It's actually bright, sunny and quite balmy in my particular place on the map. The warm climate here in my region belies the upcoming cool crispness that prefaces the holiday season and ushers in winter, but I'm going to stand firm in my choice of descriptive color for this month. It matches my mood every September, as it's right on the cusp of the huge holiday trifecta, The Big 3: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Knowing it's time to start bracing myself for all the tomfoolery that we all shamelessly partake in over the next hundred days, I both look forward to it and dread it, all at the same time. The extra financial strain, the buyer's remorse, the joy of watching your young children discover the magic to be had, and the time spent with family - such a joyous, crazy mixture of highs and lows, you don't know whether you should anticipate it, or feel trepidation towards it. Either way - the middle of September signifies that it's all right around the corner, so you'd be wise to prepare yourself for it. I'd normally spend the bulk of September enjoying the calm, quiet and tranquility before all the craziness hits, but let's be real: I have three children under two, and that kind of luxury has become a relic of the past.
My children are very young, and were cursed with being born in the latter months, where birthdays fall during the most expensive, hectic time of year. Although they all three officially have one Christmas under their belts, they're too new to this world to have fond memories of the past to draw from, yet they're just at the ripe young age where an awareness of the seasonal festivities will begin to resonate with them. As a parent, I feel an extra responsibility to mould their memories-in-the-making into something realistic enough to be able to pull off each year, exciting enough for them to be foaming at the mouth over it, and special enough to instill into their pliable little minds the importance of giving, of family, and of gratitude. I know that everything we do from here on out regarding the three big holidays will set the traditions they will reminisce about when they mature into adults, possibly even choosing to adopt the same celebrations and observances for their own families.
Some people don't count Halloween as a major holiday, but my husband and I are fright fanatics, having actually outspent ourselves for two years in a row on Halloween over Christmas. We'd host huge costume parties, turning our home into a house of horrors that would take weeks to decorate. We schooled ourselves YouTube-style on special effects tutorials and spent what is now our diaper and formula budget on make-up and costumes. Our buffet table included the pumpkins puking yummy guacamole, Jello body parts floating in the punch, and spiders crawling out of the black bean dip.
Most of the eerie extravagance we painstakingly perfected has been permanently shelved for the next decade, as we don't want to frighten the devil out of our young children with our life-sized ghouls and scary special effects strewn about. While we won't be able to expose them (yet!) to the stuff nightmares are made of, we very much want them to enjoy the tradition of dressing in costume and trick-or-treating that we did when we were young. It's really the only time of year that you're given the license to be in full character for an entire night, and I truly believe that it will foster great creativity and imagination in them. As they get older, we absolutely look forward to giving them the good, proper scares that most people delight in. I believe it helps draw clear lines between what's imaginary make-believe and what's real, and hopefully those important distinctions will spare them from becoming prey to superstition and the kind of irrational fear that serves no real purpose. I'd like to have them host their own holiday parties for their friends and enjoy the make-believe illusions of witches, ghosts and goblins.
After Halloween, all the faux cobwebs are taken down and the triangular carved eyes in the jack-o-lanterns start to wilt. The television, mailbox, online media and drive-by advertising is inundated with the message to SHOP SHOP SHOP SHOP SHOP SHOP, because Christmas is right around the corner. It's not enough that most department stores have already put out Christmas gear in order to reel you in sooner. We're constantly reminded that there are only X amount of days left to part with our money, get our houses and yards elaborately covered in lights before the neighbors outdo us, and time to rearrange the living areas of your home to make room for the tree, the villages, the stockings, the poinsettias ... but whoa! There's still a few weeks to procrastinate. Relax! It's time to feast!
Thanksgiving is, hands down - the best four-day weekend of the whole year. The food. The football. The family gatherings. I can't think of anything off-putting about the Thanksgiving holiday except for the silly American tradition of Black Friday. Even before I had kids, I boycotted Black Friday simply as a gesture of waving my middle finger at the ugly side of gluttonous consumerism. Now that I'm a mom, I will be (discreetly) flipping not one, but TWO middle fingers at the entire ruse that I feel is an embarrassment to our otherwise decent nation. I'd like for my children to realize that there is no amount of discount, no product so "hot" that could warrant mingling with a mob of people fighting over items, afflicted with a case of rabid consumerism that turns ordinarily friendly folks into street brawlers. We'll be spending the Friday after Thanksgiving watching movies while we happily suffer the indigestion that comes from eating too much pumpkin pie. We'll be happy to have visited with relatives, and we'll discuss how grateful we were to have such an abundance of food. I sincerely hope that I raise the type of children who, instead of bringing in stray dogs and cats, unapologetically springs a surprise guest to our meal table purely for the reason that they feel compelled to share their family's bounty with someone less fortunate. I'd be one proud mama!
