Thanks Mom, For Passing the Spatula

'Tis the season... for women my age to speak in hushed tones in dark corners to their very closest friends about how the holiday season is going.  Yes, the holidays are rife with high expectations, emotions, and often familial conflict for everyone, but often mothers of young children feel everything particularly keenly because down deep, many of us feel compelled to have a Norman Rockwell holiday season, though few of us have actually seen one with our very own eyes.

There are two common themes of stress I notice, the To Travel or Not to Travel debate and the Who's The Hostess debate.  It is amazing how for holidays that are supposed to be about togetherness, these two topics can bring about such divisiveness.

Once my husband and I became a couple, we made a joint decision not to travel for the holidays.  He prefers to spend vacation days on actual vacations and to either invite faraway family (they ALL live far away) to visit us for the holidays or to visit them at less stressful times of the year.  Having traveled back and forth between divorced parents a lot for the holidays, I had had my fill of holiday travel and knew that I wanted our kids to have holidays at home. 

It's not easy, many times, to be a part of the "we don't travel for the holidays" club -- it can make you the object of lots of subtle and not-so-subtle pressure as the holidays draw nearer, but when you watch the news and see people stranded at airports on Christmas, you do feel a little bit relieved you are not the one with the overly tired children screaming in the background.  Or when you hear about people being stuck in rush hour traffic in Richmond, and you are in your PJs, reading your new book, while sipping your hot chocolate, you can't help but feel a wee bit guilty and giddy at the same time.

As for Who's The Hostess, fellow DC Metro Mom blogger Stacy Kravitz summed up what many mothers of young kids feel in her post.  Time and time again I've listened to friends vent that THEY would like to host Thanksgiving or Christmas but their mother or mother-in-law or (insert other female relative here) will not allow them to and they are loathe to defect and host a smaller meal of their own.

This is where I have to give my mother credit for her wisdom and flexibility.  Growing up, I was in awe of my mother as a hostess.  Her Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were always well prepared, the table always looked beautiful, and we always had a table full of guests -- people who did not have family to be with -- in addition to our nuclear family and of course whichever family members came in from out of town.  I dreamed of one day being just like her.  But I also couldn't imagine NOT coming home for the holidays.   It's much like when you are sixteen and you can't imagine ever being twenty -- my goodness, that seems so old at that age. So Grown-Up.  And then when you are twenty, you feel anything but grown-up.

The first time I cooked the holiday meal was actually a bit of a fluke - I had to cook it for myself because I lived in Georgia and had to work and couldn't come home to Miami in time for Christmas.  But the sense of pride I felt when my mother entrusted me with the family recipes was immense.  And the humorous notes she included with how to prepare things in what order made me feel like she was almost right there in the kitchen with me -- talking me through everything.  I felt like I did all those years when I would sit on one of the tall wooden stools at the kitchen island, eager to help her with whichever part of the cooking she'd let me.

I hosted for myself and a few friends a couple of times after that -- I might make it home for Thanksgiving and not for Christmas or vice versa.  But finally, in 1999, I was able to host my mother and grandmother at my home in California, and that was the true test.  Oh, sure, there were a few hiccups... Wednesday my then-boyfriend/now-husband, went off to the grocery store to pick up the fresh turkey we had reserved at the grocery store and was gone for a very long time and ended up coming home in the back of a police car.  (Long story involving a speeding ticket and then a dead car battery... )  And then there was the fact that the garbage disposal backed up AFTER the meal was done, backing up the sink drain, and I had no way to wash any of the dishes (did you know that Thanksgiving is THE most popular day for garbage disposals to back up?)  But the meal itself went well and my grandmother said "Well, I guess you've learned to cook for yourself!," which is high praise from an old-fashioned lady from North Georgia.

