Have Yourself a Merry Little Chapstick!

Typically, I don’t get overwhelmed very easily, I mean the fact that I forgot one of my sons at church last year and didn’t realize it until we were seated at home eating lunch only jangled my nerves for a few seconds and nearly a year later, he’s finally speaking to me and doesn’t feel the need to leave a poster-sized photo of himself on the dashboard. But during this time of year, when the pressure to pull off the most dazzling holiday your friends and mother n law will ever see, is thrust upon us even before The Statue of Liberty can put away her red, white, and blue—it’s nearly enough to bring me to my breaking point.

Each November I sit myself down for my annual self-to-self pep talk. With only three items on this morning’s to-do list--unclogging the blades of the dishwasher, making sock monkeys to give as gifts during these hard times (kidding, just kidding) and heading down to the drugstore to pick up some Chapstick for my son—non-flavored would be preferable he scribbled on a reminder note across my Centrum coupon, it seemed like I could get myself back on track by lunchtime.

Depending on what kind of a hair year I’m having or whether my extra chin can be disguised in a gently stretched out turtleneck, determines if this conversation will take place in front of a mirror or in the corner of my darkened laundry room. But wait, the laundry room is out this year because I’m holding a grudge against mine at the moment. Nothing big mind you, just a small inconvenience with our top-of-the-line front loading washer machine, the flapper on the pump, I believe went kaput. In my experience with this luxury contraption we’ve owned for a couple of long years, when something malfunctions it requires that the part be ordered from some remote warehouse in the farthest corner of the country, never someplace local. So this was the first test in the “Is she losing it yet?” department for the 2010 Holiday Season.

Surely it’s ok to start feeling a few little pangs of losing control when you have ten family members that need to be kept in clean underwear and other incidentals like sports uniforms, white socks, and fine jeans and you become so exhausted from farming out six loads a day that you turn your dream Jacuzzi into a makeshift Laundromat!

Back to that annual pep talk of mine. The bad hair year and the resentment I am still carrying towards my washer machine lead me to the next best place for this important conversation—my car. Here I could lock myself in, turn on some peppy rendition of jingle bells and start feeling the holiday love once again. Oops—I Forgot! I now have two teenagers who drive. Suddenly, mom’s minivan is a super cool set of wheels, especially when it has a full tank of gas and can be driven with me left far behind. Sigh.

Not one to give up, I decided to give my bathroom a try—a tranquil place I could spend a few therapeutic moments alone. It’s the last place anyone would look for me because in 23 years, I’ve probably only spent a grand total of an hour in there for whatever reason. Drat—that’s no good either. The master bath is where I hide many of the Christmas gifts. Why do you think we paid good money for an oversized Jacuzzi? If it weren’t for the use it has gotten as a washer machine or a stellar hiding place for a solid six weeks every year, then I think my husband would still be crying over that installation. With stocking stuffers and a gazillion rolls of wrapping paper peeking at me, I couldn’t possibly have a heart-to-heart with myself about how to sit back and relax during this holiday season in there.

After the dinner dishes were done, compliments of the newly, unclogged dishwasher blades, I sat down to look at our family holiday greeting cards that I picked up when I forgot to buy the non-flavored Chapstick earlier that day. Eerily, there wasn’t a single child, husband or pet trying to get my attention while I admired my painstaking handy work of getting 8 children to smile at the same time during this year’s obligatory family pose.

Despite the craziness this time of year brings, I have always enjoyed handwriting nearly 100 Christmas cards to friends and family for the sheer reason of wanting to stay connected during the holidays, not to brag about my Ivy League ability to jerry rig the Jacuzzi into our second washing machine. For me, taking that time to reach out to people I really care about (ok, well, most of them) defines the true meaning of the season.

My son walked in just as I tucked the photo cards away and I realized that I had just managed to pull off my annual pep talk without even trying. I may have forgotten to buy his Chapstick but I was relieved that I hadn’t completely forgotten why this time of year is so special. Before I know it, the holiday tunes will be gone, my sacred hiding places will be empty, the last of the decorations will be stowed up in the attic, and sooner than I care to think about, my family will be grown and gone and these harried holiday rushes will be just a memory.

On that note, I headed straight to the drugstore to buy a few tubes of Chapstick. One non-flavored for my son, and some extras to keep around as a reminder that the holidays aren’t about rushing around and putting on a good show, they are about spending time with those that you care about.

