Mama Writes: The Dreaded Holidays (Or Not)

I was never much for New Year's. Fireworks are loud. Champagne (at least the kind I can afford) gives me a headache. The whole enterprise made me insecure—I always felt I was at the wrong party. And the handful of times I found myself at the right party, I realized I was having exactly as much fun as I would have had I been at home in my pajamas, except instead I was facing a drunken subway ride home, during which someone would inevitably vomit on my shoe.

It's not that I fell in love with New Year's the year I was giving birth on it (kind of hard to love anything when you're in the middle of giving birth), but the texture of the date sure has changed since my son was born on January 1. Holding my newborn in my arms was the literal expression of all that New Year's is supposed to mean (and all that it never had). He made me new, something I had never been before: a mother. And every year since, I have a day to slow down and notice how far we've come—another year for us, another year for him.

Now that it's November again (how did that happen?), I'm looking down the chute at two months of holidays, with a three year old and 2012 at the far end (which will followed by a freefall into the dark, wintry chasm waiting for us in February—but let's save my article on SAD for another time). I've always been a sucker for Christmas (hey, who doesn't like presents?), but Halloween and Thanksgiving were often in the same category as New Year's for me—excuses to eat good food (hey, who doesn't like food?)—but not holidays I could really get into. I'd look around at people baking cookies, carving pumpkins, decorating their houses, making centerpieces, and I'll be honest—I scoffed.

Having a kid has changed all that.

Last weekend, my son Trick-or-Treated as Peter Pan. We had three days of festivities to attend, topped off by the . I baked and frosted dozens of sugar cookies, ostensibly as a project with the kid, but let's be honest, I was the one obsessively sprinkling sparkly sugar on the hundreds of bats I'd frosted purple. We didn't stop there. I dressed up as Wendy, my sister dressed up as Tinkerbell, and my husband, bless him, donned a full three piece pirate costume, a pair of my socks, a hook, a pirate hat and a black curly wig and blew the kid's mind.

How did we turn into these people? What I realized, as I dug through our closets and the dress-up bin, discovering we already owned Captain Hook's pirate costume, and the Wendy nightgown, and the fairy wings, is that we already were these people (all it took was a trip to Ricky's for the hook and wig). I absolutely have it in me to go to Ikea and buy a bin to devote exclusively to cookie decorating, because I already have three sets of cookie cutters, and a full set of tube frosting, and food coloring, and lots of non-pareils (whatever those are). It's just that I never wanted to gather them in one place because then I would have to admit that I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS.

There, I've said it. I am ready to love the holidays. Because the kid is here, and he is ready too. He was absolutely over the moon to dress up as Peter Pan but because what other day a year do you get to be—actually be—Peter Pan? Seeing the celebration through his eyes—the search for pumpkins on stoops in the month of October, the conversation with all his friends over what they were going to be, and the glorious revelation that his parents were dressing up too—made me realize that there's a reason mommies bake cookies and grandparents share their special recipe for homemade stuffing: because it's fun.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still remember that the holidays are stressful. One big holiday down, three more to go (six, if we count my husband's birthday, the two big family Thanksgivings we'll be attending, the celebration of Hannukah and January 1st as both New Year's and the kid's birthday), and I'm not losing sight of the fact that at some point in the next month and a half I'm going to be sitting in our living room at two in the morning, burning my fingers off with a glue-gun, cursing the name of Saint Nicholas and the wretched homemade gift project I decided to undertake just after Halloween (but you guys, it's going to be so CUTE). I guess what I've decided is to embrace the spirit of the holidays, but to try to see them from the kid's eyes, using the way he experiences these next few months as a guiding principle.

For him, Halloween was not about eating the candy (not yet- I'm sure next year will be different)—it was about the experience of Trick-or-Treating, and dressing up, but even more than that, anticipating what was to come as soon as Halloween was on the horizon, and really enjoying it when it was upon us. I've started talking up our grand East Coast Thanksgiving tour and all the family he's going to see, along with the idea behind Thanksgiving—appreciating all that you have. This month we're going to spend time scheming about what gifts we'll be making for our friends and loved ones in December. We'll be making a donation to a food drive and picking out new toys for a toy drive. We'll be baking cookies. He'll help me decorate the envelopes of our holiday cards. In short, we're going to simplify even as we dig deeper into the holidays. More fun, more meaning.

I realize now that New Year's never mattered to me because it never meant anything before. But now that I have a child, this collection of holidays has become about acknowledging how lucky we are, and telling the people we love that they are important to us. Not to mention that it's a good excuse to roast pumpkin seeds, invest in pinking shears, and obtain some turkey-shaped cookie cutters.

What holiday traditions are you passing along this year? How will you turn a stressful time into a celebration everyone can enjoy (yourself included)?