For many year mothers have been expected to make sure that Christmases go exactly as every children’s book and tradition portray. The house is tidy, the presents perfectly placed and wrapped under the tree, and of course, the stockings are all hung by the chimney with care.
The food is just right, and as everyone is sleeping soundly in their beds with sugar plumbs dancing in their heads, mothers everywhere are restless thinking of the long list of things that they need to complete to make Christmas Day go smoothly.
But what happens when they are tired of it. Tired of the perfection that they strive for, working them far past the point of exhaustion. They are fed up, and this year, they are putting their feet down and frankly not giving a s***. This year, they are becoming bad moms.
Everyone on your block has the perfect decorations in their front yards: lights, snowman, beautiful blow up penguins, Santa Clause, and reindeer.
You look at your front lawn that now has a small dusting of snow, but remains bare of decorations. You shrug because who honestly cares right? You will tell your husband to handle it, and if he does it perfect, and if not, f*** it.
By this time the Christmas cards should be organized, taking the perfect family pictures and placing them into a cute template labeled Happy Holidays! You grab your computer and realize that you really don’t have the want or desire to waste your time getting the perfect picture, template, size and shape of paper, thickness, and finish for the perfect invite.
Instead, you find a generic card from Walmart, slap Happy Holidays from our family to yours, and hit ship. Who really reads them anyways?
Grocery shopping and getting the final touches to add to the house is usually extremely stressful, but having that bad mom attitude this year has put a solid end to that.
You have your husband drop you off at the front of Target, and you head in to get the last of the groceries and decorations before all of the family show up for the big day.
Why have your husbands drive you? One, you deserve to be treated like royalty every so often, and two, pregaming for Target shopping. You can have a few before shopping mimosas to make the trip a lot more relaxing and fun.
Some Targets are now selling alcohol to drink while you shop, so why not kick start the trend? Get some of that delicious Starbucks coffee, and throw a little something extra in it, to warm your soul.
Being you can spend hours in Target, you are feeling pretty good by the time your husband swings back through to pick you up. As he is loading the groceries into the car, he finds that you have decided to purchase not only what was on your list, but apparently you decided it was time for new curtains, rugs, and bathroom décor.
He also noticed the almost case of wine that you have purchased to help your relax and get through this holiday season. Target has won again.
As you get home you unpack everything and redecorate the curtains, rugs, and bathroom. Everyone starts whining about supper. Let’s face it, after a long day at Target shopping and drinking in celebration of getting your task list done that last thing that you want to do is go into the kitchen to cook.
You could nicely ask your husband to get off his a** and cook, but it isn’t worth the argument. You call the local pizza place and just get delivery.
After you get done eating, you send the kids to bed and come back downstairs. The house remains a mess (lived in), coats, boots, hats, and mittens spread along the floor in the entry way, but your tired and want a glass of wine, so that can wait.
You get into your warm fuzzy pajamas, grab your wine and put on a movie that you have wanted to watch for far too long, but haven’t had the chance to get to.
Your husband shakes his head wondering what the hell is this woman doing.
Christmas Eve day is here and you need to start preparing for everyone to come. You go into the bedroom and start to wrap all of the presents. Unlike past years where you made sure they looked perfect with clean crisp folds, you just get it done.
They don’t look picture perfect, but you really do not care being they just get ripped apart anyways. Instead of the perfect placement you toss the presents back under the tree, thinking the kids will be thankful to at least see something there, whether stacked perfectly or not.
You move to the kitchen and start putting together all of the foods that are as close to premade as you could find.
You really didn’t feel like cooking today, so instant potatoes, premade salads, and a giant ham that just sits in the oven are the perfect things for the menu. You make sure to take the tags off of the desserts placing them on your own dishes.
As everyone comes in the door, they mingle a little eating all of the not homemade dips and snacks you have, praising you for what a wonderful job that you did again this year. You get a few questions about the lesser amount of decorations and the Christmas card, but you blow them off because really, you don’t care.
As you sit around the table, everyone boasts about how delicious the food is, asking you about the recipes. Is there fresh sage in this dish? You take a large sip of your wine thinking, shit Susan your guess is as good as mine! Dessert goes the same way, everyone more than happy with the food that you did not take time to prepare.
As you shuffle people out the door, wine glass still in hand, you plop down on the couch. Even being a bad mom, Christmas is still so exhausting! You look at the kitchen, over flowing with dishes, furniture moved around from the crowd of guests you just kicked out of your house, and you grab the remote for the TV, sinking farther into the couch.
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