I blame Pinterest.
I blame it for its perfectly piped icing and its cheery photo-shoots.
I blame it for its lush-with-greenery-and-burlap fall tables,
and its DIY pallet decor.
I blame it for fueling a fire within me to absolutely drive myself into the ground this time of year trying to make every holiday perfect.
Because, oh, I so want them to be.
I want all of the things.
Sleigh rides, and popcorn strands,
the gentle clinking of glass around a full table of people I love.
I don’t even really know what mulling spice is, but I’m pretty sure I need it somehow.
I’ve never once had a chestnut,
but I’m sure I’ve been missing out.
A full family with extra white teeth in matching Christmas jammies under a tree the kitten hasn’t destroyed?
I want every part of that glorious scene.
I bet I would write a hundred praises of it in beautiful varying script on a giant white-framed chalkboard.
As a creative person,
it is not that I am not capable of creating such amazement, it’s just that as a mother of four, who works three part-time jobs,
when is there time for things like spray-painting a pallet snowman family?
As my life stands right now, I need to have about an hour of time each and every day just for cleaning out the congealed messes that are my kids’ post-school lunchboxes –
Like three fabric jelly-filled donuts,
only, instead of jelly,
it’s lukewarm yogurt.
In my daydreams each holiday has a cello sound-track.
Through a soft-focus lens,
I picture the family, all peaceful and gentle in spirit, doing amazing things like offering to help chop things without me even asking.
The house of my dreams is kept clean for days, and no one wears their bare socks outside onto dirt and wet leaves and then comes right back in again.
In my daydreams every child looks directly at the camera at the same time, and smiles their REAL smile, not that weird teeth one they always do.
In my daydreams they all joyfully eat what’s been labored over for hours,
and no one ever asks miserably how many more bites they have to take before they can have a piece of pie.
Oh, just for one day…
And I know full-well how to braid immaculate braids and create the perfect up-do.
I could whip those puppies out like a boss, and have these girls shining like the certified Daughters of Stepford,
but I can’t change it that two are going through their “try-to-do-it-myself phase,”
and one fancies herself G.I. Jane.
This Thanksgiving I spent much of the day cooking, as I know many of us did,
while the rest of the family played games and created memories without me in the next room.
I broke up fights over video games between children who were still in saggy-bottomed pajamas at 2:00pm.
There were actual tears when I asked them to put on their good clothes.
I got shot with Nerf guns in the rear as I bent over to place sweet potatoes in the oven,
and one of the only things my kids said directly to me for the first half of the day was that the dog had just thrown up on the stairs.
And next will be Christmas,
a holiday that I always hope will be very Pottery Barn,
but that usually ends up more like Actual Barn.
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could just stay within our own lines?
If that one kid wouldn’t do that embarrassing thing with their tongue,
or that one aunt wouldn’t talk about her intestinal health at the table?
Wouldn’t it be nice if husbands always knew the perfect gift,
and if mothers always said the thing your heart needed most to hear?
It would be so lovely if everything could just go as planned…
But family life is usually a kind of messy life, with people we just can’t control no matter how much we’d like to;
and maybe the only thing you’re DIYing this year is every lonely Costco trip.
I’m sure some day I’ll have my holiday cello soundtrack,
and I’ll find myself missing the one of the kids loudly playing their video games.
I’m sure one day the kids will all look at the camera,
but on that same night
I will still stay up after everyone is in bed looking back with a smile at all of the pictures of the times that they didn’t.
On this Thanksgiving night, after everyone in the house went to bed,
I sat alone and pondered the holidays and the weight of my own expectations.
The holidays past, and the ones coming up.
I reminded myself that even though that Pinterest life looks lovely to my eyes,
to my heart it feels unfamiliar;
And as loud, and hectic as my life actually is,
I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
As I sat there that night I wrote this poem on my Facebook page:
“The truth is I always want it to be perfect
With soft music playing, and candles lit
With kids sitting and actually eating
And no one throwing a fit
But the truth is kids did throw fits today
And toys
And the dog threw up
The truth is there wasn’t fine china
And no one remembered which one was their cup
Today I broke up fights over video games
And even after cooking all day
I still had to tell the number of bites a kid had to eat
to be done enough
that they could just go play
The truth is sometimes it seems perfect,
But maybe sometimes it doesn’t for you
The truth is we’re taught to want perfect,
Forgetting sometimes
Messy can be
Perfect too”
So here’s to the holidays.
From our Pinterest dreams, to our thoughts at the end of the day,
and to the mess that will come in between.
May we all see the beauty within every moment,
with or without our
cello song.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
