Chaos. Wait, no – I meant Christmas.

by Minnow + Co.

I used to be the kind of person who loved everything about Christmas.  I loved spending every disposable penny available to me buying gifts for people, buying a tree, decorating everything in sight, and so on.  I loved our family traditions, how festive everyone seemed to be, and that this was the season that copious eggnog consumption was actually appropriate.  (Um, I still want to know why eggnog isn’t available year round.)  On Christmas morning, I have always been the first one downstairs, usually HOURS ahead of everyone else.  And this behavior isn’t limited to my elementary school years – last Christmas, while approximately 29.5 months pregnant and with the worst sinus infection of my life, I was still giddily opening my stocking at around 5:45am.  (My parents decided years ago that stockings could be opened individually, but gifts had to wait until everyone was up.)  My family has always done Christmas big.  And I loved every second of it.

And then S and I got married, bought a fixer upper of a house, launched in on a massive kitchen renovation, and got pregnant in the span of like, 37 seconds.  All of a sudden, we were on a BUDGET.  All caps, no jokes, budget.  As Christmas neared, I knew our budget didn’t allow for the kind of consumerism-run-rampant gift buying extravaganza I was used to, so I did what any normal 30 year old pregnant woman would do.  I got crafty.  I made STUFF.  And was amazed at my ability to produce THINGS that could be given away.  It was magical.  (And somewhat astonishing, considering how big my belly was, at that point.  It’s surprising I could see what I was working on…) I’m not sure how ecstatic our friends and family were about being on the receiving end of those gifts, but hey, I did it all with a lot of good intentions and nesting-inspired creative energy.  And I even did it before I discovered Pinterest, so I feel I should get extra crafty bonus points.

This year?  We’re still on a BUDGET, but my ability to produce anything crafty (which includes dinner) is severely limited, thanks to our  pint-sized roommate of the last ten months, the lovely and sweet Ms. E.  Though she isn’t very good at paying rent, doing chores, cooking, cleaning or laundry, she makes up for it in drooly, open mouthed kisses and her own attempts at decorating by creative distribution of toys throughout the house.  Since she started walking a few weeks ago (and a few months earlier than I was expecting), most of my time is now spent chasing after her, with lots of “Don’t put that in your mouth!” thrown in the mix.  The last time I tried to wash two bottles and a dish with her loose in the living room, she managed to rip two books, terrorize a cat, pull her mittens out from underneath the closet door, and get stuck halfway under the couch while trying to chase a toy that rolled away from her.  Nap time is my only hope for avoiding being a star on a show like “Hoarders”, since our house appears to be a black hole for crap stacks.  (Which would be the stacks of all of the useless stuff nobody wants, but doesn’t ever seem to get thrown away…)

But since this is E’s first Christmas, I really want to make it special and amazing, buuuuuut… I’m pretty sure that special and amazing might just be beyond my capacity right now.  This is my first Christmas with a kid, and it makes me want to go back in time, give my Mom a million high fives, and a pat on the back to every mommy I’ve ever know who manages to pull off simultaneously raising children AND preparing for Christmas.   I honestly don’t know how they do it.  Maybe money has something to do with it, but even if I had buckets of dollars, my kid has a deep seated hatred of car seats that makes any multiple stop shopping trip more than a little nightmarish.  She is better now that she’s in the convertible seat, but she’s got 2, MAYBE 3 in-and-outs before she gets fed up, and decides that nonstop crying is really her only option to let me know how she feels.  I love the idea of shopping local, but jeepers.  If I can’t walk to every store I need without putting E in and out of her car seat more than twice, we don’t need whatever you’re selling that badly.

On a positive note, E is, without a doubt, the best gift S and I have ever gotten, so even if we have a stick for a tree this year, and decorate it with cheerios and lint (because we have a surplus of both of those), I think we’ll probably be pretty happy.  And though this is E’s first Christmas, at 10 months old (today!) she’s still a little young to remember any of it, so I think we can safely assume we won’t be scarring her if things are a little sparse under the tree.  We’re incredibly lucky to have amazing families and as long as we get to spend time with them, we’ll be happy.  And we’ll hope it’s cool with them to show up with homecooked/handmade gifts.  Our plan is to give them to E to hand out, and hope that her blinding cuteness is enough to make up for our homely, sticky, glue covered, crafty gifts.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.  I sincerely hope this year brings each of you all of the wealth, wisdom, love, contentment, peace and kindness in the world.