Photo by Claire Louise
You may have heard this quote from C.S. Lewis before: “The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career.”
There are so many directions I could go with that one quote, but it came to me this morning as I sat on the bathroom floor with my young 4-year-old daughter nestled in my lap, painting her fingernails a bright orange. It was a brief respite between cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, and otherwise getting ready for the day. And from there I started thinking about The Power of Moments. What does that have to do with the quote from C.S. Lewis?
My train of thought went like this: If all other careers exist for the purpose of supporting the “ultimate career” of homemaking, then on a more minute if not important scale, the work of a homemaker exists so that we can create and enjoy day-to-day moments with our children–moments that have the potential to transform both us and them depending on how they are used.
But moments come in a variety of packages. Yes, there are those quiet moments on the bathroom floor painting fingernails–a moment granted by the impulsive request of my daughter–but most of our lives aren’t slow enough to wile away the hours gazing into our children’s eyes whispering words of wisdom. What about the rest of the time? The majority of our lives are filled with moments of work, work, and more work. Even as I sat there with my daughter, it was hard not to think about that bill that needed to get in the mail, the gift card I needed to pick up for a teacher, and what time everyone would be able to eat dinner together tonight.
Well, from there I jumped to another quote that has been etched indelibly on my mind from Family Science 101 over 20 years ago. “The purpose of the task is to strengthen the relationship.” Forgive me as I ask you to continue following my stream of consciousness, but that got me thinking about my Christmas to-do list and the mini melt-down I had last night. Christmas cards, Christmas parties, Christmas cookies, Christmas gift wrapping, and the rest of the Christmas shopping (which is considerable since I can’t motivate myself to do a lick of shopping until Thanksgiving weekend and Black Friday are completely over). How in the world am I going to fit that all in when the usual demands of life are still knocking on my door every day?
Now, if you have an infant and a 2-year-old at home this may not apply to you so easily, but I have devised a plan I would like to recommend. Instead of trying to find some impossible stretch of time alone to myself to finish (who am I kidding? start!) those Christmas cards, maybe I could make a night of it with my family instead! Surely my children are capable of stuffing, licking, sealing and sticking a postage stamp on an envelope! We could even turn on a Christmas movie or music, make some hot cocoa with marshmallows and–voila!–something dreaded turns into a magical Christmas memory. (That really could be false advertising. We’ll see how it goes.)
But do you see what I’m getting at? There are so many levels on which to enjoy this holiday season, and I hope in my own case it’s not just the base level of checking off my to-do list. In as much as possible, why not use all the doing to create magical moments with your children? Let them wrap the gifts for Dad and their teachers, let them help you make the cookies and the candies, and certainly let them help you with the holiday cleaning. (Letting the control freak in you have a rest until January!)
In the spirit of celebrating The Power of Moments, I would absolutely love to do a post compiling some of our readers’ simple philosophies/traditions/systems that help them to enjoy the magical moments of the holiday season with their families. Would you leave a comment sharing some of your favorite moments with your family and how you got there? If you prefer, you can send a personal email to [email protected]. I hope to hear from you soon!
QUESTION: How do you create or enjoy magical moments with your family during the holiday season amidst all the craziness? What are your favorite moments?
CHALLENGE: Try to incorporate your children into your Christmas preparations and enjoy the moments along the way.
Thank you so much for that Allyson. I’m now pondering how all my work supports my ultimate career of creating and nourishing relationships with my family. Such timely advice. Thanks again!
One of my favorite memories as a child was Christmas caroling with my family. My mother sang on the Lawrence Welk show, so music was a big part of our family culture. I just wrote an article about this on my blog (article link http://bit.ly/uH8OYZ). Now I love carrying on this tradition with my own children. I bundle all 7 kids (and my husband) up in red santa hats, and we go sing to our dearest friends and neighbors. This tradition brings me lots of joy!
Great thoughts and what a wonderful quote (C.S. Lewis has SO many)! I will be sending you an email with some of my ideas.
