The "Magic" of Christmas

What makes Christmas magic?  Is it the decorations, presents, or food?  Is it parties, lights, or family?  Who makes the Christmas spirit come to life, Santa?  He may take care of one night, but who is there the whole time making the season bright?  Moms.  Moms are the magic of Christmas.  So, what goes in to making Christmas magical…there is a lot of time, planning and effort to pull of the most magical time of year.  Let’s explore the season and how moms bring Christmas to life.

The Christmas season usually starts after Thanksgiving with shopping.  Most people think this is a mother’s favorite thing to do, but it’s not just going into a store and picking out some toys, there is so much more.  First you need to make your list and budget how much you are going to spend on each person, and you coordinate with everyone to make sure there are no duplicates or duds on Christmas.  This involves lots of texts, calls, emails and amazon wish list links.  Then is actual shopping, some overachieving moms may go into the stores to shop deals, but I know a lot of moms have a direct hook up from the North pole through Amazon.  You can get amazing deals on Amazon, but you must watch those delivery dates or that doll your kid wants will show up in February.  The next hurdle is to find a place to hide all of these presents so no one will find them but so that you find them come Christmas Eve.  I find this task hard as I do not have a good place in my home storage wise, so I have to get creative.  I usually keep gifts with my cleaning stuff because I know no one in my house will ever look there.

Once you have the gifts, you need to wrap them.  This seems easy enough to buy some bows and paper and wrap up toys, but when your kids still believe in Santa you have to make sure that none of the North Pole wrapping paper matches the wrapping paper from gifts from mom and dad.  Kids are crazy aware of things like that.  Also, you need like 5 rolls of tape because you are always losing them as you wrap.  I always have the problem of where and when to wrap as my kids are always around, so hiding in a locked room would be suspicious.  You will need a good stock of boxes so you can wrap your gifts easily, I once tried to wrap a Little Tykes car and that was not easy.

If it weren’t for moms, there would be no Christmas tree and no stockings.  Moms are the ones who decorate for the season and make sure that the house is spotless for company.  I do not know why we feel that the baseboards need to be clean for Christmas to be a success, we just do.  It helps with the magical feeling of everything clean, warm and decorated.  Thankfully, one tradition that I will not join is the elf on the shelf craze.  I told my kids that the elf couldn’t come to our house due to complex state border issues.  I made it sound very technical and that maybe if we ever move the border issue may be resolved.  It appeased them for now, but they ask every year.  Our decorations may not match or have a color theme, but they are eclectic and fun, and they work for us to help us get into the spirit of Christmas.

Before Christmas break is a busy time at school.  They are winding down the semester and there are many events that come this time of the year.  Moms make sure that everyone has a school Christmas pageant outfit that fits and is festive and knows what time you have to be there.  Moms also have everything needed for “dress like the grinch day” or whatever spirit days are thrown at us the last week of school.  Moms make sure the teachers get gifts because they deserve them and we make sure the teachers know how important and appreciated they are.  We also make sure that there are goodies for the Christmas party and that we clean out your backpacks so that those goodies don’t grow mold over the holiday.  Once school is done, the fun has just begun.

Moms have to plan what to do with the kids on Christmas break.  Some moms are working and have to find help around the holidays which means finding a sitter and you know how I feel about that (See last post about where have all the babysitters gone?).  Some moms are lucky enough to have the flexibility to stay home with their kids or work from home while their kids are on break.  This may seem like an easy fix to the sitter situation, but how do we keep the kids entertained during this break.  Trying to plan activities and trips to the children’s museum to keep them occupied is a full-time job.  Plus, you don’t want them to sit on their screens for 2 weeks straight.  Don’t even get me started on feeding these kiddos when everyone wants a snack every 5 minutes.

Speaking of snacks, tis the season to be baking and cooking.  Who is going to bake those cookies for Santa, and the party, and make breakfast on Christmas and lunch and dinner…moms.  Well in our house dad may do some cooking but I will be doing the baking and grocery shopping and kids’ lunches.  Some families do it up really big with dinners and big spreads. I am lucky that my family keeps it pretty casual for Christmas, but I know many moms stress over all of the food they have to prepare for everyone.  Plus, no one ever thinks about storing leftovers until you are staring into a full fridge and you have to play Jenga to fit everything in.

So, as you can see, it takes a lot of effort to make Christmas magical.  But even though we are stressed and tired, what makes it magical for us is making it magical for our families.  Watching your kids open gifts or spending time with their uncle, those are the things that make it all worthwhile.  This means dads need to fill mom’s stocking as she has filled everyone with the magic of Christmas.