By Shannon Penrod
Yesterday I found myself saying to someone, “I’m so far behind! It’s mid- September and I don’t even have Jem’s Halloween costume! It may seem like it’s 
far away, but Halloween is just around the corner and then seven seconds later it’s Thanksgiving and then it’s just a slow slide into Christmas and New Years!” While I was ranting about the impending holiday treadmill my blood pressure climbed until I could see my pulse in my left eye. How did I turn into someone who stresses about holidays months in advance? I never used to be this way! I loved the holidays! Of course that was when I was single and childless.
Back in the old days I could shop on my own terms and didn’t have to have a babysitter or a shopping cart full of distractor toys to occupy a small child while I attempted to find just the right gift. I remember showing up to holiday parties on time, with clean clothes on and my face fully made-up. I was rested and full of joie de vivre! I remember clearly the first holiday season after I became a mother. I arrived at one party 40 minutes late with vomit in my hair and leaking breasts. I ate a carrot stick and then fell asleep on a love seat while people reveled around me. It wasn’t my finest moment. That was the same holiday season that featured no batteries on Christmas morning, so none of the toys lit up or played music and there was no picture of my child on 
Santa’s lap that year. I arrived at the mall too late on Christmas Eve and the line was already closed. I felt like a total failure.
That’s when I stepped firmly onto the holiday treadmill. This is the gerbil wheel that tells a mom if she hasn’t started her Christmas shopping by mid September, she’s never going to make it. It is the anthem that screams “If you don’t get the Durkee Fried Onions now, they won’t have them at Thanksgiving! ”
I remember my mother baking and freezing Christmas cookies in September and October when I was a kid. Every weekend she would make two kinds, so by the time December rolled around she could throw together a platter of homemade cookies that would make Martha Stewart cry with envy. All those years that my mother baked the fall away, and I thought she was crazy! Now I know the truth, she was on the treadmill!
Last year I attempted to get off the treadmill. We scaled back. I only opened two boxes of decorations and we didn’t even put all of those up. I shopped less
, gave fewer gifts. I did almost no baking and we didn’t even get pictures taken. We didn’t have a party and we scaled back on attending parties. All in all… it sucked. There wasn’t any hustle and bustle but there wasn’t much awe and wonder either.
Now that I am a Mom and a wife I know that part of the joy of having pulled off a holiday extravaganza is the joy of seeing those surprised faces! Sure, they never fully understand how 
much work went into getting 22 hot dishes on the table at the same time, or decorating a full house and buying presents for 50 people on a budget of $100! But they still look happy and cared for and at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about. So, I’m on the treadmill this year again. I already have my teacher gifts and my Toys 4 Tots donations, at this rate, if I can keep it up, I may get to sleep in December. To all those Moms who make it happen every holiday season ROCK ON!
Shannon Penrod Speaks 