Resentment tends to build, and it lingers. We often to think of it as a feeling we have towards others.
A game changer for me this year was realizing that resentment isn’t a feeling toward anyone. It’s just something I’m experiencing.
I’ve read so many tips for easing travel with kids, and most of them involved mess or more work for the parents (individually wrapped gifts to be opened hourly on the flight, anyone?) And any parent knows that if your kid is having a certain kind of day, NOTHING you do is going to help.
With something like this, you just have to say a prayer and put on your game face.
There is an anxiety with packing for a big trip. I fear that I’ll forget something that I can’t get while I am away. I might pack things in the wrong bags and end up checking a bag with something I need, keep something in a carryon that airport security will confiscate, or pack something we’ll need right away that ends up migrating in its suitcase and becomes impossible to find.
This morning I was awake and downstairs by 6:30 a.m., listening to Pentatonix Christmas and making lasagna.
It is a bit of a heavy burden I put on myself to make Christmas amazing, because I remember how amazing it was for me as a kid. My mom put up decorations every year. There were Christmas cookies and caroling, and hot chocolate in the church basement afterward that would melt the plastic spoons we used to stir the cocoa with.
Dad always took the kids to get a tree, and we would choose the biggest one we could get away with. When we got home and put it up, we would watch with glee as someone cut the net off of the tree and its branches bounced down to take up a quarter of our living room. We would all shrug and grin and tell Mom the tree hadn’t looked that big at the tree farm.
