ABOUT WOMEN
A spoonful of bubbly helps the holiday madness go down

By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Staff Writer

I approach the fourth-quarter holiday blitz with equal parts excitement and dread.

I love the cozy colors of autumn, the smell of pumpkin pies just out of the oven, and twinkly lights on fragrant fir trees.

Thanks largely to my late mother, I have a complete collection of rich childhood vignettes that include dipping apples in gooey caramel and charging out of the house at dusk on Halloween disguised as Cleopatra or a medieval princess.

At Thanksgiving, we always watched the Macy's parade on TV and dined on royal feasts served on fine china. And don't get me started on Christmas.

Great. Something else to feel guilty about.

Holidays are not just about celebrating whatever it is we happen to be celebrating; they're about making memories for our children and handing down the traditions that bind the generations.

And as a woman, that's my job, right?

To be sure, my dad did not have to be talked into rigging up a cardboard skeleton on a pulley system to scare innocent trick-or-treaters silly, and my husband's elaborate outdoor Christmas displays have blown more than a few household fuses.

But that's light work. I'm talking about the orchestration and preparation of meals, decorations, wardrobe (who do you think is buying those too-cute reindeer sweaters?) and overall holiday ambiance.

For goodness' sake, there are costumes to sew, pumpkins to carve, turkeys to thaw, gifts to buy and wrap, garlands to hang, and illustrated editions of "The Night Before Christmas" to recite at bedtime.

The last couple of years, I've come close to breaking down under the stress of performing up to my unrealistic expectations to provide my family with Martha Stewart holidays. Most likely I'm overcompensating for my inadequacies in caring for home, husband and offspring the rest of the year.

I've learned to make some minor concessions — for example, using ready-to-bake pie crusts. But I can't seem to scale back much further than that, at least not until the kids are grown.

In fact, at this moment, I'm on a wreath-making jag after an ill-timed visit to Ben Franklin. I need an intervention. ("Step away from the hot-glue gun, ma'am.")

Every holiday season I swear I'm not going to fall into the same trap again. November rolls around and I tell myself, "Oh, we'll eat out for Thanksgiving this year."

Then the little voice chimes in, "But it's so easy and cheap to roast a turkey. And how hard is it to make mashed potatoes and stuffing? And teach your daughter to bake a pie and keep the kitchen tidy at the same time? And wipe the nice china and polish the silver? Just like your mother used to do."

A saving grace to all this madness is that many of our family's holiday traditions involve champagne. And if they didn't when I was a kid, they do now. That's my new holiday tradition, and I don't feel guilty about it at all.