With the holidays approaching, I am guessing that many middle-aged women like me are silently cursing Normal Rockwell and Martha Stewart. I suspect that many of us are starting to wish for the same thing that we wish that Santa would bring us every year. The item that we would like, as a very extraordinary Christmas present from Santa, is a very specialized magic wand that would magically make all of the players in the holiday season behave in their best easy-going, kind-hearted, thoughtful, understanding, non-confrontational way – the very way that we would like for them to behave. This magic wand would magically turn our spouse, our children, our children’s significant others, our children’s friends, our parents, our siblings, our nieces and nephews, our in-laws, our extended family, our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues, our pets, the UPS delivery person, the store clerks, the other people in the stores, the credit card companies and Amazon Prime, into everything that we would like for them to be, in order for the holidays to go smoothly and swimmingly.
With all of the advances in artificial intelligence, this technology may not be as far off as we think. We could have a little button on the wand that would put everyone and everything into “happy, congenial, helpful, smooth-going” mode. And if the players aren’t behaving in their best holiday spirit, we could press the pause button on them, like a technological time-out. It would be like the sci-fi show Westworld, only it would be Christmas World.
Of course, the Catch-22, that we controlling, stressed-out, middle-aged female heads of households never think about when fantasizing about these fantastic magic wands, is that the players in our lives would very much like to use them on us. When I get a little too frazzled, I imagine those who love me most, would love to put me on “pause” and shove me in the corner for a little breathing space for all parties involved. Wow, if these magic wands did exist, and everyone was using them, would everything just be frozen in “pause” mode throughout the entire holiday season? Would we all just look like a Christmas village display, frozen in time? Maybe the answer isn’t the magic wand with a pause button, after all. Maybe it’s just coming to a healthy acceptance that during the holidays, the messiness of life comes into acute focus. The family shenanigans, the money worries, the reality of everyone’s frenetic schedules, trying to stay healthy and eat right through temptation, the feeling of grief for loved ones passed, all come to a messy crescendo during the holidays. And when things are messy, many of us middle-aged mommas go into “extra-mode” trying to cover up all of the messiness with ribbons, and bows, and tinsel, and sugar cookies. We try to make it all appear like perfection. Perhaps if we just accept that the messiness is there, and that it is okay that it is there, and it is not our duty to fix it all, we can just let go, and relax. When I’m relaxed, I tend to be more easy-going, kind-hearted, thoughtful, understanding and non-confrontational. When I look at all of the holiday madness through my relaxed lens, things look more charming and beautiful, maybe a even a little Norman Rockwell-ish or Martha Stewart-ish at times.