Stress for Success?

My mother has called a lot in the previous weeks, trying to enlist my help in planning Christmas dinner. She's curious about innovative ideas, but fears that breaking with tradition may unravel the specialness of the holiday.

I like to mix things up sometimes, so I guess I'm the wrong person to ask....

Despite my offers to help, she wants to take the helm in the kitchen. I guess I cannot begrudge a night off, but I hate to see her so worked up about the menu:
"Will it be Christmas-y enough?!?!!"
"I just want everything to be right!"

As much as I love good food and think that fabulous memories can be made over fabulous meals, I also believe that if we don't over-think what's going to be on our table, we just might look a little harder at the other elements that help to create a beautiful holiday...like the wonderful people around us.

Who cares if you burn the roast and have to order Chinese? Who cares if the turkey is dry? Who cares if Aunt Mabel always brings that sickening side dish with marshmallows and corn flakes on top? Really, in the big scheme of things,...thank God we get anything at all.

This thought brings to mind an Easter many years ago. I went to visit my sister who had been working so much that getting arrangements together for a traditional Easter supper was going to be an impossible feat. So, we hoofed it to Kentucky Fried Chicken and split a bucket of extra crispy on a blanket next to a fish pond, just laughing the day away and enjoying each other's company in the springtime sun. It was my favorite holiday meal of all time.

So, please, please, please don't worry about Christmas dinner.

The opportunity to gather at a table with anyone at all, with anything at all on that table, is enough to make it a glorious holiday, don'tcha think?