If you are a mom in the throes of days-before-Christmas anxiety, please stop a moment and read the words I read this morning.  Remind yourself that no matter what the to do lists and the Santa lists and the grocery lists say, there is only one thing our family's really, really need from us….

"All mother's – those employed outside the home and those who are full-time homemakers – worry about whether they are giving enough of themselves to their children.  At Christmastime this concern is emotionally heightened and produces great anxiety.

If we work responsibly outside our homes we feel guilty because we are not at home with the children during the days preceding Christmas baking a gingerbread house to rival a magazine cover. So we assuage that guilt by suspending common sense in the department store until our extravagance for the children's sake is culpable.

If on the other hand we are at home with the children full time, the family is possibly on a tighter budget and so the money question looms over our holidays. However instead of making the most of being with the children, such as reveling in the fact that we do have the time to bake, we fret over the fact that we can't give them the overpriced trinkets advertised on television. 

May Mrs. Sharp make a gentle suggestion? Instead of fretting over things we cannot do, let us concentrate on the most priceless gift we can give to our families for the holidays.  It is the gift you long to give them each year, dear Reader, and feel frustrated when your holiday reality does not live up to your expectations. 

It is the gift of yourself. 

But you say, "Mrs. Sharp, I gve myself to my family. In fact that's all I do, which is why I'm dreading the holidays: gift buying, card mailing, present wrapping, present sending,  tree trimming, cookie baking, holiday entertaining, carol singing, organizing the carol singing. What are you asking of me? to do more?"

No my dear.  Mrs. Sharp is not asking you to do more. In fact she is asking you to do less, in order that you may give more – to enter fully into this joyous holiday celebration with your children by giving them the gift of Christmas Past.  For now, while they are young, you are planting seeds of Christmas memory. 

When your children are grown the holidays – their Christmas Past – can come to mean memories of… a loving family smiling in the glow of holiday light.  Or their Christmas memories can be of Mother racing around out of breath, our of energy, out of love, out of patience because she is so exhausted trying to do everything for everybody. 

It's your choice. 

You can decide this year to be happy, loving, fulfilled, generous, peaceful, joyous, calm, festive and emotionally connectd to the important people in your life from Thanksgiving til the first week in January. 

Or you can choose to be a wreck. 

The secret is…. you can't do everything. You are going to have to make choices so that you are not so overxtended and worn out that you can't give your precious family the important intangibles that make the real difference in their lives."

From Mrs. Sharp's Traditions