Making our own Christmas magic

solo rituals, re-imagined traditions, and other ways moms of bigger kids can rekindle the holiday spirit

In 2015,

Sarah Powers

and I recorded an episode of The Mom Hour podcast titled “Moms Deserve A Magical Holiday, Too.” This was very early in our podcast, but I remember recording it - and the sentiment that inspired it - clearly. At that point, I had been a mom for seventeen years. All five of my kids were in school - three different schools, actually, from kindergarten to twelfth grade - and the month was a whirlwind of school concerts and parties on top of all the cookie-baking and book-reading and decorating I wanted to do in our free time.

But while the holiday season could be hectic, it was also happy. I never felt more in my element as a mom than I did while baking, wrapping gifts, and stuffing stockings. In those years, my kids’ magic was also mine; it was everywhere for the taking. Over the following years my kids got steadily older and harder to “wow.” Then I got divorced, and then my kids started leaving home, one by one. Rather quickly, that effervescent fizz of Christmas magic went flat.

My sails really deflated the year that Clara, my youngest, decided that it was time to put away certain childish beliefs. After nearly two decades spent a specific kind of magic, with its own customs, traditions, and tasks, that job was no longer required of me. A lot happens in a year, and kids can go from believers and receivers to sit-it-out-ers and passive observers in what seems like an unthinkably short time period. And I’d spent so much of my early motherhood joyfully attuned to creating an atmosphere of enchantment for my kids that it was hard to imagine what a special season could look like if it wasn’t centered around making magic for small people.

And this year, I’m hit with another punch: most of my people won’t be around for the lead-up to Christmas, which always used to be my favorite part. Those formerly-small people range from fifteen to twenty-seven, and four of the five live hours away. With just one high-school sophomore living at home, no classroom parties or school concerts to attend, no teacher gifts to prepare and no beliefs in magical creatures to faithfully uphold, my job as a holiday-season mom feels simpler, but also runs the risk of losing all its satisfaction. It would be easy to slump into a much-diminished version of the holiday season: magic-making job done, check. Moving on.

Bah humbug and Happy New Year.

Holiday mothering from an emptying nest

But here’s the thing: I love Christmas, and always have, since before I had kids - so there’s no reason that my kids growing up should end that. Yes, experiencing Christmas through a child’s eyes is a gift, one that I had the great privilege of experiencing for the majority of my adult life. But I still have a lot of life left, and as the matriarch of a steadily-emptying nest, I now have the privilege of time and space to turn some of that enchantment-creating energy back toward myself.

Christmas carols and twinkle lights still have value, after all, even without childish ears to hear and eyes to see them.

Having so many fewer people depending on me for magic-making opens up time and space - both literal and figurative - for making meaning for myself. Because, for as much fun as the Santa myth was to play along with when my kids were little, that wasn’t my only shot at mystery. After all, a holiday based on the virgin birth of God in the form of a baby is getting off on a pretty magical foot to begin with, right? And then there are all the ways we observe that mysterious, miraculous event: by bringing light and music and good smells and warmth into the cold and dark of winter.

The “magic” we feel at Christmas isn’t just about elves and toys, after all. It’s about mystery, possibility, imagination, and the enchanted sense that things are deeper than they look on the surface.

I’m in a stage of life where I not only can, but must re-imagine what I want this holiday to look like, not just for myself but my entire household, and the generations that will celebrate under this roof with me in the future. That’s pretty magical, in and of itself.

the possibilities in an emptier calendar

When all five of my kids were all in school, my December calendar was so full of Christmas programs and performances that I barely had time to breathe, let alone squeeze in another concert or a scheduled volunteer opportunity. But late last month, I looked at my calendar and realized that nearly every one of my evenings for the first three weeks of December was free.

A calendar with nothing but blank space is one of my favorite things these days, so I’m not complaining; but it did occur to me that I actually have plenty of time now for some of the festive and fulfilling events that I used to wish I could make time for: the carol-sings and holiday maker markets and orchestra concerts and tree-lighting ceremonies; all are there for me to enjoy if I want to.

Nothing ruins a hard-earned sense of time-abundance like filling every available evening with an outside-the-home activity, so I’m being selective in what I choose to fill that time with…but I’ve chosen a few activities I’m excited about.

For example, tonight Eric and I are attending a holiday concert at a local university that has a great performing arts department and a really nice auditorium. For $7 a ticket we get to experience professional-quality entertainment in an amazing venue. What a deal!

