in the event your holiday sucks

I never blog on Sunday. I usually take the weekends off.  But today's post is of a religious nature.  Writing blog posts of a religious nature is another thing I seldom do because I hold my faith near and dear to my heart. I often find it difficult to talk about my beliefs with other people.  I am a very private person in this way.

Nevertheless I do have something that I think I need to put out into the universe.  It is something amazing that I learned this last week that might be of value to someone out there.

Last Sunday I was asked to teach a lesson in church.  I was given the topic of The Sacrament.  I was a little bummed because I thought it might be hard to make the lesson interesting and engaging.  To this day I don't know if the lesson I gave was interesting to other people, but as is often the case, I learned a lot having taught the lesson.

To prepare, I researched what exactly happened the night of the last supper.  I wanted to get a sense of what that event was truly like.  One of the things I read that I never knew before was that during the last supper, the twelve disciples were fighting amongst themselves as to who would sit where.  Where you sat at the table at a passover meal denoted your station in that particular group.  So they were fighting over who was more important.

Do you remember this post I did a while ago?  I really do build things up in my head to be way more elaborate than they could really ever be.  I had began to build up this Christmas into a magical bacchanalia the likes of which our family has never seen.  I pictured well groomed children gathered around the counter sweetly frosting sugar cookies.  I wanted handmade cards and fun nights by the fire watching Christmas movies as a family.

Now make a huge leap with me to reality.

My kids start the day well groomed. By dinner time, they look like New York panhandlers.  They whine and fight and fuss and make huge messes. I have hardly any free time so making my own cards was out the question.  And those family nights by the fire? Oh we've tried to have them. They are nice until Birdie smacks Frankie with a block and gets in trouble. Then both babies are crying and Thom is screaming that he can't hear the show.

Good times.

So here's what I finally realized:  Here's what God taught me:  During Jesus's last supper here on Earth, a holiday meal, where he gathered with those that he loved,  there was fighting. Like real contention and bickering.  If even Jesus, son of God,  isn't capable of having a Martha Stewart holiday, what makes me think I can?

How pompous I have been to think that I could somehow strong arm my family into conforming to my silly idea of an ideal holiday.

The bottom line is an ideal holiday is a myth.  It doesn't exist.  At least not when children are involved.

So this year I will go and make merry. Even when Frankie barfs all over my Christmas dinner outfit, which I know he will. Even when The Boy pesters Birdie till she screams like a pterodactyl.   Even when my house is a mess.

And I will somehow capture a photo akin to Da Vinci's Last Supper when all looks calm and peaceful and maybe twenty years from now my memory will have faded enough for me to believe it was really true.