I was standing in my kitchen making simple applesauce cinnamon ornaments this morning. My son saw that I was doing something “interesting” and came to “help”. Within a few short minutes, the perfectly stamped hearts were no more, as they became marked with thumb prints, dropped rolling pins, or simply torn apart.
I managed to squeeze out the last few cut outs I needed to make as gifts and then I asked my kids if they wanted to play with the dough. The resounding excitement was just too much for me and my mommy-heart started melting as I watched them play together with this dough.
I looked over at the tray of ornaments seeing the obvious visual differences in the ones I had made myself versus the ones little hands had touched and thought “Won’t the grandparents love having little pieces of them? I know I will.”
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It’s December, everyone. December. I don’t know how it got here so quickly. My whole life December’s always arrived at a snail’s pace as I (im)patiently waited for my birthday to finally come.
And now that I’m grown it’s here in a lightning strike that reminds me again the I’m not on the ball, not prepared, and not together.
Anyone else feeling this way?
Anyone else feeling like last year, right after Christmas you said to yourself “Next year I want to do (this great and amazing and wonderful and Christ-centered thing) and it will be such a special time and become such an amazing tradition.”
Anyone?
Yeah, me too.
Two years ago I sat and painstakingly saved tiny little boxes with tiny little lids to make my kids and advent calendar. And then last year, the first time my daughter got to open a box, it got stuck, so she checked all of them for “stuckness” and destroyed a number of them, then the rest were lost or destroyed in the move.
Helpless I looked at the whole month of December and saw failure. “Welp, it’s Dec 3 and my Advent calendar is already broken. I better give up.”
So this year I bought an advent calendar. And it physically pained me. I look at it every day and I think “I could have made that!!” and I think about how less special it is because it’s store bought instead of homemade.
Having waited too long to do anything but buy one, again, I saw failure.
But you know what? I’m putting my foot down. I refuse to see failure anymore in Christmas preparation.
I refuse to look at the true and good and hard things I’m trying to do and only see the failure. I refuse to look at my kitchen counter and think only of the missing Christmas cookies that I “should have” made when I was reading the Christmas Story to my children. I refuse to look at the nativity pieces scattered all over my house and think it represents my life being scattered all over. I refuse to look at my store bought Advent calendar as “less than” just because I could have made one. And I refuse to let you go on thinking that you might be a failure too.
As much as I want my kids to have Christmas traditions in our family that they can look back upon and share with their own families one day, I don’t want to do that at the cost of the stress of a pinterest Christmas, being irresponsible financially, or trying to make my house look like Better Homes and Gardens take away one ounce of our Christmas joy.
As important as these traditions are, and as important as it is to find ways for their little hands to help, it is imperative that we not do so at the cost of their little hearts.
I can decorate a Christmas tree, and frankly, there’s a certain way I like it done. I think that pretty much goes for everyone. I can let my kids help me and it will look a totally different way than it would if I just did it myself. So I can wait until they go to sleep and rearrange them. Or I can leave it just the way it is. Let them see that mommy likes how they decorated the tree.
I can make the best stinkin’ Christmas cutout cookies for every cookie exchange East of the Mississippi. And I can cut them all out myself, and ice them all myself, and put the sprinkles on just right. I can do it after everyone else goes to sleep so I can get it just right. Or I can have wonky shaped cookies with lumpy icing or heavy, HEAVY sprinkles that taste exactly the same and my kids got to help with.
I can make heavenly-smelling Christmas ornaments. I can make them myself, decorate them myself, and give them in gift exchanges from my kids and think “O this was a great recipe to use with kids” but then never let them see or touch them. Or I can have thumb prints in the cut outs and jagged edges.
The point is: I have little hands at my house to help me. And I don’t have to have their help on every little thing and let every Christmas creation that comes out of my house look like it was licked or kicked by toddlers. But when I do choose to have them help me, I also need to be aware of their little hearts.
Their little hearts that want to see and remember the traditions, not the yelling mommy sucking the fun out of those traditions.
Their little hearts that want to see that I take pride and joy in their helping and am confident enough to let that be what the world sees of us.
Their little hearts that might destroy an Advent calendar or Nativity set in 2 seconds flat, but can tell you that Jesus’ birthday is coming, and they know He was born to die for their sins.
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So mama, it’s still early. Even if you don’t read this until Christmas Eve, it’s still early. You can make the choice to see the failure or you can make the choice to see little hands eager to help and little hearts eager to share in the true joy that is Christmas.
And tomorrow, I’ll some of the ways I’ve found to have Intentional Simplicity at my house this Christmas season.
We’re in this together, right friends? Grateful to walk with you,
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