World's Okayest Christmas
By Cara Stolen
It isn’t so much the question that gets on my nerves. It isn’t even the tone with which it’s asked. It’s more the implication of the question. And the fact that, for the past three weeks, I’ve been asked it every time we’ve driven in or out of our driveway. So, tonight, when our neighbor’s Christmas lights become visible from the bottom of our driveway and I hear my son, Royce, ask—for the hundredth time this season—when we’re going to decorate our house for Christmas, I answer him a little less gently than I mean to.
I tell him I don’t even know if we have outdoor lights anymore. I bemoan the cold and the dark (because it’s just so dark this time of year). As the proverbial icing on the sugar cookie, I finish my answer with: “And I have a job, Royce. I’m not just looking for things to do, you know.”
The car goes quiet. By the time we pull up to the house I can hear my own voice on a loop in my head, accompanied by mental commentary that tells me I am both the world’s worst mother and responsible for tarnishing this year’s Christmas magic with my seeming inability to hang lights on our porch (for the third year in a row). I turn to apologize, but as we reach the house the kids begin another round of their ongoing singing competition—1st Grade vs. Preschool—in which they each sing a Christmas program song at the same time, the volume increasing in an attempt to “win,” until one of them dissolves into tears.
The next morning, a baby on my hip, I answer a work phone call with one hand and sign a permission slip with the other. I dole out peanut butter toast and yogurt and pour another cup of coffee. I empty the dishwasher and put wood in the wood stove and remind my kids to put coats and gloves and hats in their backpacks. It’s chaotic, in a school-morning way. But when I toss goldfish packets and applesauce pouches into a bag and apologize to my daughter for running out of time to make muffins for her preschool snack day the chaos explodes into tears and screams, and Royce—in a rare display of camaraderie—bellows: “SOME KIDS HAVE MOMMIES WHO DON’T WORK AND I WANT TO BE ONE OF THOSE KIDS!”
Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year.
***
There’s a story my mom tells this time of year, about a Christmas we spent in a roadside motel along the I-5 corridor. My parents, contractors by trade, had worked through Christmas Eve so their clients could spend Christmas in their new home. But our family drove 14 hours from Washington State to the Bay Area (where both my parents were from) every Christmas. So when we left for California late on Christmas Eve, they drove as far as they could, then stopped for the night. As the story goes, Santa found us in our motel room despite my doubts, and even brought the Etch-a-Sketch I’d been wanting.
From the way she tells it, it doesn’t seem like my mom felt or feels bad about that particular Christmas the way I might be inclined to. Quite the opposite, in fact. She seems to be proud of the way her and my dad managed to create Christmas magic, no matter the circumstances. I, of course, have no memories of that Christmas, aside from her retelling and a vague mental image of a battered Etch-a-Sketch, tired from years of use.
***
“I have something for you.” She leaned forward, her voice soothing and calm in that therapist tone they must teach in school.
The coffee mug in her hand was white, with a black handle and black interior. She turned it around to face me so I could see the black lettering. World’s Okayest Mom. I laughed.
For the previous three months, every Wednesday morning, I opened the door for the babysitter, kissed my kids goodbye, drove 20 minutes to town, and walked up a flight of stairs to sit across from this woman. I talked to her in 50-minute increments, about, well, everything. But often, about parenting. How hard it is, how I felt like a failure, how consumed I was with thoughts about the ways I was screwing up my children. She encouraged me, Wednesday after Wednesday, to set down perfection, to let go of unrealistic expectations, and to stop thinking of parenting as a job with a completion date.
She handed me the mug, and I looked down at it in my lap. I thought of the turquoise, World’s Best Mom mug on my shelf at home. I thought about how that mug fit perfectly into my carefully curated collection of mugs in a way this new mug in my hand never would.
Back home, I paid the babysitter, then tucked my new mug into the second row of mugs, strategically hiding it where it won’t throw off the aesthetic of the shelf. The World’s Best Mom mug stayed front and center.
