So it’s December.

December, the month of too much work, too much baking, too many birthdays, too many presents to buy and way way WAY too much expectation. Millennial Christmas is definitely not the yule of my youth. Back then we threw up a tree decorated with coloured lights guaranteed to give you lead poisoning. We hung ornaments that had nothing in common with each other and were mostly made of salt dough and tinfoil. We had DIVERSITY TREES, PEOPLE. To be honest, today’s monochromatic trees scare me a bit. Back then, Christmas actually started in December, not October, and Santa brought us a small number of gifts that didn’t cost the earth.

The pressure is incredibly intense these days for your holiday game to be on point. This is a lot to ask of someone who only just put their Hallowe’en decorations away. Media is always telling me how I am failing at Christmas and that I should pull up (my cutely embroidered) holiday themed socks. I am inundated with headlines like “10 Ways To Win At Christmas!”, “Holiday Crafts You MUST DO With Your Child (unless you secretly don’t really love them)” and “7 Toys Not to Buy Your Child Unless You Want Them To Be A Future Felon”.

Pinterest says that my house should be tastefully decorated, all my holiday colours should be coordinated and sourced from the Pantone Colours of the year. I am cautioned that maybe I should lay off the glitter. All seasonal knick knacks must be curated by Oprah. So I guess this means that I cant overdo the tinsel this year? Where’s the fun in that?  Guess the cat will have to find something else to eat and barf up.

Good Housekeeping points out that to be really excellent at Christmas, I should have at least ten different types of Christmas cookies ready to be served to drop in guests at all times. From scratch. No Pillsbury, homies. Cheese balls should be chilling in the fridge. You don’t have an ice wreath frozen and ready to go for Icelandic pomegranate punch at a moment’s notice? Let the pearl clutching begin!

Cosmopolitan advises that to be holiday party ready, I should be shaved to within an inch of my life…EVERYWHERE… if you know what I mean. Be able to fit into that size zero Gucci gown and whip up a killer manhattan while discussing the most delicious bon mots of the day. Intelligently. Sure. As soon as I pick the peanut butter out of my hair. Hand me my girdle, will you? The booze – now THAT I can do.

The parenting magazines make sure to tell me that all the toys I was planning to buy for my children are exactly the ones that will melt their brains and turn them into unproductive members of society.  Or at the very least they will shoot their eyes out. Instead, I am instructed that the only true way to show my children I love them (and also to ensure their future success) is to hand make their gifts from organic supplies I have lovingly hand gathered from the shores of Borneo and up cycled into one of a kind gift that is not only meaningful but has also helped end world hunger. I guess that means I can’t regift all those Happy Meal toys I was saving.

Gourmet magazine tells me that I should be whipping up yule themed home cooked meals every day – not Campbell’s for god’s sakes! Surely I keep fresh basil on the counter?? How dare I not have creme fraiche? What. The. Hell. Frozen pizza AGAIN? Now don’t get me wrong. I love food and I love to cook, but I have definitely been known to instagram KD. The key is the right filter.

So many expectations. The bar is so high. How can we possibly ever keep up such a pace?

What is the answer?

The answer is – well….MY answer is…Don’t. Don’t even try. Give yourself a break.

Don’t get caught up in the artificial world of what the magazines and media sites try and tell you is important. You already know what is truly meaningful.

Less Instagram. Or – if you cant stop overgramming, commit to not needing to make your feed perfect. Perfection and worthiness are not the same. Or much fun, really.  And frankly, we all respond better to the feed that is full of imperfection. Because we relate. We are all living imperfect lives full of rotten days, failed meals, forgotten appointments, dog pee on the floor and unmatched socks. There is love and a common bond in sharing what is real.

So I challenge all of us to do the same for the holidays this year. Let’s spend more energy on purpose, meaningfulness, and substance. Less on an effort to craft some kind of crazy utopian Christmas that will win the internet with its incredible tastefulness. And failing that – live a holiday life this year that is about making the boxed brownies and sharing them with friends as opposed to making the perfect Pinterest treat. That will give you more time and energy with the people that matter, and make Christmas more about what it should be. Love, friends and family. But go ahead – make that perfect Manhattan. I’ll be right over. In my bathrobe with those unmatched socks.

Merry Christmas my friends!

There once was a girl who lived in a McCastle in the McSuburbs. The most magical part of this castle was the sheer number of bathrooms. The entirety of the castle royalty could use the bathroom, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It was a truly amazing place. Everyone was potty trained in luxury.

