We got our Christmas tree this last weekend.
I had been sick with a terrible cold, but had still powered through to host Thanksgiving, do all the clean up, help throw a two year old’s birthday party Saturday, and then had decorated the house for Christmas.
*sweating**panting*
I was already so exhausted, I felt like I’d have to crawl to get that tree on my belly, but,
TRADITION!
FAMILY FUN!
HOORAY FOR CHRISTMAS MEMORIES!
Getting a tree with your whole family always sounds good in theory.
Christmas cards make it look so picturesque:
Just a happy family, trekking up into the frosty mountains, cocoa in hand, everyone in plaid flannel.
They neglect to depict what it’s like with an actual family.
I will be 49 this year, and I’ve learned a few things, though sometimes slowly,
like, to ALWAYS lower your expectations for the holidays.
For instance: The kids won’t all look at the camera in your Christmas tree sleigh photo.
Give up now.
Nothing will work short of photoshop.
One will always look as wall-eyed as a Chameleon.
One child might even come down with the stomach flu the very moment you grab a saw handle.
Guaranteed, it will be the time you’re at the farm that is the furthest away you have ever driven.
For nearly two decades one of our daughters hated every single tree that we chose, and insisted on being photographed separate from the family in defiant opposition.
We have years worth of photos of us all clustered around one tree, smiling and happy,
and her like a speck by some bushy tree that she liked better in the distance.
One of your children may be such a homebody they ask when you can go home from the literal minute you get there.
This alone may be the reason you stop driving into the mountains, and start going closer to home:
A Gateway Drug to a Big Box Store parking lot, really.
“Baby Steps to convenience.”
You probably think a 5” tree trunk should be much easier to cut than your husband is making it look like.
You are never to mention this to him.
Also, maybe tell that one daughter to stop twerking behind him as he sweats and fights back cussing while he does it.
It really isn’t helping her father.
Yes, we used to head off into the woods for our trees, four pink-cheeked girls in the back seat dressed in Old Navy polar fleece in bright patterns, until we started noticing these patterns,
trees suddenly required you take out a loan and give blood to afford them, and until the girls all became teenagers who sighed every time they had to walk on uneven terrain, or were asked to do something without their boyfriends.
So, we have shifted away slowly from the quaint tree-getting fantasies of old that the young mother version of me always pictured,
and we have started getting our trees at Costco:
The way the Good Lord intended.
For years I struggled with this, however.
I’m big on my holiday ideology.
I want all of the things to be like the pages of a magazine!
I want the forest tree, the hot cocoa bar,
the matching pajamas.
But, I have talked myself down, and reminded myself it could still be fun, right?
It could still be a memorable experience.
Christmas can be just as merry at a place that sells trees AND flats of wet dog food.
Nothing says classic Christmas like a multi-pack of Dawn Power-Wash!
After all, it is still traditional if we’re wearing green or red, right?
(Just pretend this is hot cocoa instead of a Costco hot dog)
We’ll still experience all the same thrills!
(Even if they make you pay for the tree you pick before you even get to unwrap it. Even if what it actually looks like is still a mystery)
Whether from a farm or from a parking lot,
you can still have the immeasurable joy of getting it straight in the stand together!
Just think of Dad yelling, “IS ANYONE EVEN LOOKING, OR ARE YOU JUST GOOFING OFF” as he lays face down in the rocks as a part of the holiday tradition!
You can still have the annual broken saw blade during the fresh cut because your husband is physically unable to use saws or drill guns softly.
See!
It doesn’t take Christmas Card-level tree getting.
It is what you make it!
It doesn’t matter where your tree is from!
You can still untangle the massive ball of Christmas lights together!
Just maybe don’t let this part escalate as far as the time your husband took off walking down the street in the rain barefooted to “get some space from all of it.”
Remember how, like a scene in a dramatic movie, he walked slowly, lumbering like a
Tangled Light Trauma Zombie,
brain destroyed by stress hormones,
beaten by the lights once again.
He didn’t come home for an hour.
The kids don’t need candy canes on a mountain top, and the experience of cutting a tree themselves!
They would much prefer a mom who’s not calling her own mother for emotional support while she sits fully clothed in the shower, so let it all go!
Let go of perfection!
Finally, at age 48, after 20 years of marriage and as many of parenthood, I let go of everything being an Instagram-worthy experience, or even going smoothly for that matter.
This year the 13 year old crashed out in the backseat, as 13 year olds do, because she had low blood-sugar.
The 16 year old fought with her.
No one wore matching clothes at all.
The 13 year old rolled her eyes to even be told she had to put shoes on.
One daughter is married, and on her own.
One daughter was with a friend home from college.
The two remaining girls refused to take a picture;
But, you know what? I let it all go.
What will be will be, right?
We went to Costco, and, you know what?
We found the perfect tree immediately.
Like, within seconds.
When we got it home, it cut perfectly;
Not even a semi-bent saw blade.
Not a bulging jugular vein was seen for a mile.
It went straight in the stand on the first try,
and screwing it in took maybe 2 minutes.
The lights were not knotted.
I did them myself.
Everyone was happy.
I breathed shallow, as not to jinx it.
It was like my own personal Christmas Miracle.
I let go, and Christmas took off!
Daddy had no reason at all to walk down the street barefoot!
Maybe something just always has to go wrong. Maybe that’s the secret to all of it.
Maybe it you get perfection on the snowy tree farm hill, something else goes wrong elsewhere.
Maybe I’ll never know.
I just have to roll with what I’m given.
I do think it was in the letting go of it all that I finally realized, two decades into marriage and parenthood, that no one ever needed perfection for the holidays in the first place.
Being a family takes making memories of ALL kinds,
and we’ve definitely got plenty of them.
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.
