If you're like the majority of parents you've been shopping for weeks to find the perfect gifts that you just know your children will love. You envision awaking Christmas morning to watch your children open their gifts with smiles and squeals of excitement. After the gifts are opened you imagine your family will spend the day reveling in the joy of the season and happy to be together making memories of the perfect Christmas.
The perfect Christmas. Is it possible?
The family cat has gotten to the gifts before your children and the perfectly wrapped gifts now look like they've survived a tornado.
Son number one opens all his gifts and begins to sob hysterically because he didn't get a green Bakugan. Son number two has already broken the door off his Zhu Zhu garage and is angry with you because you can't fix it. Your daughter's pile of new toys has already been discarded and at the bottom of that pile is a hot pink Snuggie you had hoped would replace her worn out blankie. She's now whining, while holding that blankie, because she's hungry and wants you to make pancakes.
You take a deep breath trying not to show your disappointment as you ask yourself, "What went wrong? Why can't we have a perfect Christmas?"
Society or more specifically the media has a way of convincing us that we can create perfection yet in reality no aspect of our life is perfect yet we continue to try and convince ourselves that we can achieve perfection on Christmas morning.
When you set your sights so high there is absolutely no way to achieve them so you end up feeling disappointed and defeated which leads to overlooking the small things that really make Christmas special.
Small things like your daughter giving you a kiss with pancake syrup on her lips. Your older son allowing his little brother to playing with his Bakugan even if it's only for ten minutes. The whole family, still in pajamas, sitting on the floor near the Christmas tree reading together The Night Before Christmas while munching on sugar cookies and candy canes.
Grab that digital camera Santa brought you, if you can figure out how to turn it on, and take some photos of these precious moments. They're the ones that you will look back on ten years from now with a tear in your eye, a smile on your face, and a tug in your heart longing to repeat that 2009 not-so-perfect Christmas that was perfect after all.
4 comments:
Oh, how wonderful...! Yes. Perfection is impossible to achieve, but the small moments do last forever, don't they?
My mother always used to joke that all of her children open their Christmas presents, looked at the gifts, and then proceeded to play with the boxes instead. I can actually remember doing that. :-)
And for this reason I am so glad my kiddos are at the 'cash' stage. I actually have a digital camera on my santa list... so if Santa got the clue, I will certainly take photos of kids counting cash as I flip our christmas pancakes.
Perfect!
You are so right! All these things happen to ruin the "perfect" event that we have planned. But when we look between the miscues and mini-disasters, the perfect moments are there to store away in our memories.
It happens every year! :) Thanks for reminding us!
Pam, I love your post. You so eloquently said what I was wanting to pass along to my readers! Thank you for linking up, and Merry Christmas!!
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