Is Every Mom a Grinch at Christmas?
How Barbie Graham’s grandchildren melted her Grinchy heart
Featuring my mother’s house in a Christmas article is sort of like asking the Grinch to share his eggnog recipe. Of course, I mean the Grinch before he got his adorable little dog to pull his sleigh down the hill and Cindy Lou Who melted his heart. Maybe that’s it; my kids are the equivalent of Cindy Lou Who. Except they would never ever ever offer the Grinch the last ornament in the house!
As a kid, I really didn’t get my mom’s disgust with Christmas. What’s not to like about time off from school and getting presents? But as a mom…well, let’s just say that now I know the truth. The Christmas season is the triathlon of motherhood. A vast conspiracy has taken place on Wall Street. I blame Martha Stewart, although it has nothing to do with insider trading. No, it is all about making the American mom believe that our kids need handcrafted and meaningful gifts for their teachers, that making church musical costumes, dance recital costumes, and school play costumes is something we should be able to whip out at night from a few leftover scraps from our craft room, and we should have themed Christmas trees in different rooms in our houses. In fact, whose crazy idea was it that we should even have a craft room!
One year, my dad made the mistake of telling my mother that he really didn’t see what her problem was. She launched into a diatribe worthy of Julia Sugarbaker. He hadn’t been home on the weekend since quail season started, he hadn’t hung a single decoration or bought a single present, he didn’t know when or where we needed to show up to perform and wearing what, and to top it all off, she had been sneezing and crying for days based on fir tree allergies. In short, we all left the dinner table very quietly and gave Barbie the space she needed. That was way before Mountain Home had mani/pedi and massage gift certificates or I am pretty sure there would have been one of those in her stocking!
So maybe, like so many other things in life, Christmas is a season wasted on moms like youth is wasted on the young. Now my mom makes time to make huge batches of sugar cookie dough and makes Christmas cookies with my kids and their friends. Now my mom takes the kids to get angels off the Salvation Army tree, and they shop and wrap gifts together. Now my mom has a gorgeous tree and funny little Christmas elves hanging out all over the house. The funny thing is that she has given my kids all the Christmas decorations that really matter. Like our favorite felt advent calendar that First United Methodist Church Mountain Home made as a fundraiser so many years ago, and my favorite decorations that my great grandmother made that are hanging together by a few threads.
Maybe I can learn something from my mom about the Christmas spirit after all. I have the privilege of working with many health care workers, and recently listened to them discussing some techniques for being present in the moment. Nothing to do with Christmas presents, rather, taking a deep breath or pausing to say a short prayer before entering a patient’s room, and leaving everything else behind but their needs while with them. I think I will try that this year during the Christmas season. Some quiet time to start my day, and then enjoying full on whatever that day holds. And if that sounds a little too out there for you, just remember what that icon of Southern Womanhood, Scarlett O’Hara, said at the end of Gone with the Wind, “I can’t think about this now. I’ll go crazy if I do. I’ll think about it tomorrow.” Because if Scarlett can make a fashionable gown out of curtains, surely I can make a halo out of some pipe cleaner and glitter! M! December 2014/January 2015
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