A Christmas Lesson For All Moms!

As a working mom, I sometimes feel guilty about all the time I spend at my job instead of playing Pinterest mom at home with my little guy.  When I let that guilt get the best of me, some crazy things can start happening around my house. Adding holiday preparations to the mix is a perfect recipe for disaster.

Recently, our city held the annual Christmas Ville Festival.  The festival is four days of free family activities and events with a holiday theme.  Feeling guilty about all the time I’ve spent working through the week (not playing dinosaurs with my little guy), I quickly penciled a few activities into each day on the calendar.  We would visit the live nativity with petting zoo animals, go to the winter carnival, see the parade, listen to Santa read a story in the park, spend a day pretending to be elves at Santa’s Workshop, see the gingerbread house contest, watch the Christmas marionette show, and participate in The Great Elf Scavenger Hunt.

I was excited as I thought about all the great photo opportunities, the big smiles on my little man’s face as he experienced the magic, and the special memories we could treasure forever.  I knew this was going to be an amazing weekend that would totally make up for all the long hours I had put in at work the week before.  My anticipation made the week fly by and before I knew it, it was Friday night.

As soon as I got my son home on Friday, I started telling him about the parade we would watch that night.  I told him we would see Santa, the marching band, Rudolph, and that there would be lots of candy canes involved.  He giggled and tried to say the names of all the characters I listed in his cute toddler voice.  My heart swelled with joy as I picked out warm clothes for him to wear that night.  Then something unexpected happened.

He decided he didn’t want to go.  He cried and screamed as I tried to dress him. At first I attributed this frustrating behavior to general toddler disagreeableness. I sat with him, holding the sweater I wanted to put on his head, and recited again the things we would see at the parade.  My little boy looked at me with tears in his eyes and said “No parade!”

Not to be deterred from what I was sure would be a wonderful Christmas memory for all of us, I ignored him. I quickly dressed him in his sweater despite his protests. After all, I had already called the grandparents and they were meeting us there.  As soon as my husband got home it was time to go.  As soon as we mentioned getting in the car, our little cherub promptly threw himself on the floor and began to wail.

Exasperated and still determined to make the parade, I tried to cajole him.  None of the usual tricks worked, so I reached for the last resort: M&Ms. Not even for his favorite chocolate candy would he be convinced to leave the house.

I sat in the floor next to him and I had a revelation.  Who were we really going to the parade for? Was it for my son or for me?

With that in mind I asked my little boy what he wanted to do and his words stopped me in my tracks. “I stay here with Mommy and Daddy.” He cried.

We didn’t go to the parade.  For the remainder of the weekend whenever I would start to railroad everyone with my grand Christmas plans, my son would react in the same manner. On Sunday, I finally relaxed and it was just in time.

I finally decided we would follow my son’s lead and only do the things he was genuinely excited about.  We spent the afternoon at the winter carnival and ended the day by meeting all the animals at the live nativity.  It was perfect!

That night as I read my son his bed time story, I realized that I had learned a very important lesson. If we just slow down and stop trying to make holiday memories, the truly special moments will happen on their own. All we really have to do is slow down enough to give our time and attention to our children and the magic will happen all on it’s own.

Written by: Sara Parise