By about the 20th wrapped present I needed the reminder that sometimes joy is a thing we often have to step toward.
The excitement I feel in the beginning of December always begins to get a little worn a few months in as I try to find parking, and new hiding places;
As I stand in line at an overcrowded grocery store.
I strain to water the tree once again with a giant plastic cup, and notice that
even its branches are starting to get droopy from the weight of holding up bright, happy things.
I stare at it sometimes and think that it’s funny – Identifying with a drying out Christmas tree.
It’s not that I’ve lost the joy in the season.
It is really a far cry from that;
But as a mom I start to feel tired from all of the doing.
From being the Sole Keeper of the Holiday Cheer.
From the way the real-life things never recognize that it’s Christmas,
and then choose to hold themselves back.
My husband starts groaning “ANOTHER box?!” as UPS comes again to our door,
and I’ve stopped even responding, but instead just give a look, knowing he has no idea the work and the effort that goes into making Christmas happen around here.
Four children, and our parents, friends, and, yes – even the pets.
It’s a production, and by the end of the day all my muscles are sore.
It’s no wonder all so many moms really want for Christmas are comfort items.
They are gifting from inside a Melman Die Hole.
This year as I looked again for the scissors that I had JUST had in my hand, I thought about how I now understand my own mother more clearly, and the way our holidays growing up had been.
My mother was not one for grand Christmas meals or for decking out the entire house.
Our Christmases were more simple than that.
Our trees came from the grocery store lot a mile from our house.
I don’t think we ever cut one down,
but still my holiday memories are of happy and warm.
I still looked forward to them.
All of these years I’ve thought more needed to be done to reach the Ultimate Christmas effect, but as more time passes – especially after this year – I’ve realized maybe she was onto something that hasn’t quite sunk in fully with me yet.
While I’m searching epicurious for recipes with fancy names,
she humbly says, “You know, we could just roast a chicken;”
But I push on toward my goal of a Pinterest-worthy day,
often forgetting it’s never been about perfection.
Today my kids spent 20 minutes popping bubble wrap with their feet on the hardwood floor.
They giggled, and stomped, and the whole house shook with the drum-beat of their delight,
and in watching them I felt something ring in my heart:
You are weary, and heavy leiden,
but hope and joy still remain.
I think about a teenage Mary laying her newborn son on scratchy hay,
and how I never once found something lacking from that scene.
To me it is stillness, and peace to think of cricket song in that moment,
and what that whole story truly means.
In it, the start of every Christmas to come,
where mothers may sit in the middle of what, to onlookers may seem like a mess,
and still know what they’ve done matters forever to those that will come after her.
The first Christmas speaking,
“A Christmas that’s meager can still be the best.”
Mary was nothing special, after all.
Just a poor teenage girl, that was used to usher in hope.
And what better thing could be ushered this year?
A warm light glimmers under a mound of cold snow
Last night after a very long day,
I went out alone into the night to look at the stars.
I wanted to see if I could see the Christmas Star everyone had been talking about,
but the fog had covered over it in a thick blanket, and I couldn’t see it at all.
I almost did not want to go back inside, however.
I’d been having trouble with one of my daughters.
Her words have been cutting, her callous behavior has stung me.
Feeling wounded AND not seeing the star I had looked forward to?
I honestly almost cried.
Disappointed, I climbed into the car with my mother who had seen my sadness and offered to drive me to see if we could see it from a different place, a little higher.
As we rode I talked about some issues I’m having with that same daughter,
and we both recounted the similarities from when I was her same age.
I remember being a teenager, but now I see the mother side, too,
and for that side no one can prepare.
She reminded me then how I had found my way, and that I could trust that my daughter would, too, if I just continued to love her, and to show up,
and let her know that I am here for her.
I sighed and looked out the window as we wound up old familiar roads.
Little bits of burden slowly melting as I unloaded my thoughts, just because of being in a dark car with my mom.
The Christmas lights twinkling made me feel like they were reminding me to never stop looking for stars, or the things we have hidden in our hearts.
After just a few minutes with her in the driver’s seat, as she likes to be,
I realized the gift of what I call a “Glimmer Moment;”
A moment when, for a tiny second, you see the way your life has been filled up,
and what joy really is.
How hope in the moments yet to have happened
can come to be because of a reminder of what you’ve already come through.
My mother had a stroke earlier this year.
I worried I’d never have her back,
but there she was next to me, listening, sitting in the driver’s seat.
We came back home unsuccessful at seeing the star,
but I entered the house feeling lighter and less alone.
I settled in on my red chair under a blanket, and pulled out my phone when I saw my friend Ori had posted a photo she had gotten of the star I had been looking forward to seeing myself all day.
Under her photo she wrote how interesting it was to her that this astronomical occurrence had just “happened to be”
in the darkest year,
on the darkest day.
A “star” only here once every 800 years.
Like the embodiment of a thrill of hope, come to light our way.
And I see it now –
And my branches have perked some –
Little moments like individual lights that make up the whole glow.
There is beauty in a grocery store tree, roast chicken Christmas.
In a car ride with a still-breathing mother.
In going back inside to try again with your daughter, even when she has hurt you.
Christmas comes bearing more than we know.
Hope is being reminded of how the past did not define the future.
Of how we worried about a small thing that never grew.
Hope is looking to something beyond us.
Remembering that our story is not through.
It has never been about the paper, or the shopping.
It’s about hope when we feel stuck in between where we are,
and where we want to be.
We can trade things that feel like burdens for something much lighter.
We can trust the ones we love to remind us of how it lives on.
The star of hope is there even when, from our vantage point,
it is unseen.
We don’t know what this next year will hold,
or the year after that.
All we know is we will again lose the scissors.
Our husbands may not ever know what gifts he supposedly gave.
Teenagers will occasionally be a challenge.
No one else will probably ever water the tree.
But we keep driving on,
searching the sky,
knowing hope shows up best in the dark.
Hold to it tighter than your expectations in this dark year,
Dear Mother.
The weary world rejoices from
A Thrill of Hope.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
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.
