Our Christmas Movie

Hubby is standing atop his shiny new ladder holding his breath as he meticulously places each of the 100 clips that will hold each of the 100 blue Christmas lights. He's scared of heights I know but he doesn't trust me to space them evenly over the gutters. He's right. I'm giddily chasing Lucas around the front yard yelling, "blue lights, blue lights, blue lights". Plus, there's just some things a man's gotta do with his new house.

Indeed, this is a momentous event for us. First time to string up Christmas lights over our first garage of our first house.

The same goes with our Christmas tree. I'm awake at 5:30a.m. planning how we'll decoate, wondering how the handful of trinkets we had for our old tabletop tree will transfer to our first big Christmas tree in our first living room in our first house. By 9am, the tree is up, Hubby carefully placing the red strings of beads (again he has little faith in my attention to symmetry), Lucas eagerly climbing on the window ledge to place a snowflake. I'm leaning over the back of the tree, placing the less desirable ornaments. I mean, do I really need to see Darth Vader's head swinging on the branches?

Hubby pulls out a star from the decoration box. I'd bought it on sale at Pier 1 a couple years ago at a Boxing Day sale but had forgotten about it because we never had a big enough tree. He hands it to me to do the honours.

"No, let's do it together." Again, another momentous event. I climb up on the ledge, holding a part of the star, while Hubby's hand covers the rest of it. We take deep breaths and then place it atop the tree. I jump off the ledge and into Hubby's arms for a hug as we savour the moment.

Lucas pipes in, "Now, you just have to make it prettier so it looks better."

We laugh at being chastized by our three-year-old, as Hubby straightens the star.

"Why is there a star on the tree?" Lucas asks.

"Well, on the first Christmas, there was a bright star in the sky above where baby Jesus was born," I tell him.

"Who's Jesus?" he asks as he lies underneath the tree.

I realize, in my own distancing from the Church, I've probably left out some key details from Lucas' awareness.

So, I sit back and tell him the Nativity story. Lucas curls closer to me and Hubby climbs onto his piano stool. As the tune of "Away in a Manger" fills the air, I fill in the details about Mary and Joseph, the stable, the wise men, and the special baby.

And suddenly I have this feeling like I am actually in a movie. A cheesy, Hallmark, Christmas movie with a cliche storyline and a predictable soundtrack. And it's this awesome feeling of good old, mushy, functional-family bliss.

When Christmas comes, it will likely bring chaos. Based on previous years, I predict we'll have spent too much money, we'll have eaten too many carbs, and we'll have had enough company. We'll wonder why we offered to take on Christmas dinner or travel to see family when we are exhausted and fighting colds. Emotions will get stretched and we'll get fired up over little things. I'll feel the guilty pull of the Church, the tempting lure of shortbread and schnitzel, and the subconscious expectations of what I should be doing as a good mother. I'll want it done and I'll want it to go back to normal.

But right now, all I want is to hold onto this fuzzy feeling. I want to throw this feeling like a blanket over the rest of December. And I want THIS to be what Lucas associates with Christmas. Moments like us trimming the tree and trimming the house, and playing freeze dance while Daddy plays Christmas carols on the piano. For Lucas, I want Christmas to mean what it does for me - togetherness and eager anticipation and a little bit of indulgence. I hope for his sake, we can skip the drama and live out our own made-for-tv family movie.

The Dinner Table featured on The Momoir Project

One year ago, we were living in my parent's house (thank you Mom and Papa) awaiting our dream home to materialize on the real estate market. Any of you who know my parents know that they have a BEAUTIFUL home, and it was tricky keeping a 2-year-old from messing it up. During one of The Momoir Project's writing classes, we got the writing prompt, "The Dinner Table" and this piece spilled out of me. What started out as a rant ended up as a piece of appreciation!

It's featured on The Momoir Project blog this week.

And if you feel so inspired, I encourage you to write up your dinner table adventures or disasters, and submit it in the comments section. The Momoir Project is going to choose one entry to most as the third in a series of Dinner Table stories.

“Mommy, Where do Hamburgers Come From?”

I’ve been preparing for this conversation for months. My three-year-old son, Lucas, is obsessed with cows. His best friend, MooMoo, is a stuffed cow that has turned grey and ratty from too much love. MooMoo also serves as his imaginary friend and alter ego when not physically around. His bed is covered with cow print duvet and lined with stuffed black and white cows of every shape and size, affectionately named Mommy MooMoo, Daddy MooMoo, Big MooMoo, Little MooMoo… (you get the picture). Even since he’s started going to daycare with four and five year olds, I’ve been terrified that one day, one of his friends would share the truth about what beef is.

