I am a Griswold

Call me Scrooge, but just about every year by the time I'm done putting up all the holiday decor I'm feeling more Grinchy than festive. I mean, it's a lot of work, hauling the boxes out, untangling lights, taking each ornament out of it's newspaper cocoon... Add a couple of feisty kids and cats into the mix and in the end you have a house strung with lights that, due to interruptions and distractions, you've managed to put on so that the plug is nowhere near the power outlet and/or you've somehow connected them all so there's too much juice running through and one strand keeps blowing fuses. (While somewhere the spirit of Clark Griswold chuckles at you.) After that it's on to the inside of the house where you put up the tree. You turn on Christmas music and let the kids help. And, while the cats repeatedly climb up the tree every few minutes you hang your ornaments. Once you're done, you stand back to admire the majesty, its lower branches over-laden with ornaments hung at child height and near the top, an attractive saggy portion the cats have weighed down where they like to lay. (Wouldn't Charlie Brown be proud!) Still, you decide it has it's charm and that you'll cherish memories of putting the tree up with your kids. It's the next morning when you discover that during the night the cats have knocked off quite a few ornaments, including a clear ball filled with sparkly snow that is now sprinkled around your carpet, that your Christmas spirit starts to flag. But, you redecorate the tree and vacuum the mess, then turn to tackle writing those Christmas greetings to everyone you know, and try to think of charming, yet affordable ideas for the people still left on your list. Thinking of everything you have left to do in the dwindling amount of days left until the big day starts to give you a headache, not to mention the ache in your wallet. This headache is only exacerbated by the fact that while you're trying to compose complete sentences in your holiday correspondences, and thinking of non redundant ways to wish folks a Merry Christmas, you have small children to take care of who need snacks, naps, hugs when they disregard your warning not to run in the house and manage to bonk their heads, and so on. So, you head into the kitchen to pour yourself a third cup of coffee for the morning. That's when you turn to the living room and realize that, despite the fact you swore you hung them all out of reach, the baby has somehow managed to get a hold of one of those darn sparkly snow balls, opened it, and festively sprinkled snow everywhere. Even Father Christmas himself would heave a sigh at having to vacuum up heaps of sparkly snow several times a day. While you're vacuuming up the sparkles, and vowing to yourself next year you're NOT using those ornaments even if they are pretty, your preschooler starts snooping around and shouts out, "Hey Mom! What's this toy in here in this sack?! Is it for me? It is for Christmas?!"

It's then that you realize there's no need to watch the movie, you are living the National Lampoon's Christmas...

Well, okay, maybe I'm making it seem a bit worse than it really was, but actually, all that really did happen at our house over the last week. And it just got me thinking, isn't it kind of ironic that in a season meant for joy and family time we all get so crazy and stressed out and expect ourselves to accomplish 30 hours of work in each 24 hour day? We just expect so much out of ourselves trying to make things special and wonderful, that sometimes we don't even enjoy it! We just lose perspective and get all frustrated and fizzled out because we have such high expectations.

So, heave a sigh, get done what you can, don't forget that a good cup of coffee can restore a bit of Christmas spirit (at least for me, coffee solves everything) and join me in smiling into the madness. Embrace your inner Griswold!