When one of my good friends didn’t yet know me very well, she once said something to the effect of, “But you’re not the type to stress over the little things.” I don’t know if I actually laughed right in her face or not, but certainly, now that we know each other better, she knows the truth. I’m glad I occasionally project a laid-back image to acquaintances, but I’m definitely a tightly-wound stress mess much of the time. I like to think no more a mess than everyone else, but I’m not always sure of that.
I assumed that as we became adults, certain things would just come together. We’d have matching dishes and fresh fruit. In actuality, our dishes mostly match but are still hand-me-downs that I’ve never liked, and our fresh fruit supply routinely runs out by Wednesday. I realize grocery stores are open Wednesday-Friday, but we mostly live on packaged fruit cups and applesauce pouches until the weekend because who has time?
I used to excuse our lack of prepared adultness with the fact that we weren’t in our “real” house yet. As long as we knew we were still in starter homes, planning on staying 3-5 years until the next step up, it seemed fairly acceptable to live like we were, maybe not in college, but perhaps like our first apartment. We’d replace the plastic blinds with wooden slats and real curtains when we had windows that we were going to live with awhile, and we’d invest in a substantial kitchen table when we knew milk wasn’t going to be spilled on it biweekly.
When I was in college, there was an open door policy for drop-in visiting. The 30-something me is horrified by that idea. Not for the 19-year-old me, but as applied to my current life. “Who lives like this?!” I ask, surveying the disarray in our non-starter permanent home. I’d blame the kids, but there is definitely enough non-kid clutter to keep them out of the hot seat, or at least sharing it.
Real life (giant stuffed monkey included):
While I decry the state of our living room and kitchen counters, I’m horrible about clutter. I keep coupons for no reason, since I can count the number of non-Kohl’s coupons I have used on one hand. I accidentally throw out at least double the amount of Education box tops that I keep, even though I have a ziplock bag just for box tops sitting next to the coffee maker (because where else would you keep it). I just took down my Welcome Spring wall-hanger sign along with the Halloween decorations. And honestly, that same thing happened last year, too, because I don’t have a seasonal Summer replacement. We only take down the Halloween decorations expediently because I’m a Halloween-grinch, which I know, I know, is unfun and disappointing of me. My desktop calendar at home is nearly always at least two months behind. At work, someone at my last two jobs has taken it upon themselves to be my calendar turner.
And this happens:
Empty tissue box, with temporary pocket pack, as foundation of new tissue box. And lest you think that this is in any way acceptable, note the location of the recycling bin. Also, I still haven’t done anything about it in the time it has taken to write this blog.
Anyway, this is the time of year that I start putting our cluttered, hectic lives under a microscope because it’s getting colder, the days are shorter, and the holidays are coming and we have so much to do! I know the holidays are coming because in the first mail delivery after Halloween I received 5 Christmas catalogs. Catalogs I seem unable to just recycle because, of course, I love my children and I might want to order something from the Mind Ware (brainy toys for kids of all ages) catalog, or the Lakeshore (gifts for growing minds) catalog. Otherwise what kind of mother would I be? Well played, catalogs. So, I’ll just leave them right where I can eventually not order anything from them two months from now.
The colder weather, catalogs, and a tiny bit of snow has reminded me of the upcoming holidays. It’s been such a warm fall, I’m not in a November mindset yet. Every year, the holidays make me want to do better. I want to manage my time better so that we have free evenings to read classic Christmas stories snuggled in front of a fire. I want to have miles of clear counter space to spontaneously bake cookies if we want to, and craft supplies to make any number of cork reindeer and felt Christmas trees and tiny foam crèches. I want to create wonderful holiday memories for my children, and myself, that they will want to continue when they are the adults, as I want to recreate the traditions of my own childhood. As adults, of course, they won’t have the time or the counter space, but they’ll wish for both, because their childhood memories will be so warm.
And so, despite the fact that my life is already in general disorder, I’ll start to search for “Kid-Friendly Holiday Crafts” on Google and Pinterest. Pinterest will overflow with deceptively simple-looking ideas, and I will possibly even pick up supplies for some of them, which I will store on the counters I meant to leave clear for rolling out cookies from Great-Grandma Rinehart’s recipes. And I’ll read suggested articles called, “Decorating with Cranberries,” and scour the pine trees at the park across the street for perfectly shaped turkey pinecones. But I will draw the line at Elf on the Shelf because, honestly, I am only one person, and I am not magic.
When I think about what made my childhood holidays memorable… it’s spiced cider and putting the extra leaves in the table, and icing (and eating) dozens of cookies; it’s sorting through the basket of Christmas cards and letters, cutting down a Christmas tree, and John McCutcheon’s Christmas album on Christmas morning; it’s sitting with my cousin Sarah as we opened our identical Christmas night gowns, which we then wore while we opened our similar-yet-perhaps-brunette-for-her-blonde-for me dolls. (We were/are the only granddaughters on that side of the family, and only a year apart.) And some years we probably made cotton-ball snowmen, and some years we probably made clothespin reindeer, and for a few years we could fit on the living room couch like this (and I don’t specifically remember those awesome slippers I’m wearing but I wish I did):
My children don’t have exactly the same holiday dynamic, which I’ve come to realize is okay. Their cousins live 1000 miles away, but they have an uncle who will tirelessly play Candy Land with them. We don’t cut down a Christmas tree from a farm, but they don’t miss what they don’t know, and they love the urban tree-lot version, and the house still smells like pine. In the end, it’s anyone’s guess what holiday memories fall away and what will stay with them as they become the adults of a new generation of holidays. Odds are, though, it won’t be anything gleaned from a Decorating with Cranberries article.
This year, I’m going to try to remember that memories don’t have to be constructed out of Pinterest ingredients, and they don’t have to look like they came off an Etsy site or even straight out of my grandmother’s oven. They can include a little clutter and a little room for error. One of my favorite Christmas ornaments is the plaster footprint from our oldest’s first Christmas. Each year it’s hard to believe that the growing girl trimming the tree with us was once so tiny. But what’s also great about that baby’s first Christmas ornament, what makes me smile each time we take it out, is that when we poured the plaster and left it on our counter to set, it came out of the mold reflecting the tilt of the house itself, with the top thicker than the bottom. Built in 1929, there were already a lot of holidays celebrated in that house. The house was old and getting settled; we were young and getting settled, and neither process was without its flaws. The imperfection of that ornament makes it more meaningful to me, a better reflection of the young parents we were, not quite on level ground, feeling our way through parenting and home-ownership and baby’s first Christmas, wanting to get it all right, but already understanding that we wouldn’t.
One day, we’ll have matching dishes we chose ourselves, and there won’t be quite so many stuffed animals in the living room. We won’t break crayons underfoot as we walk through the house or find the long missing soccer sock in the bottom of the grandfather clock. We’ll move on to other messes and other stresses, and again the days will get colder, and the nights will get longer, and because we’re not perfect, the holidays won’t be, either. But they’ll be the stuff that memories are made of, and as long as those memories are full of love and spiced cider, it’s hard to go wrong. And I really think that empty tissue box could be made into an easy kid’s craft of Santa’s sleigh. I’m glad we kept it around.