Christmas always sneaks up on us, even when we overzealously put up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend. It seems like I'm just getting around to throwing out all the turkey-based leftovers and BAM! It's time for the 12-day countdown. Ever contemplated just leaving it up year-round so you don't have to fool with carefully packing up all the ornaments again? I actually enjoy it's ambient glow, and I know my babies did too, judging from the way they'd stare at it until their eyelids became heavy. The last two Christmases have been very easy and inexpensive, as our son was thrilled by boxes and paper moreso than the items inside them. We know it's going to get more expensive and more difficult as they begin to covet what their friends have, and wring their little hands with childish desire when they see the toys and gadgets in the stores throughout the year. Having grown up in a family with very little money, I am quite confident that kids who don't receive every.single.thing. they want for Christmas do not suffer any long term psychological damage. In fact, they probably walk away from it with a standard of appreciation for things that extends far beyond their maturity. Therefore, my husband and I don't plan on worrying ourselves to the point of stomach ulcers when we are faced with having to purchase gifts for three teenagers someday.
We have decided to go along with the Santa Claus scam because there's just too much joy to be had for the children when it comes to imaginary characters who do good deeds for them. We believe it may even foster in their imaginations ideas of how they can bring cheer and goodwill offerings to others, since kids often mimic their heroes. We also believe that the good to be had cancels out the fact that we're BS'ing them into thinking that a fat man from the North Pole traveling with flying reindeer drops off toys to all children, worldwide. I hope that as my children age, they will put their little minds to work trying to figure out how the logistics would be worked out, the physical improbability of a fat man sliding both down and back up the chimney, and the moral conundrum of why Santa doesn't choose to do good deeds year-round by delivering food to the homeless, housing to the impoverished, and medicine to the sick people. While we may occasionally fool them into what to think, we want to encourage them to learn how to think, and encourage them to question everything. In other words, kids - if it seems too good to be true - it probably is. We definitely aspire to nurture a sense of goodwill and charity in them that will hopefully stick for the rest of their lives. This strategy will apply in our household to most of the Nativity stories that are shared among the many religious cultures pertaining to the origins of Christmas. Those stories are important too, and we want to give them adequate exposure at home before they hear it from more fanatical sources outside the home.
There's so much tradition to uphold surrounding this holiday, it leaves me optimistic in hoping that the whole gross overspending tradition that goes with it here in the West just gets lost amid all the other festivities, and our children don't grow up believing that this time of year is when Mom & Dad overspend, go into debt, and struggle for following months just so everyone can get that iPad, or iPhone, or iTouch, or whatever iGottaHaveIt gadget is popular for their time. We want it to be fun for them both as little kids who believe in the magic of Santa, and as teenagers who have figured out the gimmick for what it is. Plus, who can pass up the timeless I'm-Scared-And-Gonna-Pee-In-Santa's-Lap photo opportunities?
As we prepare for the upcoming holiday season, I raise my glass in the general direction of all parents out there who are going to try their level best to make it as enjoyable as possible for their kids. It's not going to be easy, but we're going to be up to the task, simply because we are Mommies & Daddies who can pull off most anything as long as it makes our kids happy. I propose a toast to having a few more ordinary, run-of-the-mill weeks left to enjoy the redundant normalcy in this grey September. Embrace the usual boring routines we typically gripe about from February-August before the holiday storms roll in, because they're going to be the ones we'll be yearning to get back to once the back-to-back festivities of three major holidays burns us completely out. We'll have a nice break before having to wheel and deal with the more minor ones to follow. Dealing with Valentine's cupids and the Easter Bunny will seem like small potatoes after this!
Last but not least, I propose that we all band together and vow to do away with - once and for all - that spontaneous, punctuality-be-damned Tooth Fairy that we can never set our watches by. We all know she will likely warrant a visit to our children when it's incredibly inconvenient, making us go to the ATM in the middle of the night just to keep the fire of belief burning awhile longer in our kids. Can't we just bury their baby teeth like they did in early Europe back when people were saving their coins for more honorable endeavors? It's time we let go of just one teensy-tiny myth that is inarguably the least important one of them all. Let us set fire to this particular tradition right here and now, because isn't it a little gruesome that a fairy pays good money for discarded body parts? Moreover, who would want that kind of creature entering their children's bedrooms and rifling underneath their pillows? We draw the line here, and we draw it now. Who's with me?!?!
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