ManicDDaily

When I was a child growing up in suburban Maryland, it was somewhat unusual to have a working mother, or, as she might be called today, a mother who “worked outside the home.”

Just about all the mothers I knew stayed at home, though they also worked pretty hard—this was partly because the ones I knew best had more than six children a piece.  Still, there was something different about a mother who actually had a job.

On the good side, we seemed to have slightly more disposable income than many families on my block.  We took trips; we shopped at real department stores (and rarely at the “five and ten”); my brother and I had an assortment of private lessons (from tap dancing to piano).

On the less good side, our lives, without the attention of what was basically a full-time servant, were sometimes a bit chaotic; let’s say, rushed.

This chaos was most pronounced at holidays, because my mom usually did not get off from work until almost the last minute.   Christmas Eve Day was intense, the modern world’s post-Thanksgiving frenzy squeezed into about sixteen hours.  On Christmas Eve Day, a tree was bought (among those few remaining available), put up, decorated.  Traditional foods were purchased and prepared; presents were acquired.

The day was a bit like one long Iron Chef competition, except it involved stores rather than a kitchen.  Wrapping took place well after darkness fell.

Christmas morning was a joy to my mom partly because it meant the end of Christmas Eve.

I’m a working mother too.  And whether women become more like their mothers when they age, or the aging of children makes the planning for Christmas somewhat less of a priority than the payment of second semester college tuition, I find myself in a mom-like situation this Christmas Eve’s eve.

I have tried to stave off the panic and guilt by warning my family repeatedly that I’m really not doing a lot for Christmas this year, that I am just too busy, too pressured  (not mentioning the weird assortment of vampire novels I’ve managed to read.)   I’ve told myself too that my kids are old enough I should just take it a bit easy, let myself off the hook.

But I expect that by tomorrow, all those warnings, and even resolutions,  will go by the wayside.   Like a Christmas Eve’s Eve, burdened with the knowledge of good and evil–that is, of what good mothers are supposed to do for Christmas as opposed to bad mothers who don’t do all those wonderful things–I will frantically shop, buy, prepare.   I will get us to church, cook, wrap;  and when Christmas morning dawns, I will be very happy.