Christmas is great! I really do love the feeling in the air! People are serving others and being kinder. Many are putting a lot of thought into gifts for family and friends. There is always stress related to things like gifts and family get-togethers, but for the most part, it really is a magical time of year. I especially love that, as parents, we get to experience all that magic through the eyes of our children.
But social media has kind of ruined it.
If you follow anyone who is an “influencer,” you will see beautifully decorated homes, darling children in matching outfits, gorgeous and delicious looking desserts, and perfect family outings where all the children behave. It’s fun to look at the beautiful pictures of these things, but man, it sure takes a toll on those of us who have a less-than-perfect holiday season.
I had a conversation with a great friend the other day about how much this time of year weighs on each of us as moms. We feel this urgency to go to the Christmas light events, decorate our trees and homes to look like a Pinterest board, make and decorate sugar cookies, and get everyone matching pajamas with the cute picture by the tree. And even if we don’t want to do those things, we deep down feel like we are bad moms if we don’t do them.
We know we aren’t bad moms because our kids are still happy, so we feel bad for thinking we are doing poorly. It’s so exhausting!
Now, I know we’ve all heard it often. Social media is a highlight reel. Those perfect pictures have a messy house behind the camera and probably just as many meltdowns from the kids as our own toddlers.
We don’t often get to see those parts because they don’t make for good pictures and videos.
If you want to do all the fun holiday things, please do them! There are a lot of fun activities around Christmas. But if you’re like me, let’s try not to do those things only for the sake of posting on Instagram. How many people actually like or comment anyways?
A few weeks ago I went to an event downtown where we went on a scavenger hunt to find Santa’s puppy. It was really fun to do with my boys and they behaved so well! Then I wanted to go to a craft fair, but I stopped and thought about it, and knew my kids were done. I didn’t need to go spend more money anyways. That night we went to a light parade and firework show. It was really an almost perfect day! I definitely didn’t have perfect pictures to post, but I did have the good perspective of doing those things because they are fun, not because I needed to share how awesome I am for doing activities with my kids while my husband was out of town.
Do what’s best for your family.
Only you know what your kids can handle and what your intentions are behind the things you do. Don’t overschedule your kids just to get a good picture that doesn’t show how the day actually went. The magic is there if we can find it in the right ways!