Happy New Year Stranger!

(My Column from the NK Villager/EG Magazine)

Her visit during the holidays took me completely by surprise. My husband, trying to help preserve the last remnants of my sanity, took the kids to visit his parents where the eight of them would carefully and patiently (ha ha) help to decorate their Christmas tree. Not able to recognize the sound of peaceful stillness, my body started to twitch a bit each time I tried to snuggle up on the empty couch with my book. That’s when my unexpected guest arrived, precisely as I was flipping pages and nodding off simultaneously.

I invited her into my home and she smiled as her cashmere sweater gently brushed against the fresh pine wreath that hung on my front door. “Ahhh, smells great in here…………did you just bake a pie,” she asks? “Be careful on that terrazzo tile, I’ve just washed and waxed,” I caution. “Tell me, how do you keep your entry way so pristine looking and so darn organized--I mean, I could just live right here in this room?” she gushed.

Before I can answer, she’s wandered straight into my living room and is stroking my extra plump chenille pillows. Her eyes dart straight to my mantle where I’ve artfully displayed several paintings--the soft glow of candlelight framing them perfectly. Next, she looks me over from head to toe and gleefully gives me a tight squeeze. We used to be inseparable, but haven’t seen one another in nearly 15 years right about the time I became a mother.

With so much to catch up on we head straight to the kitchen where I debate between offering her a mug of hot steaming tea or pouring us each a large glass of Merlot. The Merlot wins hands down, so we pull up a stool to my sleek, clean island that has nothing but a delightfully decorated miniature Christmas tree on it and we then toast our reunion.

“You still look the same,” she smiled. “Oh stop! We both know I’ve put on a few pounds during the past decade and surely you’ve noticed a few more laugh lines on this here face of mine,” I replied. “But you on the other hand are timeless. Your smile is still as carefree as ever and it’s obvious that you’ve kept up with your exercise routine all these years,” I sing back. With our pleasantries now exchanged, she slowly enjoys the fine wine we are sharing and asks, “Remember how we would sit on the beach and plan our futures—our careers, who we would marry, how many kids we would have, what our dream homes would look like,” she asked? I sigh and nod. “However did we become such strangers so quickly? “ asks my long-lost friend.

I sit and just stare at her. Her presence is very calming and I wonder, too, where she has disappeared to for all these years and what has prompted her return right before the New Year?

I begin to look back on the past 15 years and smile and say nothing--instead I direct her to the family portrait we have hanging outside our Living Room taken nearly three year’s ago before our eighth child was born. Even though I’ve kept a long-distance relationship with her over time, I thought she’d like to see with her lovely brown eyes what I spend most of my time doing—raising a family. The handsome guy in that portrait is my husband of 20 years, and no, not the guy I thought I’d marry when we would sit on the beach and throw Cheetos to the seagulls and discuss such dreamy matters. I met him on my 21st birthday when he had his teeth cleaned in the dental practice I worked in for 15 years, another change in course from the career I had planned for myself in the hot summer sun—that of a school teacher. Funny enough, with eight kids (my plans called for three!) I guess I got my own classroom after all.

She gives me a swift elbow to the ribs and begins to laugh. As she does I look over at my kitchen island and realize I can barely see the top of it because it’s piled high with family stuff and the box of that fine vino we were drinking is right in the center. I sense she wants to ask me something else but she’s now poking around by the mantle and straightening my collection of broken nutcrackers that are hiding the crookedly framed school photos that desperately need to be updated. And why are those plump chenille pillows now looking a bit frayed and tired? The prodding continues until my neck jerks upright and I see my 5-year old staring at me and yelling, “Mom, we’re home!”

I search the room for my friend but she’s gone again. Instead, my husband has returned with our brood and they are all anxious to tell me about their visit to Grandma’s. My book has since dropped to the floor and somehow made it’s way down the stairs into that stunning entryway of mine that is laden with shoes, mismatched socks and even somebody’s toothbrush. I am now completely awake in my dream house—the home I share with my family, and realize that I will never see that girl again, the person I was before I had kids, but I am not sad. A part of me will still always be her no matter where I’m at in life, and I can think of no better time than the start of a new year to reminisce on my leisurely past but to stay focused on the here and now with great anticipation of all the new experiences my friend and I will reflect on in another 15 years.