Alas, the girl’s prince turned into a frog, her magic castle disappeared into the McMist and she returned home to a tiny cottage on the river. It was a lovely, homey little place, but shockingly only had…ONE BATHROOM.

So, the erstwhile castle denizens had some serious adjustments to make. Schedules were made and enforced. In the summer, due to the overwhelming percentage of male residents, a Pee Tree was designated in the woods beside the house. A swim in the river was considered as good as a bath.

As the years passed, the children grew older and more aware of how incredibly important their hairdos were. So the bathroom fights were no longer just about who had to poo more, but centred around who needed the mirror to perfect their coif, and who was taking to long too do so.

The fights got bloody. Hairbrushes, pomade and Axe “messy look” gel became the weapons of choice. Death by mousse was a distinct risk.

So, the girl decided to try and install a second bathroom in the basement to keep the peace.

This plan was quickly scrapped once she discovered that such a room would require a $1500 pump toilet. FIFTEEN HUNDRED BUCKS?? No wonder they call it the throne.

The dream of more than one bathroom faded into the mist, along with the McCastle, and hair stations began to spring up all over the house. Everywhere you turned there were baskets full of hair product, hair ties, gel, mousse and pomade….oh the pomade. So. Much. Pomade. Come the Armageddon, if you want great hair, come here. We got you.

The moral of the story – it’s not the end of the world if your castle turns into a cottage. You can do your hair in the kitchen and pee on a tree. The sun still rises and sets in the same beautiful way – just make sure you’re not watching it downwind of the oak in the corner of our yard.

In a staggering display of poor planning, there are three birthdays in two days in my house. RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. You can imagine what kind of wild and panicked running around this would entail.

The life of a single mother of four kids who runs her own business is a bit insane at the best of times, so let’s throw in three birthdays, the busy season at work and Christmas just to make things interesting! YOLO, BITCHES!

Now, one of these birthdays is mine. Which basically means I haven’t been able to celebrate my own birthday in like, 15 years. Because the 10th of December is not about me any longer and hasn’t been for a while. Which is totally fine now that I’m on the back side of 40 and I’m more about ignoring my advanced age than celebrating it. Frankly, I’m more excited about International Beer Day.

Birthday week, or Hell week as I like to call it, requires advanced logistical skills to pull off, especially this year. To ensure the happiness of all being fêted, we had to arrange natal day festivities around 734 basketball games, two music recitals, several practices and a family crisis. If I am not qualified to run a small country after that, I don’t know what prerequisites that job requires. Maybe my Excel skills aren’t up to date, but WHATEVER.

Hell Week also requires an iron stomach and a swift metabolism – as you are expected to eat literally MOUNDS of birthday cake. My grandmother always told me it was rude to refuse both birthday and wedding cake – so who am I to break the rules?

The next requirement of this time of year is a money tree. Especially now that the kids are older and are thinking that maybe those $275 basketball shoes are a reasonable birthday gift. And because I grew up with a December birthday and have an undying hatred of the dreaded “COMBO GIFT”, I would never do that to my offspring. So I still have to be the Birthday Fairy AND Santa Claus! All in the same three week period!

The third requirement of Birthday Festivus is to cook like you are a commercial kitchen. Tacos! Lasagna! Pancakes! French Toast! The culinary requirements are endless, specific and need to be produced in mass quantity.

As the curtain falls on this year’s celebrations, I sit on my couch with a well earned glass of red – and the good stuff, too. Even the teenager is in bed and I enjoy the quiet, the wine and the fire in the wood stove. I think back on the days when things weren’t so wild. When the early part of December was all about me. And I think, despite the insanity of the month, that things are preferable this way. I like being needed. I like making it all happen. I love it when it all comes together – and for that one glorious moment I am “the best mom ever”. Call me sadistic – but I think given the choice I would still have it all the same way. But Thank the Lord it only happens once a year. There’s only so much French Toast making one mom can handle.

If I’m honest, I spend far too much time worrying about what people will think when someone other than one of my children gets a close look at the interior of my vehicle. Yes, it’s that gross. I always hear those stories about people getting stuck in snowdrifts for weeks at a time. If that happened to me, I could dine like a king upon the discarded French fries and crumbs. I would probably even put on a few pounds. I could clothe myself royally from the bags of clothes meant for the goodwill bin I’ve had in my trunk for close onto four months. I wouldn’t be bored, because I basically have the entire grade school library in my car. And I’m pretty sure I could get a decent sized glass of wine (or four if I’m truly sincere) from the dregs of all the recyclables I’ve intended to bring to the neighbourhood bottle exchange but never seem to actually make it.

