Happier Holidays
It’s worth choosing festive chaos over perfect control.
If you visit us on Thanksgiving, be warned: Our color palette is not autumnal and any decorative gourds are long gone. A few years back, Leah decided that waiting until Black Friday to transform our house for Christmas didn’t work for her anymore. I found this out when I came downstairs one Saturday before Thanksgiving and it looked like Christmas had exploded. Turkey and stuffing have shared table space with our Christmas centerpieces ever since.
This year, Leah announced that a Monday in mid-November was her pick for tree decorating. I pointed out that a weekday was not convenient for the people she was relying on to haul out the tree, and convinced her to postpone to the following weekend. I was quite pleased that she’d compromised so readily.
Or so I thought.
Beginning on her original Monday, every time I left the house, Leah liberated more decorations from storage. Everything but the tree found its way to our main floor. I’d focused negotiations on tree trimming and failed to account for all of the other bits and pieces that adorn our house in December. Leah took full advantage. There’s nothing quite like looking into the I-told-you-so faces of your other two kids while stepping over bubble wrap. I ought to know better by now.
Yes, I could have put the decorations away and insisted we wait. I challenge anyone who thinks that’s a viable option to spend five minutes in the company of Leah Hamilton while she has a bee in her bonnet. I promise you that we would have been ferrying the same bins up and down the basement stairs for a week in a passive-aggressive showdown. To her credit, she is the very opposite of the Grinch.
The upside is, I don’t have to feign enthusiasm for Christmas, the way I do with some of her other interests. We both love it, just with different visions that have to share space. We’ll spend the rest of December covertly rearranging ornaments and changing light settings until we reach a compromise. I’m usually the first to quit tweaking. My festive dining room tablescape is two-thirds Pinterest-worthy linens — the ones I bought on sale after plenty of over-thinking — and one-third (and counting) a craft station with assorted stickers, pens, paints, and a protective mat. Another compromise. Our household can be merry, or it can look picture-perfect. It won’t be both. Ditching perfect turned out to be really easy.
It’s a lot more fun anyway to watch Leah cheerfully twining ribbon around our tree, jamming three ornaments on one branch, all while singing what I’m pretty sure are the wrong words to O Christmas Tree. I don’t care enough to check, because when the singing starts, my girl is truly happy. And I won’t trade that.
I think she might love the day the tree comes out even more than actual Christmas.