Extreme expectations

I grew up during a time when the picture-perfect holiday was splashed across every medium.

That was the day of Christmas-card-sending, and when the mailman's load grew heavy, it was from greeting cards, not from Christmas catalogs. (We were often surprised by wonderful hand-written notes from old friends and distant relatives. It was before the one-size-fits-all Christmas update letter.) The Christmas cards themselves often featured cozy fireplace scenes, peaceful snow covered hills, and beautiful starlight nights.

TV ads also showed an idealized version of the holiday. Clydesdales pulled a sleigh smoothly through pristine, powdery snow. Families gathered in the warm glow of a lovely living room furnished with the perfectly decorated tree and stockings hanging from the mantle. Succulent Christmas dinners were served by a beaming mother and carved expertly by the father.

The Christmas movies also reinforced the ideal image with happily-ever-afters, all's-well-that-ends-well's, and bad guys with hearts of gold. Everyone received just the gift they had most desired. Miracles took place. Sick people got well. It was beautiful, and I swallowed it whole.

Of course, I was aware of discrepancies between that ideal and my own experience. It was sad but true that our town was too warm for a snow-covered landscape. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas was my theme song because dreaming was as close as I was going to get.

Our house had no fireplace and therefore no mantle and no stockings. My mom never brought out a whole turkey for my father to carve. (Our approach was much more practical: the bird was always sliced in the kitchen and came to the table ready-to-eat.)

Every Christmas I received an array of nice gifts, but none of them made an impression as being my heart's desire, and I never noticed much happily-ever-after going on. In the back of my mind, I always thought my family's Christmas seemed to fall a bit short of the Christmas we were "supposed" to have. Reality never quite measured up to those ideals, those expectations of perfection. I think I thought it would all be different when I grew up and had my own household.

But it wasn't different. Oh, my home has a fireplace, and my husband carves the turkey -- but no matter how hard I tried over the years, I never felt we achieved the absolute perfection of the holiday ideal. Some relative would be out of sorts. Preparing that extensive holiday meal is tiring, and if I came to the table beaming it was from perspiration. Finally, I don't know about your fireplace, but at our house it always seemed to be too warm close to it and too cold on the other side of the room.

Over the years I've made peace with the fact that the elusive holiday pictured in the media is a marketing fiction. I've learned that no matter how hard I try, I can't ensure that everyone at my house will have a grand time. I've learned to take advantage of short cuts and time-savers in all the holiday preparations; I've learned to give myself a break.

Once I identified and abandoned that mostly subconscious expectation of "the perfect holiday," my holidays have improved dramatically. Wrenching those cozy mental pictures out of my head took years, but I'm finally able to enjoy December without constantly comparing my experience to Christmas cards and commercials and movies. The holiday monkey is off my back.

Maybe I'll write a recovery program for the extreme expectations woven into our psyches by mass media, our culture, our marketers.

Meanwhile, merry (realistic) Christmas!