I have heard many people exclaim this year over the sheer amount of work that celebrating the Christmas holiday entails, and I sympathize. It is a task heavy season, but I do not agree with the apparent frustration and even anger some people have expressed to me about the burden of being the mother at this time of year.

I know most of my readers are mothers, or will be mothers. Let me share my perspective with you.

I do almost all of Christmas. I shop, I cook, I initiate and run the decorating. I buy the gifts, I wrap the gifts, choose the cards, take the holiday photo, and fight the lines at the post office to send the cards. I bake like a crazy person (even the difficult recipes from the “Old Country”) and deliver treats to friends. I attend to the details within the traditions- hanging (and locating!) baby’s first Christmas ornaments, Russel Stover marshmallow Santas purchased in bulk, and stockings stuffed with German chocolate wrapped in festive foil. I make certain that the true Christmas story is told, multiple times throughout the season, and our Nativity is front and center. I arrange for Christmas movies to be watched, holiday books to be read, festive and sacred music to be played, and make sure that cookies are always left for Santa, and crumbs are left for the children.

This work is primarily mine, although I do have helpers for some tasks. It is a ton of work, and not work I’ve always enjoyed.

However, as the matriarch of my own beautiful family unit, it is my responsibility and blessing to carry on these traditions. Focus on these traditions gives my children, and my family as a whole, a sense of continuity, a connectedness with the seasons and natural rhythms of life, and the safety of familiarity and peace in a world that has very little of that. Adherence to the time honored traditions, done in the proper spirit is truly the craftsmanship behind the ties that bind.

Of course, Christmas isn’t the only tradition that helps build families. Simple things like birthday celebrations, Friday night family movie night, even the routine of a family working together in the yard or spending an hour on a Saturday morning cleaning house all work together to strengthen the family unit and draw families closer together. In creating these traditions we are blessed to not only grow closer to each other, but to grow closer to God, the Father of us all.

He asks us to observe many traditions. Sacraments, marriage, blessings and confirmations, the observance of a Sabbath are only a few. When we keep these traditions, we walk in His way, and draw nearer to Him. When we keep these with our families, we grow even stronger together.

As we choose to create and hold to traditions within our families, in many ways we are setting our lives in such a way that patterns after the Father. He asks us to observe traditions to remember Him, to set aside time to sanctify our lives, to make ourselves more holy, all helping us to come unto Christ. These traditions keep us safe, give us peace, and help us to grow stronger. So it is with the wholesome traditions we create for our own children. They are done out of love, bestowed as a gift, and draw parents, children and extended family closer.

I think that is the whole point.

It is work, as are all great things, but what a work to be blessed with.

Jonas: I’m done with piano practice!

Mom: go play that song again until you can do it without thinking!

Jonas: I’m not thinking! I promise!

Clearly I’m out of it. Anyone else notice I used the same picture on 2 recent posts? Wow. Yeah. You should all be worried about my mental state. I know I am!

Gabe got sick. 104.2 degree kind of sick and we ended up in the ER. So he is on Tamiflu, and is improving. Maggie is still getting over it. Jonas is better. Chris and I are somehow still healthy. I’m waiting on h1N1 results, and frankly, I hope that is what it is just so I can know we’ve already done it and can just stop worrying about it. Because finding out that they all have weakened immune systems and are now even more susceptible would make me extra nervous. We had a child in our area die last week- Jonas’ age. So very, very sad. And very, very frightening.

The Air Force has officially gotten back to us, and their big, official answer is. . .

Wait for it. . .

We go nowhere. Travis AFB, CA will continue to be Home Sweet Home. On the up side, I like my house, my children are happy in their schools and now I’m going to do some serious decorating. On the down side, will we ever leave? EVER? What’s it going to take? I really hope it is not another 4 years before I get to go home again.

So, my winner is:

I would say with the way things have been…that they are going to keep you there but I truly HOPE that you go to your #1 spot or Utah!

Comment by Casey Lu — October 17, 2009

The only pessimist in the bunch, You win! I really wanted to send the person who said I would get to go overseas a present. Hee! Casey, shoot me your mailing address and I will send you somethin’.

Peek!

Where’s Gabe?

A-Boo!!!!!

Babyhood, you flew by.

We watched a friend’s baby about two weeks ago and this little guy was crawling everywhere. Gabe watched him in awe, tracking his every movement, and then proceeded to do a frenetic breast stroke on his belly trying to imitate his friend. It was obvious that the concept of babies being mobile had never really occured to him, and this playdate pretty much blew his mind and altered his entire concept of what he could do.

Gabe has, over the past week, gone from laying on his back and not moving to scooting and rolling around. He has gotten into the cat food. He has nearly launched himself off my bed. He is about two seconds from crawling.

He can sit well enough for a bath in the kitchen sink. It happened so fast.

