right now.
This I will do for my kids. I will be holly jolly. I will move the elf on the shelf every night. I will decorate and bake and build gingerbread houses. I will enjoy the holiday season because my kids need me to. They need any and all normalcy they can get in a world where normal is so turned upside down right now. Because I am mom I will sacrifice for my kids. I will make this the best dang holiday season they’ve ever had. This right now isn’t about me. I don’t have to feel holly jolly to be the best mom I can be and make this the best Christmas yet.
