A Very Merry Imperfect Christmas
Updated: Nov 25, 2019
The big HO HO HO, is fast approaching and the pressure is rising to have the “perfect” family Christmas! That’s what Christmas is all about right, having a perfect Christmas that we can show the world that we did it all and successfully, right?
That we bought all the presents that everyone wanted, wrapped them like a pro, shopped, prepped and cooked for 20 of your closest family...who you love unconditionally. All because we wanted too...I’m going to say it, I don’t want too!
In today’s society we are even more aware of how we “should” be doing Christmas, you just have to look at social media and see the many show-home trees gracing the screens, the Pinterest perfect crafts and not an undercook turkey in sight. I find it all so beautifully depressing.
Christmas is getting bigger and bigger each year, with Christmas eve boxes being a must (we don’t do them) and that bastard lil elf that give children so much joy but parents a right old head ache. We do have an elf but he stays right where he is suppose to...on the shelf. Little git!
This isn’t me bashing Christmas, I bloody love Christmas and the whole build up but when did it become such a competition too have the best one?
I have never experienced Perfect Christmas. And, the truth is, I don’t think you have either.
A Perfect Christmas is a freakin’ myth!!!!
Growing up, my parents did Christmas big, well actually it felt big to us. The house was filled with decorations but no tinsel! My mum doesn’t do tinsel...bah humbug! Our tree was plastic and filled with mismatch baubles we had collected over the years. In our house, each year, we all pick a bauble each. Something special that means something to us, as we grew older the baubles got funnier or rude to our own amusement. My mum and dad have a tree filled with memories with nutcrackers, take that baubles, a naked Santa and a bauble that says F**k it. My dad still rolls his eyes as he decorates it, haha!
No Christmas eve boxes back then but we did all snuggle up after a bath and watch a Christmas film, Christmas PJs and all.
We opened our stocking on my parent’s bed (as these were the gifts Santa gave us) and showed them each item with wonder. Dad would then put the fire on and we would go see what our parents had gotten us plus a few little things left by Santa. My parents wanted us to know that they had bought us our “big” presents as why should the big guy get all the credit!
Now my family are “old school” and I have grown up in a very gender role household, at Christmas, the women are in the kitchen and the men...well watch TV. It’s just the way it’s always been, each woman in the family makes a dish but to be far, my poor mum makes most of the main parts. She gets steaming drunk while she’s cooking the turkey because well, no one is about to tell her otherwise! Most my family don’t drink at all and my mum has gotten very good over the years at hiding her drunkenness, it’s only as I have gotten old I have realised that she bloody trashed by the time dinner is served.
A very imperfect Christmas, a event often comes up in our family tales, the time when I was asked to bring crackers home from uni. Living on a remote rural island, my family would often ask me to bring home luxury items that they couldn't get on the island - hows that for a simple life.
On Christmas day my mum asked me to bring the crackers through and I gave them to her, she called my dad and said "Gail, brought the crackers..." The both started laughing - I had only gone an bought Jacob's cream crackers instead of the much wanted CHRISTMAS crackers! My dad even told this story during his speech at my wedding - HA!!!
Our Christmas’s would not win thousands of likes on insta but my goodness they were fun. I remember the time my auntie fell asleep on the couch and we drew a beard on her, she went off to the pub after dinner completely unaware she had it on, or the game of cludeo that ended up with my granny cheating, she thought she was so sly but we all knew it or the time I got roller skates and I wouldn’t take them of my feet. These are the moments I remember, when Cora pulled the Christmas tree down on top of my dad who was lying next to it listening to his show on the radio.
We need to stand back at times; yes a tree can be beautiful but is mine that has been destroyed by my toddler, doe that make it any less beautiful? He is touching, exploring and enjoying Christmas by tearing my tree apart (seriously I’m not sore about this...well maybe a bit)
My decorations are pre-school chic, hand crafted snowmen and angels, made with love by my children. I love them and that’s all that matters. They will remember that I took them out again, year after year, that they meant the world to me.
I learned some tough lessons along the way as I kept hoping, year after year, that things would be "insta perfect" for my family. But all I ended up doing was making myself unhappy pursuing something that never could have in the first place.
I have been having my own Christmases with my little family the last 4 years, I have learnt a lot over those years. We have own traditions, our own “perfect” little day that I don’t think I would change. I am a lot calmer, you just have to look at my tree, it’s naked from the waist down, bloody kids!
I have lowered my expectations of it all. Not because I don’t want the best for my family and not because I don’t think the best times of our lives can happen at Christmas. They absolutely can and they do!
But even when things turn out great, they never turn out exactly the way we think they will and rolling with the punches can lead to more fun times.
Do you remember the time the cat ate half the turkey? And when CC knocked over the Christmas tree at your house? When Mum gifted us what she thought were sweets but were in fact edible underwear? These are the stories that we remember, cherish and laugh at every year.
Those are the best Christmas stories! You won’t sit around in future years talking about how perfectly the fire crackled in the hearth and how awesome the tree looked. Well you might but it may follow with that was the year we burnt the turkey...
The truth is we are a lot more likely to remember the moments that made for a non-perfect Christmas. And whether I choose to laugh or cry about them is really the only thing I have much control over.
So, Merry Christmas dear readers and I hope you have a perfectly IMPERFECT Christmas!!
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