***Warning!  Mature content.  If you’re under the age of 10, please contact an adult before reading further.*** 

It seemed to mark some kind of milestone – a point of no return – that one went through on the path to adulthood.  2009 marked my older son’s first Christmas without … Santa Claus.  It was, as was so aptly put in the movie, The Polar Express (which my 6 year-old insisted on watching some 35 times this season), the “end of the magic”. 

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Anyone who grew up watching Little House on the Prairie remembers the show where the Ingalls children find a tin cup, a peppermint stick and a shiny penny under the tree in the cold log cabin in Minnesota. In flapping night dresses and sleep bonnets they dance merrily around the fire as Pa plays his fiddle. Laura and Mary don’t necessarily love the plain tin cups, but they feel special knowing the cups mean they don’t have to share anymore. The intrinsic value goes far beyond the cost of the tin.

Things have not changed all that much from those pioneer days.

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Here we are, in the last and craziest month of the year, when everything seems to move at warp speed. Everyone’s running around like a bunch of squirrels on espresso (as is our national tradition), buying Christmas and Hanukkah presents, going to parties, checking our budgets twice — and trying to keep it all together.  

I’m definitely not immune to this manic pace — I’ve had a few crazy days in the last few weeks myself, believe me — but it’s nothing compared to how I used to be. You see, a few years ago, I figured out the secret of slowing down the holidays and not losing my mind. While I can’t follow my own advice as much as I’d like, here’s the holiday game plan that I try to stick to each year:

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I was recently interviewed by DETAILS Magazine about Father’s Day and Fatherhood. One of the questions was about the meaning of fatherhood and how fathers are portrayed on TV — and more importantly, in society as a whole. I was asked if there was a father figure from TV that I remembered or that stuck out in my mind.

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Here’s my confession: I’m an imperfect mom, and often an ineffective parent. Most of the time I feel like I’m flailing along, trying to “get it right”– and as soon as I do, my son hits a whole new phase and the process starts all over again. There’s nothing like being a parent to humble you!

So Mother’s Day is a bittersweet time. Yes, I love the hugs and home made cards, the burnt pancakes and fresh-squeezed orange juice complete with seeds and bits of peel floating inside. But I also can’t help but do a little mental inventory of the past year. My mind jumps back to the moments “Mean Mommy” reared her ugly head (more times than I’d care to admit), and then, to how often I got it right. On my mental scoreboard, Mean Mommy is in the lead as of now, but I’m happy to report that there was one thing I did get right.

In fact, this year, one sentence has changed my whole parenting style, and I think it’s helping to make me a better mom:

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Certain holidays and celebrations can be a little bit more difficult than others for a single parent. Valentine’s Day used to be one of those holidays for me, but I learned some fun personal and practical family activities to celebrate without feeling the “Valentine Blues” as a single dad.

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In the midst of a manic shopping spree last week, I found myself panicking. You see, this year I failed in my holiday duties miserably.

All my five year old son asked Santa for was a dinosaur tent. As tradition dictates, I frantically raced from store to store looking for it –  to no avail. (When I finally checked online back at home, they said it had been discontinued. Argh.) I found myself shouting like a rabid chipmunk over the phone to my cool-as-a-cucumber husband, who was unmoved by the lack of dino tents in North America.

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I’m not sure that the word “stress” should be allowed to take so much credit for all the magical hubbub going on around us at this time of year.

Balancing our holiday parties, gift giving, visiting with relatives and spending time putting in batteries can be viewed as stress or as LIVING! How about a perspective shift?

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