I don't have to tell you how stressful the holidays can be. But, just in case you're having a Norman Rockwell-type Thanksgiving and have no idea what I'm referring to, I will. There is no doubt that Holiday time can and sometimes does bring out the absolute best in people.

However there have been those times when creating and executing the perfect holiday has led to tears in the bathroom, basement or spare bedroom, fisticuffs in the living room or worse - on the front lawn and an embarrassing, throbbing headache the next day. Or is that just my family?

My sister Carmela, is a holiday wunderkind! I remember the first Christmas we spent at her home in Denver like it was yesterday. It was as if you walked into a Christmas village! Every cookie was baked, tree and entire home (inside & out) decorated to perfection. As perfect as any holiday photo spread you've ever seen in House Beautiful. The Christmas music was playing, the mulled wine was in the crockpot and joy and goodwill reigned!

It was diametrically different from many of the sad and stressful holidays we had had as the children of a bi-polar father and an overworked and depressed mother. There were years where we were making cookies and mopping the kitchen floor after Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve! That was if one of my dad's violent "episodes" hadn't led to an entire shutdown of holiday preparations.

Carmie has always been the kind of person who, at great expense to her psyche, (and sometimes other's) will drive hard to achieve that "perfect holiday" and I love her for it. But occasionally you have to, as it were- "let go and let God". A person can only do so much with limited time, money and physical endurance, so sometimes you have to give yourself a break! You enjoy what and who you have and make plans for next time or next year.

I tell her this all the time and to be honest, she has never listened, never relented or even given the slightest indication that she thinks this philosophy might have some merit. However, I think this might be the one year that she loosens the noose of holiday torment, just a smidge. But only because she has had two major surgeries since September and is contemplating a third!

My younger sister Carolyn, (also a holiday fiend) is painfully and unexpectedly learning that very lesson this week after an injury and lengthy stay in the emergency room.

So I'll repeat myself just for the sake of the love and concern I have for my beloved, stressed-out siblings (including our other sister, my BFF Georgie) and friends- -sometimes you just have to let go. . .

 

 

 

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