You know what my idea of a holiday is?
A normal day.
Laundry, hanging with my kids, and, by 9:30 pm, watching a murder mystery with my husband while I eat raisin bran. Even better: doing all that in slippers.
Normal days are easy.
On a normal day, I have a routine. I know what’s expected of me, and what I expect of everyone else. I feel cozy in my home, I have a quantifiable to-do list, and no grandiose expectations or demands.
You know what doesn’t feel like a holiday?
Actual holidays.
I mean, don’t get me wrong—I like Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year. I enjoy them. I even look forward to them.
But they also make me uptight.
There’s decorating and schedules and budgets and presents and family expectations and my kids’ expectations and painful holiday-related memories and faith practices and trying to regulate our sugar intake in a sea of sucrose and the explosion of pumpkin-themed food.
And underneath it all, like an annoying Christmas ditty, is this refrain: Is it enough? Will my children remember it with fondness or existential dread? Is it MEANINGFUL?
In Isaiah, the prophet says, Comfort, comfort my people. How ironic that I need comfort about holidays themselves.
Except: you know what? The holidays have gotten better for me.
In fact, they’ve gotten more comfortable.
And it has to do with that word meaningful…
I’m over at The Mudroom, figuring out the true source of holiday meaning, and what my job is come November and December. Won’t you join me there?
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