And here we go again. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we are now face-to-face with December, aka the Christmas tunnel for those who celebrate. And for those who don’t, I’m sure the end-of-year tunnel is just quite as daunting.
I love the holiday spirit, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t use to, but I do. And I have my children to thank for it. As a teenager and well into my twenties, I simply dreaded this time of year and only wanted it to be over as soon as November ended. Christmas was just synonymous with its own special form of winter gloom, associated with childhood memories that were not what I would have liked them to be. And December would always find me in a weary, somber, often irritable mood, and I genuinely could not understand what the end-of-year fuss was about.
Fast forward a few years, and Christmas turned into the most anticipated event of the year at my house. It all started with my daughter, who became obsessed with it the minute she was able to talk. For the four years or so before she became a toddler, my son liked it of course, but the tree, and the gifts, didn’t really become a thing until she was there to point it out to him how exciting they were. Today, she is twelve, and her passion hasn’t abated. If anything, it is more burning than ever. She starts talking about it as soon as she has passed her birthday, at the end of July, and this year she decided that she would be spending the gift envelope she received from my in-laws on holiday decor for her room. Which is why we now find ourselves with a collection of silly gingerbread and Santa-shaped mugs, a cheap white-and-red Christmas fleece blanket and other made-in-China paraphernalia from Amazon. As soon as the last Thanksgiving leftover pies have been consumed, she will also start blasting the holiday music playlist she put together years ago, and this will be the soundtrack of our lives for the next thirty days or so, whether we like it or not. Hot chocolate with marshmallows will be consumed on a regular basis, the Playmobil Advent calendars will be out for the boys, and the countdown to Christmas will begin.
And I love all of it, I truly do. But also, I feel overwhelmed, catching myself wanting it to be over soon, like I did before I had children, but for different reasons. As I already mentioned, I do not do well with planning, organizing, and with anything having to do with STUFF in general. And Christmas, it must be said, is all about stuff. It is all about thinking ahead, and deciding who gets what, and, of course, buying stuff. And as much as I enjoy bringing happiness to the people I love, I find no pleasure in spending hours browsing the Internet to find items that match the somewhat obscure description left by my boys on their letter to Santa. To be perfectly honest, most of this work is my own doing, as I tend to over-spoil my kids at this time of year, probably making up for the somewhat barren holidays I enjoyed as a child. I want Christmas to be big, and abundant, and happy. I want the pile of gifts at the foot of the tree, and I want my children screeching with excitement and joy when they wake up on the 25th. But as years go by, I find I don’t want the work that goes with it. Could it be age? Could it be repetition? The fact is, as I am about to enter this tunnel today, I feel a mix of weariness and dread.
A few years ago, when I found myself with three children, then four, I started a Christmas gift spreadsheet. And for a while, I was so proud of this uncharacteristically productive achievement that I almost enjoyed the shopping spree it inevitably involved. That is, for the first couple of weeks, before I found myself as burned-out and overwhelmed as I ever had been, once the first dozen items had been painstakingly gift-wrapped. But as years have gone by, the Excel enthusiasm has worn out, and today I regret to inform you that no document has been created as of now. I guess hosting Thanksgiving dinner for eighteen people last week was a lot, and I still need to recover. Or maybe I’m just getting old, and the accumulation of all Christmases past is starting to be felt. Whatever the reason, the energy just isn’t there, and we have just barely entered December.
What is a tired mother to do? Should I just streamline and tell the kids they will only have two small gifts this year? I say this to myself every year though, and always end up with the same insane amount of stuff, with stockings filled to the brim with random socks, underwear, lipsticks, toy cars and other useless junk. Just filling those stockings would be enough to bring a woman to the brink of despair. And yet I will certainly find myself getting ever more things and worrying that it will not be enough. No, I need my motivation to come from a warmer place, that will carry me through the month. And for some reason, what just jumped to my mind as I tried to answer this question, was a summer scene. The overpriced Irish coffee I sipped this past July, on the deck of the boat we took across lake Tahoe, after visiting my in-laws. It was the day after my daughter’s birthday, so this image isn’t coming out of nowhere, after all. I hadn’t had Irish coffee in ages, and it left me quite drunk after only a few minutes. I struggled to make sense and stopped talking entirely after I realized my children were looking at me bizarrely. But getting slightly tipsy might be just what you need to get you through the season. And if you feel too virtuous for spiked coffee, an Italian affogato might do the trick. I still remember the one I had at the Chelsea market years ago. I had had the brilliant idea to treat myself for my birthday that December morning, and I went all the way down Chelsea to do some shopping and find something good to eat. As it happened, L’ Arte del Gelato was open, and serving affogato, which I then realized I had never tried before. I sat down and enjoyed it all by myself, on a tiny side table by the counter, in the middle of busy passers-by. It was heaven.
So, maybe that’s it. Creating moments like this for myself every morning of December. Paris’ pastry shops had better be ready.
Now, go ahead and make these, at least once this season. You don’t have to share them with anybody if you don’t want to. You can enjoy them all by yourself on a December morning, once everybody has left for school or the office, or whatever their lives might take them. You will not regret it, I promise.
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