One fond memory of a holiday moment rests in preparation for Easter but applies to other holidays. I finally realized that the reason my cut-out cookies consistently burnt was that I tried to do the whole task at once – mix, refrigerate, cut out, bake and frost – in the midst of raising 6 children. I get tired thinking about it!
That year, I separated the parts of cookie making. The girls and I mixed the dough and refrigerated it, talking and laughing all the way. We talked about measurements and decided what cookie shapes to make the next day.
Day two – All the siblings, both male & female, old enough to help met in the kitchen to roll, cut out and bake the dough. I had time, energy, and humor enough to teach rolling techniques, ensure the cookies were thin enough to taste great, yet thick enough not to break easily. the kids got creative about maximizing the number of cookies per round of dough. We sampled fragments of dough along the way.
Day three – this can be scheduled days after initial baking if cookies are properly stored. We put food coloring in frosting and mixed it in diluted egg whites for direct painting. We explored color combinations. We experimented with frosting tubes and different tips, and learned best way to smooth with a knife. The older children were more skilled in application but the creativity of the younger ones still make great looking cookies. Of course, broken cookies were eaten and fingers licked. (We washed hands often as I reminded them we would be giving some of these cookies away.)
I had never before been so relaxed and had so much fun making dozens of cut out cookies. I took pictures as we worked and played.
This year I look forward to meeting with my grown daughters & one fiance and trying more delicate favorites that their grandmother made – krumkake, rosettes, and lefse.
All the traditions that seem to mean the most, and have stuck are those that are simple, and involve togetherness. One of my favs is having a picnic dinner under the Christmas tree on the 23rd. That day is so close to THE day, but so far as far as little kids are concerned. We eat finger food that is easily prepared and quickly cleaned up. My kids look forward to it so much! Also, reading various Christmas stories by the light of the tree. Driving around looking at lights in neighborhoods, or large displays like at hotels etc. We have so many, but I will leave with 2 more thoughts. WRite down what is memorable and important. If it is written, it sticks and you can refer to it years later to check. And last, cuddle in bed, in PJ’s with all the kids and watch movies, especially classics like Charlie Brown and other past made-for-TV movies.
We live in an area where it doesn’t snow or get too cold (but below 70 is cold to me 🙂 My husband came up with a great idea to view the neighborhood Christmas lights on our bikes this year. It is the first year four of our five children could ride their own bikes – our five-year-old rode on the back of my husband’s bike.
We bundled in our hats, coats, gloves and scarves and pedaled away. What fun we had biking together in the dark and viewing all the Christmas lights that our neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods had hung. Through that quiet air that you have when it is cold outside, we talked, laughed and surprisingly sang Christmas songs while biking. We even came up with our own version of some Christmas songs. I think next year we will ride with a portable radio so we can have the music with us to help with our singing.
This will definitely be a tradition that we will continue year after year.
I wrote a blog post about my theories regarding traditions:
http://corinesmiles.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-traditions-in-our-home.html
and another post about Christmas traditions at our house:
http://corinesmiles.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-traditions-in-our-home.html
You can read them if you want to…
Corine 😀
My favorite Holiday tradition that we started this year (and that I learned about at a power of mom’s retreat) is called the “Jesus Box”. This tradition motivates my kids help with Christmas tasks & much more.
You just need a box & strips of paper. When you see someone helping another or doing anything nice, you write it down on a strip of paper & put it in the box with their name on it. Everyone can write something that they themselves or another family member has done that was kind/Christlike. Then, on Christmas morning, BEFORE opening the presents, you sit down & read all of the kind deeds out loud. We talked about how the true meaning of Christmas is to do things for others & the deeds on the strips of paper are out gifts to Jesus on Christmas.
We actually did this today since we had our Christmas early since we are traveling this year. My kids loved hearing all of the strips read & they definitely did many more kind things all season long since they liked adding papers to our box. My two girls both helped me complete all of our Christmas cards because they wanted a strip of paper in the box. Genius! Definitely my favorite tradition!