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One harried late-October evening, I rushed through a store’s costume section in a frenzy of last-minute preparations. To my horror, the reds and greens of Christmas cards and wrapping paper beckoned from a nearby aisle.
“Oh, spare me,” I said aloud. “I haven’t finished feeling guilty about Halloween yet.”
After all, I hadn’t cooked up a bunch of popcorn balls to hand out to neighborhood trick-or-treaters. I hadn’t volunteered to chaperone at my daughter’s seventh-grade Halloween dance. And I certainly hadn’t made a costume from scratch – that’s why we were in the store.
I’d known that this might be the last year Abby would want to dress up and, as in years past, I’d never quite gotten around to helping her prepare for it. The Christmas items a few aisles over were a maddening reminder that another season of ineptitude lurked just around the corner.
I’ve never been a Super Mom, the clever and organized and inspired woman everyone seems to want as a maternal influence. If I were, I would have gone to my cute and cozy sewing room weeks before. (Heck, if I were Super Mom, I might even have a sewing room.) There I would have handcrafted a costume out of odds and ends left over from previous craft and decorating projects. The result would have been creative and breathtakingly beautiful, and probably biodegradable.
In a fit of perverse inspiration, I bought a roll of that holiday wrapping paper instead of a costume. Then I went to another store for a plain white bedsheet. We cut eyeholes in the sheet and super-glued strips of the wrapping paper to it.
She went to the dance as the Ghost Of Christmas Present.
The thrown-together costume got a lot of laughs, but I wasn’t chuckling. That’s because I’d realized the costume represented the Ghost Of Guilt Yet To Come – namely, the holiday season. Or, more to the point, the stuff I had to do for the holidays.
The shopping. The holiday foods. The decorating. At that point in my life, it all just looked like more work – but it was work I couldn’t seem to ignore.
They don’t call it the Silly Season for nothing
Sure, modern women are supposed to be beyond all this. Technically, we’re aware that none of this stuff is strictly necessary. But being aware isn’t the same as knowing – knowing deep down, being absolutely sure, that your days will be just as merry and bright whether you put yourself through Holiday Hell or not.
Like so many other women, I was still convinced that certain things are just done. You only wear white between Easter and Labor Day. You always write thank-you notes within a day of receiving a gift. And every Christmas you make butter spritz cookies with a cookie press. You just do.
They don’t call it the Silly Season for nothing. You love the holidays and you hate them. You know they’re bad for you, but you’re addicted. You can’t quit any time you want, and there’s no 12-step program for holi-holics.
Which means, of course, that our holidays often stink on ice.
You keep tabs on all the leaked Black Friday ads, making sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck and also taking advantage of frugal hacks like price comparison websites, cash-back shopping or online discount codes.
That is, unless you’re all about buying locally (and a happy Small Business Saturday to you, too!), which brings you consumer karma points but sucks a lot of time out of your life. If your giftees live out of town, it also means boxing up the goods and waiting in line at the post office, or paying more for a private carrier to deliver your tidings of comfort and joy.
You plan and cook special holiday foods, which means more stores, more lines, more hours of preparation. You also spend time whipping something really special for your open house or your office potluck. (After all, you can’t serve your friends and co-workers the same one-pot-glop you feed your family.)
You bring a present to that potluck, having drawn a name from the office gift