He is also sitting on his own well enough that I can sit him down and walk away. And his hair grew about an inch. And he looks. . .older. IN A WEEK, PEOPLE. I can barely stand it.

And yes, he is way proud.

Maggie is finally good and over her complete and total no-longer-the-baby-of-the-family multiple month long meltdown.

THANK HEAVEN.

The screaming and not so subtle control freak issues were getting old. In fact, I was beginning to feel like I had given up my sweet, silly daughter when I gained another gorgeous son. It was sad, and I was a little worried that she would never recover from being so unceremoniously de-throned by Gabe’s arrival. It took six months, but she’s my Maggie again.

Over the past few weeks Maggie has started to play with Gabriel. They are developing a bond, particularly when Jonas is away at school and I have both my little ones home for the morning.

Maggie has a gift for getting Gabe to laugh. Now, he is a giggly baby to begin with, but she seems to have a very good understanding of what he will find funny (probably because she’ s not that far away from babyhood herself) and there are many days when they are making such a ruckus that I run into the room to shush them and find they are both laughing hysterically at each other.

I may be in trouble with these two in a few years.

Church here starts at 8:30am. My husband works a shift that doesn’t allow him to attend, and so every Sabbath I drag myself out of bed very early to begin getting myself and three small children out the door. Although I have many things prepared the night before, it is inevitable that something turns this process upside down, and we barely scoot into our pew before the service starts.

This Sunday was one of those days where all three children were both irritable and needy, so as we tried to sit quietly, everyone needed to drape themselves over me or poke a sibling or talk loudly. Even when friends took Gabe, Maggie made sure it was impossible to listen to the sermons. When Gabe finally hit his limit, I took all three kids to the foyer. Yet another Sunday service abandoned by a frustrated mother.

I stood there for about thirty seconds before a familiar wave of nausea and splitting headache began. I was allergic to something in the foyer. A quick look around the room and I saw a huge floral arrangement that was left over from a funeral service that was held earlier in the week. It was emblazoned with lilies, which I am I am terribly allergic to, so I took the kids outside until the service was over.

Then I took the kids to Primary while Gabe and I went to nursery. This is my third time in four years having a nursery calling. It isn’t my favorite place to be, but there are good things about it. The noise level of a roomful of two and three year olds is not one of the good things, particularly when paired with a headache.

Gabe lasted about fifteen minutes before blowing out his diaper. When I got back from changing him he gave me just enough time to serve the children snacks and then I had to go nurse him, which put him to sleep.

As I was returning to the nursery with my arms full of sleeping baby, Maggie came crying down the hall. She was unhappy with her Sunday School class, so she came to nursery with me, where I had to focus most of my energies on her rather than on the nursery kids.

Right as church was ending, Maggie collided with her best friend and got a goose egg the size of a Cadbury Creme egg on her forehead. While I iced it down she screamed. She completely lost all control to the point where she was literally screaming the words, “I CAN’T STOP SCREAMING!!!”

She did this for over forty-five minutes. One of the doctors who attends church with us checked her out. No signs of a concussion this time (Maggie once had this exact same thing happen, except that time it knocked her unconscious and an ambulance was called. My life, it’s never boring).

Still screaming, I drove Maggie home where we continued icing her huge purple lump. While I was reaching into the fridge for something cold for her head, I somehow sliced two of my knuckles open. They bled, which made Maggie freak out even more. She screamed at me to get a band aide and leave her head alone. I kept icing her bump and opted to just bleed.

Chris should have been home at this point, but he got off work over an hour late.

I was thrashed.

Finally, everyone got reasonably calmed down. I settled into the quiet of my craft room with my head still pounding, hoping to salvage the afternoon.

It was at this point the doorbell rang.

It was the Relief Society president and her counselor with a plate of brownies. “Wow,” I thought. “Someone cares. Someone noticed what rotten day I was having and brought me brownies. How kind. How inspired. I feel so acknowledged. Wow.” I was stunned and moved. I invited them inside.

At this point in my thinking (and thank heaven I didn’t say it out loud, or break down crying from the apparent kindness of being noticed) my Relief Society president informed me that the brownies were not for me. They were out visiting inactive families and realized that my neighbor was on their list. I knew this, but it was news to them, so they wanted to ask me a little about the family before they went to introduce themselves. Uh huh.

Now, I have a very morose sense of humor. In fact I spent the rest of the day far from a pity party, laughing actually, over my misunderstanding. I’d say “Haha! Someone cares! NOT.” But that smacks of bitterness, and that wasn’t what I was feeling. It was just plain funny. (For the record, many people were kind to Maggie and I during this mess- really- I’m not feeling badly about it).

And the day did improve. I was invited to over to a friend’s house and got to enjoy the evening, so the whole day wasn’t a bust.

I’m scared just thinking about next Sunday.

Day of rest. HA!