Yeah!! Holidays!!

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

                                                                                    Matthew 11:28

The Holidays are coming!!  The holidays are coming.  the holidays are coming…

I love Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The only real warmth I feel from my childhood comes from these times.  While I don’t remember many of the particulars, or exactly how my own family celebrated when my children were small, I know I really need them to be special.

Therein lies the problem!  I am the mom.  In most cases, Mom is the curator of Christmas and the thinker of Thanksgiving.  Moms put this stuff together, and in too many homes they do it alone.  It is so hard to enjoy the holiday spirit when you are the sole person creating it.  My mental illness has done me a great service in this situation.  For years now, I have had these tasks taken from me.  (Last Christmas it was actually COVID) This year I know I am in a position that not only do I know I CAN do it, but I WANT to do it.  Things have changed in my family.  I will not be left to create magic with only my will and pixie dust this year.

During my recovery, I have learned many skills, one of them being Self Care.  This was elusive for me for a long, long time.  When I finally realized that I deserved to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was left with the gigantic task of creating them.  My recipes, decorations, special dishes were lost in the fire.  My preoccupation with perfection has been the bane of my planning.  I have found so many recipes that are nearly identical to the ones I have always used online but using them grates against my stubborn brain.  I finally got to the point where I just wanted to have family dinners in a restaurant again. (Not a horrible idea, but not what we think of as the holidays) Finding myself anxious every time I thought of them looming over me, I took drastic Mom action.  I asked my boys if they would be with us on the day and then asked them to think of what dishes they wanted served AND ASKED IF THEY WERE WILLING TO COOK THEM.  I’ve never done this.  My desire for control wouldn’t allow it.  Desperation drove me to this point, even though my husband Paul and son Jonathan are more than competent cooks.

The self-care here is me recognizing that it doesn’t have to be perfect.  I can give up a little control.  No one will be horrified if the dishes don’t match and God forbid, something gets burned.  I am so thankful for the classes and programs where I have been able to learn concepts like self-care, even though it had to be pounded into my head with a sledgehammer!  Oh, and I got a resounding YES from both of my guys!  I think cooking together will be even more enjoyable than eating together.

It is curious to me that we will be celebrating all we are blessed with and the birth of Christ, but it took modern psychology to get me to a place where I could appreciate these meanings.  God is in everything.  My heart wants to believe and serve, but I believed I was less, so self-care has always been very difficult for me.  While my intentions have been right, I never considered that God wanted me to care for myself as well.  Seeing the logic of his will in this juxtaposition of psychology and faith allowed my heart to embrace the logic and the love for myself as well.

I am so delighted when I think about the holidays this year.  The help I am allowing myself to receive will give all of us a chance to participate in other events too.  I can’t wait to go see the Christmas lights at a nearby Catholic shrine.  I’m going to take advantage of events at our own church and not hide at home like I have been.  The thing I’m looking forward to the most?  I can’t wait to sit with my children and their children.  I want to talk and play games and even walk my overly excitable dog, Roland.  The decorations are important, the food is important, but the people around me are the most important of all.  They bring a smile to my face.  They wrap my soul in a warm, fuzzy blanket of love.