And later this week, Clara and I will be volunteering at a “Wonderland Toy Store” in which local families can buy new, donated toys for their kids at pennies on the dollar. The parents get the empowerment of choosing and purchasing their kids’ gifts at a deeply-discounted price, and the money is donated to a local charity. After a very long time of wanting to meaningfully volunteer in my community but always feeling like other obligations kept me too busy running around to commit, this feels like one small step toward telling myself a new story about the time I have available and how I want to use it.

If you’re also grappling with a calendar that suddenly feels a lot emptier than before, why not choose an activity or two to try out this year? Some ideas:

• High schools, colleges, universities, community theaters, orchestras, and choirs, and churches often offer low-cost or even free Christmas performances.

• Churches, nonprofits, and community groups organize a lot of volunteer events this time of year; if you don’t know where to start, tag along with a friend who’s already plugged into a volunteer opportunity, or think about an issue that feels personally meaningful to you and look for organizations in your community tackling that need.

• Remember that small organizations don’t always keep their websites and social pages totally up-to-date, so be ready to - yes - make a few phone calls, or at least send an email or two. The community section of your local newspaper, if you’re lucky enough to have one, is another good place to look. And for volunteer opportunities, churches are often the easiest way to get connected with needs in your community. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here; you can just jump into the role someone else has set up for you!

re-imagining old traditions

The weekend before Christmas we’ll revisit a well-established and beloved tradition: Clara’s and my annual trip to see The Nutcracker with my sister-in-law, Jenna, and two teenage nieces, Ruby and Luna.

This used to be a single-night trip for a lot of reasons: for one thing, neither of us could afford to spare either the time or the money for a two-night trip in the early days, and when the girls were really little, one night was exhausting enough for us all.

But in this season of life, Jenna and I both just have more resources and margin to work with - and the trip is a lot more restful with three independent girls who now share their own hotel room instead of bouncing around in ours. So we’re looking forward to a longer and more leisurely adventure this year.

It’s a good reminder that changing circumstances don’t always have to mean completely chucking old traditions or only starting brand-new ones. Instead, I’m checking my old list of favorite practices, and seeing if some of them can be adapted for our new circumstances instead.

For example, as gift lists become shorter and my kids become, let’s face it, a lot less fun to shop for, could I put more time and thought into stockings instead? Or perhaps I could find more joy in, and give more attention to, Christmas activities that have previously felt like a bit of a fit-it-in-around-everything-else afterthought, like baking.

(More about that next weekend.)

finding meaning in solo rituals

As I mentioned in last week’s post, this is the first year I’ve lit Advent candles at home! I’ve decided, for now, to make this a solo practice. For the last two Sundays, I’ve lit the candle early in the morning, when the light is still low, and then I sit on the sofa where I can see the candle and go through a simple practice that includes a reading, prayer and observation. Then I let the candle burn for about an hour while I have my tea, watch the sun come up, and write in my journal.

While I didn’t purposely set out to exclude my family from this practice, for a whole host of reasons, including four of my five children not being around for most of the month of December, it just made sense to move forward as a solo endeavor. And honestly, it’s been nice not to have the pressure of trying to make this fun or meaningful for my family, or to get my kids “on board” while I’m still figuring out how I want to incorporate it into future holidays - or figure it out in general! Despite consulting a wide array of sources before I started, I somehow managed to put the candles in the wrong order and therefore burned the wrong one last week. When I realized that this morning, I was relieved I didn’t have to explain my mistake to anyone else.

Now, I’m finding myself looking around for other ways to add solo rituals to my season. Imagine building a whole collection of just-for-me traditions! It’s a luxury that I couldn’t even have imagined back when my hands and home and calendar were so full - and a gift of celebrating the season, in this season of life.

the alchemy of change

Holidays won’t - can’t - stay the same forever, no matter what particular circumstances make ours what it is in this particular moment. Deaths, divorces, moves, children growing up: all of those transformations make this particular season a delicate snapshot of this particular version of ourselves, which will be replaced with a new version next year and the year after.

In this time of transition for my family, I’m trying to stay open to whatever opportunities this specific holiday season brings, even though it looks so very different from those enchanted earlier Christmases as a mom of many young kids. After all, it doesn’t have to be the same as it always was to be magical in its own right.

I’d love to hear from you: what magic do you want to bring into your holiday season; perhaps things that feel, or felt, too hard to pull off with a house full of kids?

If you could design a Christmas season that feels most magical to you, what would you do?

Experiencing motherhood through the transition of hands-full to house-empty? Look for my forthcoming book The Last Parenting Book You’ll Ever Read: How We Let Our Kids Go And Embrace What’s Next on Amazon or Bookshop.org.