by Elaine M. Gibson

Gingerbread baking in the oven, soft lights sparkling on a beautifully decorated tree, children on their best behavior, their faces glowing each night as they dream of Christmas morning, everyone wishing everyone else the joys of the season... it sounds wonderful. It also sounds too good to be true.

I know it is possible because I saw it on TV. Our hearts long for the kind of Christmas illustrated by Norman Rockwall or Madison Avenue. Commercials and advertisements make the holiday season look like all goodness and light. Our heads are aware of the realities of daily living during this special season. Sometimes we start feeling guilty because our family life looks more like MAD MAGAZINE than a Norman Rockwall print.

Reality Check

In the middle of all my advice on how to enrich the holidays for your family, I think it would be a good idea to let you in on what things are really like in our house. Listen folks, I am a mother, not a perfect mother, but I'm the only mother my children happen to have, and our family life is like yours. Even during Christmas, things go well at times and at other times, a wheel comes off.

Family Time?

For instance, we were all playing a game together one evening and having a good time. The shared time was wonderful -- until the quarrel started. Parents and children differed on how long a game of Monopoly should last on a school night. The scene that followed will never be on a commercial for a long-distance telephone service. It was all I could do NOT to reach out and touch someone.

Was it good for you?

Going out to a Christmas tree farm, searching for a special tree, and cutting it yourself should be terrific. Ideally, there should be a light snow falling with carols coming from some unseen choir. Let me tell you how it really happened.

The day was typical for Christmas in the Brazos Valley of Texas: cloudy and muggy, with country western music on the radio. The kids argued all the way out to the tree farm. When they weren't picking on each other, they turned on us. They insisted that we were lost because the tree farm wasn't that far away last year. We weren't lost.

When we arrived, we were faced with hundreds of beautiful trees, none of which we could agree on. The children thought all the trees were small enough to fit in our house. For some reason, 14 foot trees do look smaller in the field. One child wanted a particular shade of green. The other had a saw in his hot little hands and could barely wait to use it. He didn't care which tree as long as we picked one immediately. We knew he felt that way because he told us every ten seconds. We did settle on a tree. It was a long afternoon.

Later that evening, the kids talked about what a great time they had. Later, I overheard them telling their friends how "neat" it is to cut your own tree. Who knew?

Why can't we be nice, just this once?

I wish that, during Christmas at least, we could all be loving and kind to each other no matter what. The reality is that family life continues right along with the festivities. We all get tired and unhappy at times and our Christmas spirit tends to slip.

Out of the mouths of babes

During one particularly bad day, being at the long end of a short rope, I suggested to Chuck that he change his attitude or forget presents on Christmas morning. Chuck looked at me and said,

Fortunately, he is right. Christmas can't make family life perfect but family life, even the real stuff, makes Christmas a season to treasure. It's true, there is no place like home for the holidays!

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