Fun fact about me: I’m a holiday nutcase.
I spend 11 months of the year putting up with everyday life just so I can enjoy the holiday season.
This year, it took us three days to decorate. There are now four Christmas trees in my house (five if you count the 2′ tree in the powder room). I’ve been listening to holiday music since October. Soon my freezer will be full of cookie dough just waiting to be baked off. I’m even attempting a gingerbread house.
I live for this stuff.
So why do I hate it so much sometimes? Why was my blood pressure through the roof while I was decorating? Just the thought of all that baking and cooking and shopping and wrapping makes me want to pour a (large) glass of wine. Why am I already overwhelmed when it’s not even December yet?
It’s the quest for perfection that gets me every single time. The need to make every holiday season the best ever. My inability to learn from past mistakes, especially when it comes to what I’m capable of accomplishing.
Twenty years from now, will I look back fondly on the time I swore like a sailor and burned my fingers repeatedly while trying to make a coffee filter wreath? How about the time I stayed up til 2 AM putting together an enormous cookie tray to take to work? Or the massive amount of pressure I put on myself to assemble gift baskets full of homemade goodies? Talk about stress.
Of course I don’t look fondly on those times (and in the case of the coffee filter wreath, I’m still nursing sore fingertips). Sure, I tend to forget them – especially when it comes time to dream up some new torture to put myself through in the name of holiday magic. Funny how the memory plays tricks on us.
If there’s anything I’ve learned lately, it’s that time is sometimes shorter than we expect. Why should I carry the pressure of everyone else’s happiness on my shoulders? Life’s too short.
The tree doesn’t have to look like it came out of a magazine. It’s okay if I only bake a half dozen kinds of cookies. The gingerbread house can be crooked – if it even remains standing by the time I’m finished with it. The holiday season doesn’t hang on such insignificant details.
Instead of running myself ragged, I need to take notice of the perfection in the small moments. Enjoying a Christmas movie on the couch with Rob. Having friends over for drinks, especially friends I haven’t seen in a while. Sitting down to a feast with my family – one I’m fortunate enough to be able to provide.
It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact there’s no such thing. It only has to come from the heart. If there was ever a time for my best to be enough, it’s now.
I’m sure my fingers won’t miss the hot glue burns.
xo
Jen
And that’s the truth!! I was born on Christmas day, and this year my whole family is coming to my house…I promised myself I am going to get right into it this year, I have already made one batch of gingerbread cookies and have pretty much all the presents that I was going to create myself done…now for the decorating part…I just can’t seem to get myself motivated yet…maybe tomorrow when it really is December…thanks for a bit of motivation though
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I love the holidays too!!
We’re putting our tree up this weekend and I’m so excited!
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Being a perfectionist is hard work. It is really hard to let go of the things you want to be just a certain way. I have always had a hard time with it. I have learned that it is ok to strive for perfection, to desire it. It keeps us working hard and wanting to be better, but it is not always healthy (burnt fingers…ouch). So I work hard to do things the best I can and then learn to bend on small aspects of each thing. That has really helped me. It also sounds like you already knew that. Happy Holidays! Enjoy your time. Your house must be stunning! MWAH -Laverne
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Oh, it’s so hard to let go of some of those perfectionist things, though. My crazy thing (well one of them!) is the lights on the tree. I need there to be a million of them, woven through the branches. When I was pregnant, especially with Dylan (born in January), Ryan had to do the lights, and I made the sweet man do it at least three times
Happy Holidays and please post photos
I would love to see your goodies, crooked or not 
Confession: I put our tree up before Thanksgiving. I know, I disrespected the bird.
I’m a perfectionist and each decoration and light has to be *just right*. It’s maddening, really. I need to remember that it’s not about the perfection, it’s about the memories and love.
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I care nothing about the perfectionism of it all. My life has taught me that the holiday is about people and your relationships with them and the things are just things. But having said all that, the holiday season is too short. There are all the things you get to do in December and not at any other time. If you don’t do them this December, you will have to wait for next year. It creates a pressure all its own. There are so many things I want to make too, and now that I have a toddler, I have little time, money and energy for a monthlong blowout of baking etc.
This is freeing, actually. This is the first year that I’m not giving up on doing Christmas right (whatever that means to me) but I know I can’t go crazy with it either. I have to ask whether I can afford it or not, in terms of time and energy as well as money. I won’t be making as much candy as I’d like to. I may not make two kinds of rolled cookies. I definitely won’t be assembling gift baggies of homemade candy to my 25 office-mates. My goal is not to ruin my enjoyment of my child’s first real Christmas (or my bank account). I think I really have gotten it this time…
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Oh Jen….I undersand, because you love something like you love the holidays, you want it to be PERFECT and memorable, you want to believe that all the work, sacrfice and burnt fngers (OUCH) are truly worth it…but the truth is …..IT WILL BE no matter what. it will be because it’s you making it sweeter, special, worthy for others…even if thereare only 6 kinds of cookies.
I love the holidays, I decorated before thanksgiving, our 2 trees are up and decorated and we’ve been listneing to Holiday music since the beginning of Nov too…but I don’t stress now, December is all about the TAKING In, the JOY, the rejoicing and I remind myself of that often…
hoping this Chistmas is Merry & Bright for you this year..and filled with less stress and more CANDY CANES. xo
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