My Love/Hate Relationship with Holidays

If you were to ask anyone who knows me, even slight acquaintances, they would tell you that I love holidays. I always make a big deal out of them. I love carving pumpkins and cooking turkeys and decking the halls and dying eggs. I even make a big deal out of the less obvious holidays. Leprechauns always visit our house on St. Patricks day, and leave a little trail of gold coins leading to a little surprise! (Like a fancy shamrock hair ribbon or something.) I don a sombrero and make enchiladas on Cinco de Mayo. (The margaritas make the hat easier to pull off.) The problem is, while holidays are super fun and create special memories for my kids, (not to mention photo ops) they are a ton of work for me.

I am fully in charge of holidays around here. The husband's contribution to holiday preparation is to put on a clean shirt, which I suppose is better than the alternative! This year we were a little late in getting our Easter decorations up, for obvious reasons. (This has given the angel one more thing to add to her "life was better before my brother was born" list.) In fact, the angel put some of them up on Saturday and the rest just didn't make it out this year. (Mommy is busy!!) It was actually a bit of a battle to have the husband retrieve the decoration boxes from storage at all, but the baskets and plastic "hunting" eggs are in there, and I told him if he wouldn't get them for me I would go out and buy all new ones. (I had the boxes two hours later.)

Not only is the set up and decorating tiresome, but holidays are notorious for lack of sleep. First, Mommy has to stay up late...cleaning and stuff. Then the kids are up at the crack of dawn to see the treasures, which means that Mom and Dad are up too. (These are the same kids who must be awakened with a whip and a chair on school days.)

When I was growing up, holiday dinners happened at around 3 in the afternoon. My parents had time for a cup of coffee, a leisurely shower and maybe even time to make a meal or a dish to take if we were going elsewhere. The husband's family dinners are at noon. (They are serious about this. We once arrived at 12:30 and the food was already being put away.) This means that we have to scramble to get everyone dressed and ready to go on time. ("Look at all this neat stuff the Easter Bunny brought for you! But don't take it out, we've got to go!") Easter is even worse, because they do an Egg Hunt for the kids at 10. In the morning. This might not seem like such a big deal to most people, but it is damn near impossible for me to shower, dress, do something with my hair and make-up, assist the angel in her dressing, (tights are tough to put on) dress and feed the peanut, (that one really hurt, because feeding him is a half hour of sitting and doing nothing but watch the minutes roll by and think about all the things I should be doing.) and then make three dozen deviled eggs. I tried to enlist the husband's assistance, but he has proven himself to be next to useless when it comes to putting on tights and tying pretty bows. He also is not equipped to feed the baby. He did "help" me by peeling some of the hard boiled eggs, but that actually turned out to be a fiasco as well. (I'm not sure what he was doing to them, but his eggs looked like he removed the shell by shooting it off with bird shot. I finally had to send him to the showers or we weren't going to have enough "smooth" eggs to devil.)

Anyway, we arrived only an hour and a half late, though luckily they held the egg hunt for us. (I think they feel sorry for the angel because her mother wasn't up at 5 am. And they already know how much help her father is.) I was finally able to snag a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, wishing the whole time that I could be napping. What good is all that preparation if you are too tired to actually enjoy the big day? What's the point in running yourself ragged visiting relatives, only to return to the disaster you left at home with no energy to do anything but lay on the couch and survey the damage.

I'm looking forward to Mother's Day. (Just not all the work I'll have to do to prepare for it.)