***
It’s a Saturday morning in November. I’m curled up in bed with a notebook while the baby naps and my older two kids watch Nature Cat. Outside, the first snowflakes of the year are falling, and a fire crackles in our wood stove. I’m thinking about Christmas. Specifically, I’m thinking about how last Christmas I forgot all about the Pinterest-inspired tradition I had started years ago which involved purchasing a unique wrapping paper for each family member, wrapping each of their gifts with it, and tucking a scrap of the same paper into their stockings on Christmas Eve. Instead, with a three-month-old, a preschooler, and a kindergartener, I wrapped gifts in whatever wrapping paper or gift bag I could find. Running on two hour stretches of sleep, the thought of designating a wrapping paper to each person didn’t even enter my mind. Not once. And almost 365 days later, I’m still feeling badly about it.
Growing up, our one consistent Christmas tradition wasn’t much of a tradition at all. It was simply going to California to have Christmas with my family. Aside from that, every year looked a little different. Some years we spent a week with my dad’s family and a week with my mom’s. Some years we did the opposite, or went back and forth between the two a few times. It was the 90s. Social media platforms were still a twinkle in a computer programmer’s mind. So, none the wiser to the way other families celebrated Christmas, we didn’t visit the reindeer farm or go on sleigh rides with Santa or need a special storage unit to house Christmas decorations. Most years we didn’t even get a Christmas tree, since my mom deemed it a fire hazard to have a dying tree in the house while we were gone for two weeks.
But there were cousins to stay up late with, Aunties to take me to look at Christmas lights (or later, to take me shopping), and an abundance of love and laughter. There were carols to sing around the piano, a kids’ table to sit at, and nary a bedtime in sight. It was, truly, the most magical time of the year.
According to my Pinterest homepage, there are approximately one billion ways for me to create holiday magic for my kids this year. There’s the elf-who-must-not-be-named, of course, but that’s just the beginning. There are advent calendars—whole advent experiences, if you will—and mile-long bucket lists filled with everything from Polar Express train rides to delivering cookies to your neighbors (in a keepsake tin from Etsy!) to special signs and snack buckets to create for your UPS driver. There are coloring pages, speciality plates to leave cookies on for Santa, and mantle decor ideas. There are stocking stuffer guides by age, matching “FamJam” photo poses to copy, and perfectly decorated Christmas trees. And as the mom, I’m supposed to do all of these things, make all of this “magic,” on top of attending holiday programs (on icy, snowy roads), buying thoughtful teacher gifts the teachers actually want, and reminding my kids about the real reason for the season: Jesus.
It’s a lot. And when I’m drinking from my World’s Best Mom mug, it’s impossible. Gone are the “simpler” times of my childhood, replaced by an era where there are always more traditions to start, more experiences to orchestrate, and more presents to buy.
While my capacity for magic-making may ebb and flow from year to year, there’s no way to do it all. But is Christmas any less magical without those things? Is my kids’ Christmas really any better if I remember to wrap their gifts a certain way or stand out in the snow with a nail gun and twinkle lights, channeling my inner Clark Griswold and trying not to electrocute myself?
I set my notebook down and climb out of bed, then tiptoe down the hallway toward the kitchen. Standing in front of the coffee pot, I look at my shelf of mugs. Then, shifting the front row to the side, I select a black and white mug I’ve never used. I stare at the lettering on its side, half of my brain still ruminating on Christmas and magic and memories. Does The World’s Okayest Mom orchestrate perfect Christmases? Frankly it sounds a little outside of her wheelhouse. And if I believe in what I teach my children about “the reason for the season,” is there even a need for a perfect Christmas, or am I trying to overshoot that mark by more than 2,000 years? The World’s Okayest Christmas, I think, filling my mug to the brim.
Liking the sound of it, I say it again, out loud this time. “The World’s Okayest Christmas.”
This essay was first published on Coffee + Crumbs. p.s. Our gift guides are live!
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I love this piece, and I'm so glad C+C is re-sharing it! I remember desperately needing to read these words when I first read it, and I'm thankful to say I've chilled out a lot about Christmas since then. I especially love the sentiment about your mom: "She seems to be proud of the way her and my dad managed to create Christmas magic, no matter the circumstances."
I really needed this essay today! Thank you! -Sincerely, another OK mom.