A "Perfect" Holiday

Years ago I found myself reading a holiday edition of "Martha Stewart Living" magazine about the "Perfect" Christmas.   Page after page of the magazine showed photographs of color-coordinated rooms with Christmas trees that matched the room's decor flawlessly.    Clearly, every ribbon, bow and wreath had been selected with great scrutiny to ensure that all the reds were "blue reds" and not the dreaded "orange red" that would just completely ruin the look.   The pictures usually included a holiday plate, by the fireplace for Santa, with two or three cookies placed in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and a glass a milk that was neither too empty or too full.  Just right.   The cookies were symmetrical and decorated with incredible attention to detail.  The gingerbread men's buttons were all lined up in a straight line and the round sugar cookies were, well, round and unburnt.  If there happened to be any children at all in the pages of that magazine, they were sitting by the fire or on the couch in perfectly matched flannel pajamas (that, btw, matched the rest of the decor in the room), nicely playing together with big smiles on their squeaky clean faces.

Sigh.  The whole magazine made me feel like a failure.

At the time, I was probably sitting in a room with my kids who would have been about three and five, covered head to toe in powdered sugar and who I imagine were using "adult" scissors to make strangely-shaped paper snowflakes, unsupervised, while I read my magazine and sipped my coffee.   There would have been little pieces of white paper all over the living room floor.   The Christmas tree would have been tilted and held to the ceiling with a piece of fishing line.   Most likely there were no cookies for Santa because any and all cookies made had either been eaten or burnt and deemed inedible.   The gingerbread men would not have even existed long enough to be decorated with buttons.   I'm sure there would have been crumbs all over my kitchen where cookies used to be.   There was probably a gingerbread house in the room with way too much icing on the roof, which was most likely caving in.   And there would have been little dimples in the icing where candy used to be but little fingers had stealthily removed every sugary stick-of-gum shingle and every candy cane light post.    My kids were probably singing some off key version of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and all it's silly versions.   When my kids were done cutting out their snowflakes, I would have given them tape and they would have taped them to the big picture window in our living room for everyone driving by to see.    They would have chosen where to tape them and there was probably no symmetry, or any rhyme or reason for that matter, as to where they placed them.  It was just wherever their little hearts desired and felt they should be placed.

Yet, all these years later, it still brings a smile to my face when I think of driving up to my house in the month of December and seeing those haphazard snowflakes, and lots of fingerprints in that big picture window.   And, do you know why?

Because, it was "perfect".
It was my perfect.

In that very moment, sitting on that couch, probably fifteen years ago, I had an "perfect" epiphany.

"Perfect" is subjective.   "Perfect" is whatever you want it to be.

Martha Stewart has her version of perfect, I have mine, and you have yours.

Fifteen years later my Christmas looks a lot different.    We have all learned a thing or two over the years.   We've learned to cut the Christmas tree in a way that it doesn't tilt when we put it in the stand.   We can now make unburnt cookies and restrain ourselves long enough to decorate them and actually keep a few on the side to give to "Santa".   We have learned to make a gingerbread house and NOT pour the entire bowl of frosting on the roof.   But, there are no snowflakes in the window, as little fingers have turned into big fingers and now busy themselves typing term papers at college instead of making holiday crafts.

You might even say our "perfect" has evolved.

Or has it?

My "perfect" this year has nothing to do with any of the decor, or the music, or the cookies.  Although, I do love cookies.
My "perfect" this year is just having everyone home, under one roof.
My "perfect" is them.
But perhaps that's what it's always been.
So maybe it hasn't evolved at all.

But, oh, what I wouldn't give to drive up to the house and see those misshapen, asymmetric snowflakes in the window, surrounded by those tiny "perfect" fingerprint smudges.

Wishing Everyone a "Perfect" Holiday season, whatever that looks like to you!