Christmas, no chaos.

I have been the all-in kind of Christmas gal.

I’ve done Elf on the Shelf (who apparently does anything BUT sit on the shelf). Oh yeh, I was Chief of Elf Operations for many years; a role I did not do half-a*se. I had spreadsheets that mapped out what our Elf (who was somehow given the very uncreative name of ‘Marcus’) would get up to. My lists made sure Marcus had whatever props he needed to zip line across the lounge room, get in hostage situations with the Lego Stormtroopers, turn our breakfast milk pink, make the skittle magic plate and even add his own photo to our family gallery.

I’ve done the advent calendar. Some might have even called me the advent calendar pin-up girl for a while. I had little Christmas sacks hanging from the wall and each sack would be filled with fun family activities or random acts of kindness. (There were a few cheat days in there for breathing space: chocolates, coins, or Christmas decorations). Oh boy, that needed some planning. It isn’t easy to slot in a festive trip to Melbourne amongst school concerts, work breakups, sporting finals and tired kids. It takes some thinking to work out when the crew can drop some canned food and blankets to the RSPCA when they’re only open on limited days. One has to muster up some real muscle to drive the kids around to see the Christmas lights when you’re already on the edge of a yuletide breakdown and JUST. WANT. TO. GO. TO. BED.

I’ve done the big bake-ups. I’ve often found mid-December to be the best month to make my own raw chocolate (for context: “raw chocolate” can’t go above 45 degrees, so for best results, it’s made in the dehydrator. It’s great. It’s very rewarding. It takes about seventy-five years). I’ve aproned the kids and we’ve made the Santa hats from strawberries (#nailedit), pretzel reindeer cupcakes, marshmallow puddings and pavlova Christmas wreaths.

I’ve colour-themed my Christmas decorations, done wreath-making workshops, made bonbons, and carefully done all the planning and calculations to ensure that the kids were getting gifts of equal value and equal wow factor; all whilst humming along to my festive Spotify playlist.

Yessir. For the last 8 or so Christmases I have been ALL. IN.

This year? None of it.

The Magic of Marcus died last year when he really did just sit on a shelf (and usually the same shelf for 3-4 business days). No props, no cheeky antics, no low-level vandalism.

I didn’t do the advent calendar. You wouldn’t read about it, but apparently, teens have got better things to do than drive around the town with their parents looking at blow-up Santas, lit-up reindeer and mildly battered wise men. And trips to Melbourne lost the shine when the kids became old enough to get themselves there. Not to mention, in the last week of November, we spent two days in the hospital with a wing-clipped offspring. If the advent calendar was already in the too-hard basket, that little drama set it alight. 

The Christmas tree sat undecorated for 4 days. And when I did pull together some energy to decorate it, I went in with some simple rules: nothing that needed untangling, winding around or plugging in. No lights, no tinsel, no beads. And I stuck to silver decorations only. It was sparse.

I hung no wreath on the door, homemade or otherwise. No bonbons.

I have no idea how what I spent on each kid. Not much. They didn’t want much, so they didn’t get much.

Mariah Carey didn’t get a chance to tell us what she wants for Christmas and Paul Kelly didn’t ask who is going to make the gravy.

But guess what? Christmas still happened.

We still did our annual visit to Church. We still spent time with family. We ate too much, drank too much and laughed just the right amount. We watched a Christmas movie, went to the local carols by candlelight (although it was so cold, I wished it was carols by bonfire), and I even got to do some Lego with my son on Christmas morning (one of his parentless trips to Melbourne resulted in a so-sweet gift for me: some Lego sunflowers. You know it: hashtag blessed). The blessings continued right on into the afternoon, with thanks to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law who bravely hosted thirty-plus people at their house.

Christmas this year was different. Maybe a little less magical. Definitely a lot less stressful. I rolled with it. I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t feel obliged. I didn’t feel grinchy.  It’s been a long time since I have had a December so relaxed. And I might not get another December like it. I don’t think Marcus will ever make another appearance—I appreciate the creative outlet he afforded me for a while, but he was a pain in the a*se. I really do want to get myself sorted and create a teen-friendly advent calendar before next December, but I won’t fret if I don’t. Despite my glowing commendation and rather direct hints, I don’t think my sister-in-law will host the celebrations at her house every year. My turn will come.

It’s evitable that my Christmas chaos will ebb and flow from year to year. Some years I’ll need to be all in. In other years, not so much. I’ll soak it up either way and know that the true spirit of Christmas—love, laughter, growing, changing, giving and being together—will be there regardless.