A Christmas PSA

by Melanie Dale | December 2022

Ugh, happy month of Christmas or whatever. It’s beginning to look a lot like I hate this holiday.

I don't hate Christmas because of Jesus. I hate Christmas because of the expectations. We spend months shopping sales and making lists and nailing down our kids' deepest, most purchasable desires. Some of us also try to line those up with environmental sustainability and fair-trade human flourishing. We work hard, all for a large man in a red suit to get the credit, or if your kids are old like mine and know what’s up, for them to feel let down and a sense of unattainable joy permeating the cinnamon-scented air. It’s the expectations! They’re too overblown. We can’t possibly punch through them.

As an Enneagram Three, I think I’m supposed to go all out to “win” Christmas but the whole thing leaves me over it before it even starts. I’ve spent my whole life trying to recreate a feeling of nostalgia for that one moment I felt as a kid tucked behind the Christmas tree looking up into the lights twinkling around me. Magic. 

Maybe it’s because I’m an adult and supposed to be the magic-maker but it seems like Christmas has swelled to a superhuman size and no amount of work will ever make it achieve the very big expectations we put on it. Is that it? My kids are underwhelmed and proceed to hear from their friends all day who obviously received bigger presents and more presents and fatter Santa and more robust reindeer. And if it’s not their friends, then it’s TikTok reminding them they didn’t get a phone or a car or a yak. 

Hashtag Christmas yak hashtag everyone’s doing it. 

The Christmas service is never fabulous enough to warrant cramming like ants into seats, worrying about kids flinging candle wax, and “Silent Night” becoming very loud night as I’m burned by melted Christianity. 

Each year I’ve hated Christmas a little more, and a little more, the older and whinier my kids got. Okay it’s one kid in particular. Two-thirds of my kids are dreamboats on Christmas and one is a human nightmare factory and no I won’t tell you which one. I’ve worked my little Enneagram Three self to the bones making magic for my Whos of Whoville and hating every moment on the day until I could finally slink back into bed, a shell of a mother. Christmas sucked.

Until last year, when I started chemo days before.

Last year, I bought tickets to see the lights at the botanical gardens for our kids and their significant others and when I bought the tickets there was no chemo on my schedule but by the time the magic night rolled around, I’d just had chemo the day before—a Cancer Christmas Surprise!—and I sucked on anti-nausea candy the hour drive up and back and I staggered around the gardens trying to ooh and pretend that I wasn’t desperate to be home while my hair follicles and taste buds died. 

I felt terrible physically, but something magic happened last year. Chemo Christmas became my favorite Christmas ever, because even though I felt like an undead monster, my expectations were on the ground. Literally my expectation for Christmas day was to crawl downstairs and be with my loved ones. That was it. And I accomplished it. I settled my achy bones on the sofa and watched my people open gifts and felt grateful. Two-thirds of them were gentler with me and I was more gracious with all of them. We had each other, and it felt like enough. 

I’m not saying moms need to be at death’s door to appreciate Christmas, OR DO THEY? I’m glad this year I’m not going through chemo anymore. I’m thrilled to be done with that part of my new normal as a lifelong patient. But I’ll take the things I learned through chemo with me into this holiday season.

I offer you this PSA:

Plan for togetherness.

I’m not a cruise director and can’t entertain everyone all day, but I try to give my kids an easy schedule of events, just a few things for them to plan around. We’re getting in the car, drinking hot chocolate, and looking at lights one night. We’re watching our annual Anna and the Apocalypse zombie Christmas musical one night with homemade caramel corn. 

Simplify your expectations.

Every family is different, but for me, I let go of getting dressed up for a fancy meal and let everyone wear jammies and sweats all day. I lower my expectation that a certain child of mine will behave appropriately and graciously when receiving gifts. It’s not a parenting flaw; it’s a brain chemistry thing and we’re all doing our best. With teens, I give up the fantasy that we’ll spend oodles of time together and I text the schedule, including approximate meal time, so they know when to show up and participate in family life.

Accept the imperfection.

Ignore the haters, AKA whichever turdmeister child is trying to damage your calm. Even the Grinch came around eventually, but until that day, choose to be Cindy Lou Whoever Messes with You, Say Shoo. At the end of the day, embrace the glory of a hot bath and a stocking filled with chocolate.

May we all make it through the gauntlet of December with a handful of sweet and salty memories, and if your family forgets to thank you for all you’re doing, let me be the first to say thanks, Mom, for bringing everyone together and remembering the teacher gifts and the antlers for the Christmas pageant and shopping the deals and baking all the butter and sugar and cleaning up sprinkles and helping with studying for final exams and praying for your kids behind their backs and at their fronts and creating magic, so much magic, all around you. I appreciate all you’re doing and who you are and who you’re helping your babies to be. Moms are the real Santas, so ho freaking ho.

Love you like Claus loves cookies, like reindeer love games, like the Grinch loves quiet, like the Wise Men love myrrh. 

Melanie

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