I am constantly reminded by my Mom to enjoy the moment because life travels fast. I keep myself extremely busy so I don't typically sit back and take things in like I should. However, this week I have seen so many social posts from friends near and far of their little's at their school Christmas concerts. A little sense of sadness was stuck in my heart and I couldn't quite place it. It dawned on me that I am passed that point with my own two kids and have no idea where 13 years has gone.
I am not sure when and at one point my two stopped believing in Santa but they did. They pretend too now and have for a while around me because they know I will never give that shit up. The whole Christmas fairy tale thing was something I did solo for them and in my opinion at 100%. I have created epic scenes and moved Elves around two houses since those stupid things became a thing. I call them stupid but Flower Girl and Kevin really are my close friends. We just have this love/hate relationship now. Unfortunately my bestie Sarah and I don't do anything on a light scale. We have spent hours sharing ideas and coming up with new ideas so that our elves were the best in town! My elves brought letters every day for the month of December for years. I am talking full page typed up letters from Santa about everything under the sun. One year my printer wasn't working and I had to go print them at a friends house because god forbid the elves missed a morning letter. And at least once a week they would bring gifts if the kids did something cool in school or sports and I would dress the elves up to match the situation. Now the elves and their reindeer friends are still here and moved around but they don't do anything cool. No letters, no gifts because nobody but me cares about this anymore.
So many other traditions I forced along for years that just don't fly anymore. One being matching jammies like shown here. I get a look of death from both of them if I even mention it. Photo shoot after photo shoot to get the perfect pictures for our Christmas card. Today four days before Christmas I have yet to do our Christmas card because I have slacked this entire month. Then there were the videos I made from Santa. Using pictures from our homes and with their friends. At the end they find out if they made the nice list or not. Shane would squeeze my hand so tight because technically he was a pain in the ass and probably should have been on the naughty list more times than one.
Last year probably the hardest year of my life my kids did not wake up with me Christmas morning. I struggled for months trying to make sense of how that was fair to me after everything I dealt with. One night I turned to my nieces who I often lean on and it came to me. I did Christmas morning Christmas Eve morning as we decided to enter a different time zone, genius right?! Jan and Jules helped me pull this off to an expert level of crazy just like the three of us are. This along with my brother creating a Christmas morning family work-out that kicked our ass got me through it. But here is what that past few years have taught me...No present, no certain day or time, no elf, no person, no material thing can bring happiness. It's about the memories you spend with good, genuine and kind people that truly matter. The people that love you, keep loyal to you even when your fucking up. Of which I have certainly done lots the past few years. It's about being a good Mom, Daughter, Sister, Aunt and Friend even when you have your own demons going on. My kids want me for me and they don't care about any of this anymore.
When all of that happy shit fails and it does from time to time in this house we live by three rules:
1. Chuck it in the Fuck it Bucket
2. Learn to Live in the Moment
3. Be you, do you, for you
Enjoy the last hustle and bustle weekend before Christmas!
Comments