By Cherimie Crane Weatherford
It’s the season for Christmas music on repeat, gift-giving mayhem, exhaustion, burnt reindeer cookies, and the infamous missing elf on a shelf. Parents are living the life of a ping pong ball more than usual and fighting the urge to scream in the name of Holly Jolly.
Christmas creates memories, some better than others, but memories nonetheless. This year has been exceptionally memorable thus far, leaving me with tales to tell.
After waking from a semi-sound slumber, the paralyzing, profanity-provoking realization that I hadn’t moved Bubbles the elf prompted my sprint of desperation through a dimly lit home, trying to find the elf in question when I stepped ever so loudly into the dog’s water bowl. Still blinded by parental panic, my now wet foot is sliding as if heading down a snow-covered hill in a landslide of December disappointment.
Grabbing whatever stable entity my still sleeping hands could attain, I ever so elegantly miscalculated my reach and held on to the slippery grip of thin air. The more I tried not to create such a clatter, the more things my flailing extremities took down with me, like Santa’s sack down a freshly cleaned chimney.
Once my backside found the abrupt finish line of a cold, unforgiving hardwood floor, my wet foot hooked itself around one of my many dehydrated plants, adding dead plant debris to the fruitcake of failure lying on my floor. With no time to recover before hearing the sleepy footsteps upstairs, the relentless determination to save Christmas made my non-buoyant behind bounce like a brand new basketball.
Racing against time, gravity, and the destruction of my child’s hopes and dreams, I hopped on my only dry foot toward the current center of my universe, our elf on a shelf, as she sat there mocking my attempt at proper holiday parenting. I grabbed Bubbles and tossed the judgmental doll into the darkness as if channeling my inner Peyton Manning, hoping to avoid the great unraveling by getting sacked by the eyes of a disappointed child.
With every sound of sleepy footsteps descending the stairs, my heart exceeded natural activity. Her childhood races through my mind as I struggle to find Bubbles in the dark, wet, dehydrated dirt maze. It is over. Is this how Christmas dies? I will go down in history as the worst mother of all time. I have killed Christmas and, most likely, Bubbles, along with what was previously an excellent ankle.
Then it happened. She flipped on the light, illuminating my shortcomings. My eyes still adjusting to the light, I can see Bubbles’ lifeless body in my dog’s water bowl, surrounded by the driest of dry dirt and debris of what was an already dead plant. Bracing for the impact of broken trust, shattered dreams, and the sudden reality that her mom is full of lies, tears filled my squinting eyes.
Wrapped in her favorite Christmas blanket, she hopped off the final step. Not particularly sure if the pounding was my heart, my ankle, or my brain hammering away in search of any plausible explanation for the current state of affairs, she speaks. “Mommy, Mommy!”
Accepting my failure, I put my head in my hands. How can I manage multiple businesses, all things real estate, and easily navigate the car line, yet I need backup to complete the simple task of moving an elf?
My greatest gift turns on every light to maximize my failure and places me on the stage of an applause-worthy Christmas tragedy. I can’t look. Head still in my hands, her little voice proclaims the unthinkable. “Mommy, are you ok? Bubbles made a huge mess. Did you fall?”
She continued to explain to me exactly what she saw. She insisted Bubbles was quite the swimmer as the lifeless doll lie soaked in a half-empty water bowl. She continued to explain that Bubbles was trying to create a beach using the dirt of a not-so-recently deceased plant. Standing safely in the hands of magic, I turned to see the mess from her point of view.
How magical it is to be a child and only see the joy and wonder — rising each day to see the positive side of a sometimes impossible season. I stood in her world momentarily and saw the catastrophe as a confirmation instead of doubt. Once I had a chance to caffeinate and debrief her sweet, soundly sleeping father, I realized that no matter how messy the holidays get, the magic will wrap it in a warm blanket.
The innocence of blind faith, hopeful heart, and willingness to let magic in is what Christmas is all about. Seeing the dehydrated plant as a possible beach, the half-empty dog bowl as a perfectly filled elf pool, and a parent exhausted from running a race against time as a side effect of happy play. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. All we have to do is see through the eyes of a child, allow a little magic to break the mundane, and, for festive sake, don’t forget to move the elf.
Cherimie Crane Weatherford is the owner/founder of SugarBelle, a long-time real estate broker and a lover of the obscurities of Southern culture. To contact her with praise and adoration, email CCWIslandNews@gmail.com. To complain, call your local representative.