My car and the insides of closets. And cupboards. Annnnndddd maybe the pantry, too. That’s where I’ve drawn the line and completely given up.

If I’m going to be up and up genuine, I spend much of my life fearful that someone will come to the door unannounced and see how NOT put together I actually am. I look around my kitchen each morning after the kids have dervished their way though it and in my head I hear the twang of banjos.

It’s a little daunting sometimes, all the thing we have to do as parents. Feed and shelter the offspring. Parent them so they don’t turn into jerks. Drive them hither and yon to activities, sports, birthday parties. Fill out the endless school paperwork. Make sure they hang out with good kids. Try and make a living so all the above are possible. Sometimes it’s just not possible to do it all and have a clean car, too. Choices. Balance. Priorities. If have to live with a car that is the land version of Relic’s boat on the Beachcombers, well I guess that’s ok. Even if it embarrasses the hell out of me. And if my main claim to fame as a parent is that I’ve never (YET OMG KNOCK ON WOOD) forgotten a kid anywhere, that’s not a bad bar to aspire to, considering all the plates we need to keep spinning as a modern parent.

I write this with my raggedy old heart on my sleeve, hoping that I’m not the only one out there who is (not so secretly) living life as a hot mess. I know that I don’t care if your car is clean. Your broom closet is a disaster of epic proportions? No problem. I won’t judge if your kid hasn’t worn matching socks in the last two years. All that’s important is that you are fighting the good fight and loving your kids. Even when they’re being schmucks.  Maybe especially then. This new millennium parenting gig is a tough one. I raise a (probably smudged) glass to all of you out there. Cheers to you. Keep on keeping on. Just don’t look in my car.

Whoever said that parenting teenagers was like being pecked to death by chickens clearly only had one teenager at a time. When you have multiple teens in the house, it is more like surviving lions in the arenas of Ancient Rome. Except the lions are grunting, grumpy, smelly people who think you are the stupidest human on the face of the earth, if not the entire universe.

When I was in the throes of baby and toddler parentdom, I truly believed this was the toughest thing a person could do. The sheer physical effort alone was incredible. No sleep. Constantly wrestling with what seemed like amped up octopi in diapers. Always sprinting to catch the offspring that was prone to run away at the most dangerous times. People helpfully told me that this was nothing compared to parenting teens. I must say I rolled my red rimmed, sleep deprived eyes and may have muttered a barely audible “Foxtrot Oscar” to myself…but now that I’m here, parenting teenagers…I have to say that they were right.

The mental effort involved in trying to keep one step ahead of teenage shenanigans, paired with the self control required not to kill one of them when there has been one too many eye rolls is enormous.

The rapidly whirring brains, the lighting fast physical changes and the emotional roller coaster ride of teen hood has us all hanging on for dear life. It is like living with a suddenly six foot tall Jekyll and Hyde. One moment I’m still “mommy”, the next I’m the “worst”. Happens so fast I have the wind knocked out of me. Based on my convos with other parents, I’m not alone in this full blown circus. Thank god. I’ll need someone to do shooters with. I often feel that oblivion may be the only way to survive.

Often, 100% of the teenagers in the house are mad at me. Because I am “not cool, don’t understand, too strict, but all the other kids have it, etc…”. Get used to it kids! My job is to make sure I am not unleashing a tribe of howling, awful, self obsessed, open mouth chewers upon this earth. Being a parent involves…wait for it…PARENTING. This means my kids will likely think I suck much of the time. As hard as that is, I’m ok with it. It means I’m doing my job. Because as much as mornings resemble a donnybrook every day before school, I love them. More than they could possibly ever comprehend.

The silver lining in this hormonal storm cloud is that I see glimpses every single day of the amazing adults they will become. The acerbic wits that are developing, the passionate opinions they are beginning to share, and the shine of gifts that are unfolding. It’s amazing. And the fact that they are now old enough that we can snicker together over slightly inappropriate and completely inane YouTube videos is what keeps me from packing up my wine collection and running away. Well that, and the hope that soon enough we will be friends. Until that day, I will continue to be the “mean mom that doesn’t understand.” Because I love them.