So, I’ve been discussing where food comes whenever the opportunity arises. A few months ago in T&T, an Asian supermarket, we watched as the fishmonger wrapped two live lobsters.

“Where are those lobsters going?” he asked. “Why are they wiggling?”

I broke it to him, “They’re going home with that lady. She’s going to cook them and eat them for dinner.” The horrified look on his face made me add, “Don’t worry, she won’t eat the lobsters `til they’re dead.”

He dragged me over to the bakery section where he pointed at a cake decorated like a cow. “Mommy, can you buy this cow cake so nobody will eat it?” How could I break it to him?

At dinner one evening, we were eating chicken as he absentmindedly played with his plastic farm animals. I watched as he slowly picked up a small plastic chicken, and compared it with the cube of chicken breast on his fork. “Mommy…?”

All I had to say was, “yes.”

At Thanksgiving, as Hubby rinsed the turkey, Lucas asked us, “is that the same kind of turkey that flies and says gobble?”

“Yep,” Hubby said. Again, I added, “after a turkey dies, then we can eat it.” I realize I am skipping the details around the butchering process, the mass production of livestock, and the fact that what he identifies as a farm is a farce, but one step at a time.

A couple of weeks ago, I said to my Hubby, “we’re going to have to have “the talk” soon.”

“The birds and the bees talk?” he asked, unsurprised by my interest in orchestrating this conversation for our preschooler.

“No, not the `where do babies come from?’ talk, but the `where do hamburgers come from?’ one.”

In fact, it’s because of my knowledge about sexual health education, that I think now is the time. I remember a local “sexpert” explaining that age 4-6 is the ideal time to explain sexual reproduction to kids because they are all over the facts of the matter, but don’t yet find it gross or funny. I started scripting how I would broach the subject with Lucas.

As it turned out, it wasn’t me who ended up having “the talk”. As I walked in the door late from work last week, Hubby eagerly and sheepishly announced, “Lucas knows that beef comes from cows now.”

He knew I was disappointed. Not only did I miss the conversation I’ve been prepping for months, but I missed capturing Lucas’ reaction and the juicy bits of dialogue that could have been documented forever in this essay.

All I know is that after school, they drove by the field where a herd of cows grazes. (On a side note: this land is actually the “pig farm” owned by the Picktons, who keep this herd so it maintains its designation as agricultural land.) Hubby and Lucas often pull over and watch the enormous cows and small calves as they eat grass and plants. Somehow the conversation turned to the difference between dairy cows and other cows, and Hubby decided to break the news.

Surprisingly, Lucas was unphased and actually curious about what other animals we eat. Inspired, Hubby headed to the grocery store where they took an educational trip down the meat section. (Hubby is a teacher, after all.) He picked up a packet of bacon. “Do you know where bacon comes from? Pigs.” He picked up a packet of drumsticks. “Do you know what this is?” Lucas knew it was chicken. And finally, he picked up a steak. “Do you know what this steak is from? Cows.” I appreciate that he skipped the veal.

They settled on ground beef then headed home where Hubby made a big production of them cooking meat balls and pasta.

I was dumbfounded as Hubby told me all this. This huge secret I was terrified to break to Lucas was just matter-of-factly accepted. It reminds me of every other milestone I agonized over that ended up being non-issues. While on maternity leave, I planned how I would wean Lucas at a year but keep the morning feed so I could still nurse him before work. Instead, HE weaned ME at nine months. I was anxious about how he would manage without his soother, and after the “Suzy Fairy” took it away, he never asked for it again. We booked days off from work to potty train him, studied a potty training manual, and of course, Lucas “got it” in about 6 hours.

I try and protect Lucas, make things easier, make sure he’s ready. I pride myself on taking a developmental approach with him – not expecting him to take on more than he can actually handle. But I always, always, underestimate him. I overanalyze, pre-worry, and attempt to fix things before they’re broken. I hover like the helicopter parents we make fun of at university.

I have to remember that he’s here to learn and to experience. And he’s going to hear bad news and have to deal with it. He’s going to get confused and upset about things and have to manage that. He’s going to get hurt and I won’t be there to kiss him better. And trying to raise him in a bubble probably doesn’t help that much. But since I tend to live my life in a bubble, it’s easier said than done.

So, I shouldn’t have been surprised the next time I took Lucas grocery shopping, but it had been a week since “the talk”. There we were in the meat aisle when Lucas picked up a package of ground beef and through it into the cart. “Mommy, let’s make some cow for dinner!”

It turned out I was the only one traumatized by this.