The holidays are coming and you’re feeling the pressure. Even if you don’t stalk Pinterest for projects that can turn empty toilet paper rolls and pinecones into elegant décor (with a little help from a glue gun), it’s hard to miss the aspirational cooking segments on the morning news or the perfect table settings on the magazine covers in the grocery store checkout. You want to give your family the perfect, Hallmark movie holiday experience. But life is full, especially for moms, and you likely don’t have time to learn applique or sew individual sequins onto placemats.
This is the point where another author might tell you cheerily how even a novice can achieve the look with a few simple tricks. Not this author. I’m here to tell you to stop trying so hard. Or, since most winter holidays incorporate themes of light: lighten up!
Here’s why. Though it’s nice to see your children dressed in matching outfits, and it’s lovely to look at each place setting with gleaming stemware and four types of spoons, it’s only important in a Miss Manners kind of way. You likely want your children to know how to dress themselves for special occasions and which fork they should reserve for dessert, but soon enough hair will be mussed and gravy spilled. In the end, the pressed napkins don’t matter very much.
When I was a girl, we used a Hanukkah menorah that one of my siblings made at preschool. Presents were distributed beside the glow of the candles. It was a perfect family picture until the heat seeped through whatever material was used and began to burn the coffee table. With much excitement the fire was doused. My parents put a huge decorative plate over the burn mark and we never used that menorah again.
As a teenager, I became a vegetarian. This usually meant that, at Christmas dinner at my uncle’s house, I would have to eat a lot of cheese and crackers before we went to the table and a lot of rolls and mashed potatoes once seated to be full. One Christmas, my uncle decided that, instead of a main course and sides, he would make stew. The potatoes and the ten-ounce bag of peas were covered in gravy. The only thing I could eat was Jell-O, which I loathe, and only with the willful forgetfulness that allowed me to overlook that the gelling agent was once an animal hoof . But I was hungry, so I dug in. The mold was a take on Waldorf salad so there were grapes and apples and walnuts (odd in Jell-O) and celery (ever odder). I stopped chewing when I got to the onions.
In case you want to try your hand at jello salad, here are 25 recipes!
I don’t remember the presents, though I am sure there were socks, books and school supplies; these were essential to my parents’ gift giving then. (My mother still likes to give socks today.) I don’t remember any of the other meals that my uncle cooked though he put a great deal of thought and time into his endeavors in the kitchen.
I do remember the disasters. I remember how careful we were to use aluminum on the table each year until my parents replaced it. I remember the sidelong glances at my sister as I realized that someone had put ONION in the Jell-O mold; it still gets a mention from time to time.
Relax, mama. Your family doesn’t need place card holders made from walnut shells. And no matter how long you slave to make vichyssoise, most children don’t find cold potato soup celebratory. If the hot cocoa bombs work out well, everyone will be pleased and if they bomb (see what I did there?), you’ll have a story to remember together for years to come. And the light of love and laughter will fill the room.
