Rookie Mama: From candy canes to garden gains and moments in between

By Michelle Cote
The Rookie Mama

Just ask the question, ‘When do you decorate for Christmas – before or after Thanksgiving?’ has slowly seeped into classic familial controversies ranked up there with choice to discuss religion, politics, and whether ketchup goes on tourtiere, the great debate of when to remove said decorations can be just as touchy a subject – as delicate as a baby’s-first-Christmas ornament dangling by its last thread.

While I’m just as eager to regain bonus living room square footage post-Noel as the next mama, our family tends to simmer down the ramped up Yuletide energy on low and slow; eking out the last cozy seasonal movies we didn’t get to view in the hubbub as we snack on festive goods bordering on stale and soak in the last chords of a Bing Crosby standard.

But a stalemate is what we come to around Epiphany – the Christian feast day celebrating the Magi’s visit, which takes place roughly 12 days after Christmas.

Twelve. Whole. Days.

Rather than honoring three wise men, it’s four wise guys who inevitably team up against me, negotiating – pleading – to keep the tree and decorations up longer.

I mean, I’m almost in Easter mode by this point.

I blame myself and the overt festive eagerness that takes over my very soul in sugarplum fashion throughout the months of November and December each year.

Clearly the pinecones didn’t fall far from the Christmas tree.

Or something like that.

Now I have a gaggle of children circling me in protest like I’m the Grinch – their words, not mine – who is killing the Christmas vibe by insisting decorations come down.

Twelve.

Whole.

Days after Christmas.

Alas, it’s time, my good fellow kings of Wenceslaus.

As we gingerly pack every item back up, each delicate ornament wrapped in yellowing newsprint, every stocking removed, every Balsam-scented taper and nutcracker mug and light-up village and painted kid craft carefully packed away in its time capsule trove until next time, I hold it together, knowing it’s hard for the boys to close this chapter.

But here’s the rub – It’s hard for me, too.

Saying goodbye to our favorite season and the massive magical anticipation that came with it on a one-horse-open-sleigh is a tough one.

But here’s where we must understand that each closed décor box only means it’s time for new gifts of a different sort.

January and February don’t have to be the ol’ doldrums we set them up to be, poor cold misfit months.

Rather, they present an opportunity for next traditions to be hashed out.

Make a king cake for Epiphany.

Host a sledding party.

Hike in the snowy woods.

Have a Valentine’s fondue party.

Go to an ice hockey game and shriek in unison when opposing players slam up against the glass before you.

Make a snowman and use the finest pine boughs for fabulous eyelashes on a snow lady.

Plot out February vacation day tripper plans.

Show acts of kindness for your friends and neighbors.

No matter what your pick, it’s a great excuse for hot cocoa in these frigid Maine temps.

For my family, we gleefully pivoted to opening up gifts of another kind – we sorted and classified seeds stored from last fall’s harvest in anticipation of our growing season soon to begin.

My thirdborn delighted in cracking open bean and pea pods, removing precious dried legumes ready for the planting.

I’d dried seeds and tea on screens in the cool basement dark months earlier, waiting for the right time to discover garden wonders of things to come.

I separated sunflower and zinnia seeds from their stubborn heads and pried dried melon and gourd seeds from their drying towels on which I’d placed them months earlier.

These are gifts not wrapped in silver paper but in the promise and hope and compost that these months ahead shall bring.

We’re saving monetarily on seeds we won’t have to purchase when plotting our plots.

We’re holding tight to these teeny kernels with highest of sweet hopes they’ll grow into something marvelous from which we can harvest many a vegetable, and continue to feed our growing crew the so-fresh-and-so-clean goods.

We’ll be soon dreaming of a green garden – not a white Christmas – with gratitude for all the mini traditions in between as life continues to roll on, and seeds grow into next season’s colorful sprouts of bounty and joy.

So set your traditions big or small as that Yuletide cheer fades to a whisper, a promise to reunite once again next winter.

The present tense is the present to be unwrapped.

Just don’t forget the hot cocoa.

It goes fabulously with leftover candy canes that have nowhere else to go.

The sunshine is coming, folks – keep calm and tradition on!

Michelle Cote lives in southern Maine with her husband and four sons, and enjoys camping, distance running, biking, gardening, road trips to new regions, arts and crafts, soccer, and singing to musical showtunes – often several or more at the same time! <