My mother hates Halloween. I’ve trick or treated one time in my life and it was before a sleepover with a friend in middle school. I went dressed as an Indian woman and wore a sari because that’s the only thing we could throw together quickly that didn’t involve spending money (don’t @ me, this was before cultural appropriation was even a phrase). The sari was beautiful and authentic; my dad brought it home from one of his mission trips to India. All I remember was sweating like crazy in October in Florida, but reveling in my candy loot. Instead of trick or treating, my family usually attended our church’s annual Fall Festival, which included games, a bonfire, s’mores, and usually some ill-advised activity initiated by the older kids that involved ATVs, ropes, and/or potato guns (our church was small and our parents were free range).
Fall décor at our house consisted of carved pumpkins. That was it. But after Thanksgiving, we pulled the boxes from the attic and set about decorating. We put up our artificial Christmas tree (I protested the “artificial” part of this as a child, but my dad hated the needles that would end up everywhere. Now an adult neatnik, I understand. Sorry, dad!) and hung a hodgepodge of mismatched ornaments. We had a couple of small countertop trees, garland and our stockings for the mantle, a few candle wreaths, and an ancient and somewhat terrifying-looking angel tree topper that may or may not have given me nightmares. Nothing fancy and all of it plastic, but I LOVED it. It meant that the magical month of December would soon arrive, and with it, Christmas music, beautiful lights, fires, yummy food, family, and gifts. It is far and away my favorite time of year.
As an older teenager and then adult, some of the Christmas magic seemed to wane. Living on my own in another state, it didn’t seem prudent to spend what little money I had decorating for holidays that I would spend at home with my family anyway. I decided that when I got married one day, I would be sure to decorate and create holiday magic for my family. It’s now been five years, and I have not lived up to my own expectations. We have a tree, stockings, and a few small things we’ve been given as gifts, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten into a decorating groove yet. Social media and Pinterest are helpful for ideas, but can also be paralyzing for someone like me who doesn’t even know where to begin. I don’t consider myself a creative person in the sense of art or design. Hobby Lobby gives me anxiety. I see individual things that I like, but I don’t know how to put them together in any sort of cohesive or aesthetically pleasing way.
Yes, this is absolutely an unapologetic cry for help from my creative friends, but I’ve also realized that I’m allowed to let myself off the hook. In my quest for holiday magic-making, I set the décor bar so unrealistically high that I haven’t even gotten started for fear of failing. I didn’t grow up with Pinterest-worthy holiday decorations, but they were still magical to me. It’s okay that my only fall decorations this year are the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch and a couple of small gourds from the grocery store. It’s okay if we don’t hang elaborate lights, or if my mantle stays the same year round. It’s okay if I don’t want to spend part of our budget on decorations or figure out how and where to store things for 11 months out of the year. It’s okay if I have no idea where to even put a centerpiece right now, let alone how to make one. Even if I never figure out this whole decorating thing, my kids will grow up with magical holidays because of family and love and Jesus and a not-at-all-terrifying star tree topper. And that’s okay.
Read more from Sarah here.
