I don’t know about you, but I’ve been watching a lot of Christmas
movies. It seems like they’ve been running since before Thanksgiving. Don’t get
me wrong, I love my Christmas movies. The thing is they all have that happy Christmas
ending. The cookies get baked, the tree gets decorated, the town gets saved,
the couple has their happy ending…we all know that real life isn’t like this.
And yet, if you’re like me at this time of the year you want your life to be exactly
like that Christmas movie.
For the most part my “Christmas” life is pretty darned good.
I have not one but five Christmas trees, decorated by theme, in my house. I
have my lights strung up around my front porch and wreaths hanging from all the
windows on the front of the house, spotlighted just so. I’ve been keeping on schedule with most of my
holiday things, like shopping and baking. That is, up until last week when I
got hit with a bad cough and not one, but two days of migraine headaches. While
I was standing at my kitchen counter whipping up a batch of cookies, and multi-tasking
making appetizers for a cocktail party I was hosting that same evening, and making my dish to share for the family party, it occurred
to me that as much as I wanted it to be, my life is not a Christmas movie.
I had to take a step back and give myself permission to not
bake the second batch of cookies for the family party the very next day. I only
put out one freshly made appetizer and not the two I’d been planning on baking
for the cocktail party. And I had to dump out half of the 7-layer chopped salad (my dish to share-yes I overfilled the bowl) to make room for the fifth, sixth and seventh layers! This is the time
of year when we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make everything perfect.
When really perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. By nature, we humans
are flawed. And it takes a lot of work to be “Perfect.”
You know what? I realize I don’t want to be perfect, especially
not at this time of the year. I want my kids to be happy, and they are. I want
everyone near me to be healthy and I’m so very blessed that they are. I’m
looking forward to having my kids and their kids here to celebrate our family Christmas
together. And they don’t care if I don’t get all the sheets on the beds or if
the silverware doesn’t match or even if the dinner I wanted to make suddenly gets changed because I forgot an ingredient at the grocery store.
Because finding the perfect Christmas isn’t about what we
put on our tables or how we decorate our trees, it’s about what is in our hearts.
Kindness. Caring. Love. Compassion. Remembering
why we celebrate the day to begin with.
I’m wishing you all the best, non-perfect, Christmas ever!!
Christmas Blessings,
Tracey
PS I'd love to hear some of things that make your Christmas "not" perfect. Feel free to drop a note in the comments section.
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