It was that evening that my mother told me that she had decided that her daughters were now officially ready to host the holidays.  I was astonished.  JavaDad and I were not even yet married, my sister was recently married but hadn't had kids yet -- I didn't think it was quite time yet for Mom to relinquish her title as the official hostess -- surely we had to be... More Grown-Up.  No, she explained, although she loves it, she said it is the duty of one generation to step aside and let the next have their time, and this was our time.  That soon there would be babies, and small children, and that we would want to have the holidays in our own homes and would want to be able to incorporate new traditions into the holidays and that it would be her turn to be the one to travel, and that she would still help us in the kitchen if we wanted, but that she could also just enjoy being a guest.

As a girl, the furthest my mother had to travel for the holidays was two blocks to go from her house to her aunt's house, and holidays probably did look at lot more like Rockwell's famous painting "Freedom From Want".  These days, my sister and I live 900 miles apart and my mother, who is not yet retired, alternates spending Thanksgiving or Christmas with us, often making a side trip to Georgia to get my grandmother so she can join us as well.  Over the years, this has been such a gift for both my sister and I -- allowing us in our times of pregnancy to just waddle down the stairs in our pajamas to prepare the meal rather than having to travel or worry about getting somewhere dressed a particular way by a particular time; enabling us to build our holidays around our children and their needs -- their naps/moods/feeding times -- I remember the year my mother told me it was okay not to go to Christmas Eve services when my daughter was so clearly not up to it even though I had convinced myself it was so important -- and yet she was right, skipping it one year was okay; and overall just giving us the space as a family to reshape the holidays into our own.  My sister has changed her menu to reflect her family's likes and dislikes and has changed some of the ways they celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas.  From the first year we were together, my husband and I discussed what we liked and didn't like about the holidays growing up and we took the best from each side and then melded them together, and each year we discuss what we want to add or change from the previous year.  In the end, Christmas at my house and Christmas at my sister's are not identical, and my mother enjoys them both and doesn't rebuke us for it not being the same.  And yet I have friends who have mothers, mother-in-laws, aunts, grandmothers and others, who will criticize every little "change" from what they consider the "right way" to host a holiday.  What's "right" for one family is "wrong" for another.  Perhaps they've forgotten the point of any of the holidays to begin with?  It's certainly easy to get caught up in the trappings of it all -- that's what all the holiday imagery in media focuses on. 

In my original newlywed dreams of the holidays, the whole family from both sides would come together for the holidays.  We would dine off the wedding china, sip wine from the crystal stemware, and have merry conversation over the meals I cooked.  I had hoped to work out some sort of alternating schedule with my parents -- similar to the custody arrangement from my childhood years -- Christmas with one on even years, with the other on odd years, except with them coming to me instead.  I had assumed my in-laws would have a similar arrangement with their two sons who lived far apart as my mom did with her two daughters.  This was the Norman Rockwell-inspired image in my mind and I was crushed the first few years when it didn't come to fruition, until I looked around and realized that few of my friends had found the perfect formula either.  Every family has its competing priorities -- a reason why this can't work or that can't work.  And I've finally had to learn that no one's vision of the perfect holiday is more "right" or "wrong" than another's, they are all just "different."  And since it is unusual to get an entire family to agree on the same vision of a perfect holiday, there are very few perfect holidays happening out there!  So we have to appreciate the imperfect ones instead. 

I'm enjoying my time as the Mom, making the holiday meals and creating a little holiday magic for our kids.  I'm going to make the most of it, because in a blink of an eye JavaBoy and JavaGirl will be All Grown-Up and ready to be hosts themselves.  Then it will be my turn to pass the spatula, pack my suitcase and do the traveling -- making the "reproductive years" of life a little easier on them.  And though I'll miss some things about being the hostess, I'm also going to try to relish every moment of THAT stage of my life, too.  Because in the end it's not about who roasts the turkey, it's about letting each generation have their turn -- in the kitchen, at the head of the table, in the moment.  It doesn't mean your moment is over, it means you are having your moment from a different seat at the table, and sometimes, that may even be the best seat in the house -- or so my mother says -- and one day I will find out!

This is an original post to DC Metro Moms Blog.

When J.J. Newby aka JavaMom isn't cooking, she's talking turkey (and other fun stuff) at Caffeine And A Prayer.