Friends, I don’t care how beautiful your tree is or how perfect the bows on your presents are, none of us are prepared for the next few weeks.
Zero.
Maybe you have gifts bought and wrapped and stocking stuffers prepped to shove into those fluffy hanging socks…
But we aren’t REALLY ready.
Here’s why, friends.
As a wife, a mom, a public educator, a homeschool parent, a friend, a sister, a daughter…
We are all juggling glass balls and, as more and more are tossed our direction, we just keep hoping that none of them will drop and shatter into a million sharp, little pieces like the ones we recognize breaking inside ourselves.
As grown adults this time of year we are expected to budget,
to shop,
to wrap,
to gift-give,
to office party,
to bake cookies,
to host meals,
to bring side dishes,
to put up with toxic relatives,
and to do it all while…
making sure our kids are dressed for spirit week and have taken a handmade mug (and wine if you’re smart) to their teacher and are studied up for their end of semester testing and have cleaned out their locker before they leave a rotting banana in there until next year.
This is all during a pandemic, after quarantining for months, whole trying to decide what is safe, and while trying to keep Christmas magical.
Hear me when I say:
No 
One Can Be Prepared For This
What I am desperately trying to remind myself when my patience is thin and my coffee is cold is what I hope you will get from the chaos, too…
We are adults.
Even when we have no clue how to purchase health insurance or why our car is making that screeching sound, we are actual grown-up humans.
If we are dancing around trying to make things magical while juggling 47 glass balls that all seem important and our boss and our kids’ teachers and our spouse and our families are all hurling more at us to juggle, SOMETHING has to drop.
This dance cannot continue without someone getting hurt. It just can’t.
So, today, as you pick up your kid from school, as you wrap gifts watching Christmas movies, or while you order pizza for dinner (again…bc OH MY WORD why do these kids always need to eat!?), I hope you allow yourself some grace.
I hope you remind yourself that no one was meant to carry all of this.
I hope you extend some of that goodness to your littles and to your teens and to your grown children because everyone senses the heaviness and none of us can do this perfectly. We all have BIG feelings right now and none of that is wrong.
My brilliant friend Ordinary on Purpose, by Mikala Albertson wrote last week about Christmas being cumulative (if you don’t already follow her, go now. You can thank me later.).
We don’t HAVE to have a million presents or the perfect sentimental gift.
We don’t have to see all the Christmas lights or bake everyone in the town cookies.
We don’t have to wear matching pajamas and watch Polar Express.
We can.
And if that’s your jam, sister, sleigh it! (See what I did there!?)
But if you’re like most of us, hoping the glass balls you’re juggling are shatter-proof, choose one or two memories to make this year and give yourself grace enough to set the rest down.
For your wellness,
For your mental health,
For your happiness…
I promise our kiddos and those we love most will ‘get’ it. They want us to be present, not pained and pissed and paralyzed by anxiety.
So, if you need me, I’m going to be over here laying out allllll of this glass to see what I can put on the shelf until next year.
I hope you’ll join me, friend. 
-B
*Follow me on IG: @themamaontherocks
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