The ghost of Christmas perfect

Dear Other Mother,

Welcome back. I can’t say I’m thrilled to see you here, but I’m not surprised. It’s holiday time, your favorite moment of all to saunter through the door and point out all the things that are unorganized, late, dirty, and/or missing. There’s plenty to point to. It’s been an intense season, an intense year, maybe even an intense decade?!

Kinda the vibe when she comes around and tells me all the stuff I’m screwing up.

Yes, I saw the holiday cards start coming in. They’re on the counter. They’re beautiful. Yes, it’s so nice that some people actually like taking staged portraits with their families. I just can’t. The outfits and the smiling at one another in the muddled light? A nightmare (for me, just for me). Sometimes we get a holiday card out. I don’t think it’s going to happen this year. How about this: Hey world! I can assure you my children are still ridiculously cute and we’re doing okay. Love Us.

It’s true, I like receiving holiday cards. I like seeing how people’s kids grow and change. I like getting their news. It seems sort of sweetly old school in a time of instagramming your dinner. But I also worry it makes people feel like they have to perform some better version of themselves for me and/or like they believe the better version I am performing on the card I send out, forgetting that I never look like that when I wake up and that I threatened my kids that I would throw away their toys because their rooms were so messy last night. Yes, yes, I know I’m overthinking it now. This is your least favorite thing about me—the sociological contemplation gets in the way of the box checking.

We did get a tree! That’s got to count for something. The girls only tried to push one another off the stool like twice while hanging the ornaments and I played Mariah Carey’s Christmas album and danced around a little bit. Stella hasn’t even tried to eat the popcorn off the strings that John made nine years ago; last year that was an ongoing concern. Yes, we left the advent calendars at my mom’s house before we drove away. The chocolate will taste the same in January when we go back to visit. No, my strategy around the consumption of sugar is unclear to everyone, including myself.

Here’s the thing, Other Mother, I know you have always hoped that I would become like you—never miss a morning toothbrushing or the prompt sending of a thank you note, always have healthy snacks in the house and dinner planned in advance—but I’m eight years into this gig and I think we both need to just raise the white flag. In the same way I now know that I will never become a woman who wears high heels, I think we both know, deep down, that I will never become a mother who packs a respectable lunch. I will always stuff the drawers and lose the password and frisbee the tortilla into the bedroom when they say they are hungry at 9pm.

I can’t be like you because I am not built for it, but also because—let’s be real—I choose not to be like you. I prioritize poetry over a tidy house most days. Today, I will have tea with my elder Louise and talk about how hard it is to be a person in the world. I could have used that time to figure out where Maya’s birth certificate went, but I’m hoping it will just show up at some unexpected moment like my missing keys did (ahhhh, the leather jacket I wore to that raucous dinner party!).

Don’t get me wrong—I tidy and plan a lot. It’s the Sisyphean obligation of living in this house, this society, but I need to keep myself honest. It never looks like I think it should, like you think it should Other Mother, and that’s okay. The girls are mostly healthy and largely happy. I’m tired and grateful and praying a lot these days for friends with cancer and covid. It just is what it is. Partly because I can’t manage it any other way and partly because I don’t want to.

So thanks for dropping by. You and your judgment can be on your way. Happy holidays!

Love C.