This is the first Christmas where no one believes in Santa anymore in my house.
It’s sad when the magic goes.
There’s a hole left in its place.
My 10 year old confided this year,
“I know it’s you. You don’t have to pretend anymore that it’s not.”
I think she thought she was letting me off the hook somehow, making things easier on me.
I didn’t tell her that one more year to live those little, simple Christmas moments of yesterday is really all I even want.
I like making Santa’s handwriting on the tags look way different than my own.
I pride myself on the sparkly glitter footprints from the fireplace to the tree that look like magic mixed with snow.
It’s all just clothes and electronics now that they’re asking for,
but Cabbage Patch Kids smelled like baby powder…
None of this feels quite as fun.
They don’t know I still stand sometimes clutching dolls and stuffed bears with soulful eyes in the store aisle, letting them know I’m wishing I still had a justifiable reason to have them wrapped, and bring them home.
A video just popped up in my Facebook memories of a day over a decade ago,
little girls in fleece Christmas jammies, back-lit by a colorful tree, rolling out sugar dough.
I smiled and blessed the heart of whoever got those cookies that year, because one girl’s finger was taking several long trips over the river and through the woods to the inside of her nose.
I watched their shiny little bobs and listened to their sing-song voices at least 5 times.
I smiled and thought back on all that was coming that I didn’t yet know…
I thought those days were so hectic, but all the moms that went before me were right –
You do end up missing those days;
Every part of them.
Even the things you think you won’t.
I was exhausted with the running and the doing then, the class parties to buy for, dressing them up in tights they complained about for their school Christmas shows,
but you even miss the tiredness of it somehow when those days have passed,
and those little faces have all grown.
I have tried to fill the hole of yesterday this year with more garland, more twinkle lights, more gnomes, and more fake snow,
but nothing gives the feeling I seek of the years of their littleness, the toys they want the most, their scrawled out little Santa letters with terrible spelling,
their faces of shock and wonder at how Santa always seemed to somehow just KNOW.
No one wanted to help decorate the house this year.
The teens were too busy with their boyfriends to even notice anyone else at all.
I’ve been staying up late, looking back at photos, and watching Christmas movies alone.
We all got sick, and things got canceled, then part of my favorite tree died in my yard while we quarantined at home, and half of it had to be removed as I watched, powerless from behind the glass.
Again and again. Nothing to do but just move on.
What used to be a view of a beautiful, sweeping branch is now just stark, open sky, and fresh emptiness, and in that first moment of seeing it stripped bare that way, stolen from,
I felt like that tree was the only thing in the universe that could understand me,
grieving my old view in all its forms.
I’ve told myself “maybe next year it will all happen again,” but inside I know it won’t.
Times change, and life keeps moving. There will never be another yesterday.
Treasured memories, like precious ornaments we wrap carefully and store.
The truth is the little, loud, and sticky years are the sweet spot,
but you don’t know that until they’re gone.
The Ghost of Christmas Past is strong upon me right now.
He smells like peppermint, cocoa, and cookie crumbs.
In the chaos of yesterday I wished for just one Silent Night,
But, it seems to me all you want is the sound of the little voices back
once that night finally comes.
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.
