The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...?

I'm coming to a daunting realization about motherhood (yes - another one!), and that is that Christmas is largely my responsibility now.  As a 'stay-at-home mom,' it is up to me to get Christmas wrapping, Christmas Eve pajamas, stocking stuffers, and everything that Santa will leave under the tree.  In addition, any Christmas cookies, fudge, or other goodies are also up to me to provide.  I say everything, but that isn't quite fair.  It's more like 90%.

The other day, as I wove my way through Walmart crowds and sparkly red and green displays, I found myself complaining aloud to my husband.  "No one told me this about motherhood!"  Yes, I had fully expected to get spit-up, boogers, poop and every other bodily fluid or goop on my hands, face and clothes (and those expectations have been realized, I assure you).  I anticipated long, sleepless nights of taming wiggles and banishing nightmares.  I was amply warned about the perpetual messes I would spend my days chasing from one end of the house to the other.  But no one told me that the magic that my kids will anticipate all year round, the magic that is Santa Claus, would  be mostly mine to forge.

In the midst of all of this, I also heard a little voice in my head, reminding me that I've only got one child, and she isn't old enough yet to know what a present is, or to care.  If I'm stressing now, am I ever in trouble!

And then, there was last night, as we raised our Christmas tree, our modest little shrine to the season.  Taking the advice of many blogs and magazines we'd found online, we began to decorate by putting the more fragile ornaments up top, and the ones that could stand a little almost-toddler investigation down low.  As I hung little stuffed Santas, felt candy canes, and bulbous silver jingle bells on the lower plastic boughs, Addie decided to pitch in, removing each ornament as soon as I had moved on to the next.

I realized that if I can focus on those little things, the memories and photographs of my almost-year-old's first real Christmas (last year didn't count), somehow all of this manic buying, baking, planning and wrapping will all make so much more sense.  It's a thought that's made it into my mind, but I haven't fully internalized it yet.  Maybe that's what I'll focus on this month.

Goodness - and I thought I had already learned that Christmas isn't about what's under the tree.  I guess I have a lot to discover yet.