On our way to dinner and mixed-doubles paddle tennis with friends he announced that my post was really, really hurtful and I was taken aback. I didn’t properly apologize, thinking, there in the darkness of a cold car on a Friday night, “Hey, wait a minute, I just announced to the world that our kids like you better than me. How does that deserve an apology?” But after an evening spent slamming the ball at each other across chilly courts, rough with friction, (I did hit myself in the head with my own paddle and also received a perfectly proportioned bruise just the size and shape of a paddle ball slammed directly at my upper thigh, so I’m feeling properly punished at this point), I came home and reread the hastily written post. And can admit that it was more than an admission that I’m second best. It was a suggestion that I am second best and he’s to blame for the status slip. And, upon dissection, I can say it’s really not his fault. I mean, what kid prefers the parent who insists on flossing their teeth and limits television viewing? Driven towards the fulfillment of some parental ideal, stuck on multi-vitamins and workbook lessons and non-sugar cereals, I have never been much good at fun.

While I might produce home baked goods of the chocolate chip variety, I’m not one for breaking out the aprons and letting the kids have hands on practice making cookie dough messes and licking the spoon. This weekend’s pizza making project was a good reminder that one parent needs to be able to appreciate the sloppy glee that is a child adding pepperoni and too much cheese and ushering the whole gluey mess into at 450 degrees oven for 15 minutes of breathless, noses-smashed-to-oven-window, waiting. It’s times like these that I can be found hiding in a well organized closet upstairs, avoiding the noise and the chaos and the flour cloud drifting head-high through the kitchen and out into the living room. I am fully ready to admit that my children are lucky to have a parent who can do these at-home kitchen projects even if it means we must replace cabinetry upon pizza completion.

I can admit that it is necessary and good that we have different roles and I can still long to switch it up every once in awhile. But My Better Half is essentially right when he says that I will never, ever just be able to let go and allow the kids to head off to school in whatever sloppy outfit they have pulled from messy drawers, without brushing teeth, with nary a pop tart in their stomachs. It’s not his fault that I expect collared shirts and neat hair and winter hats, a nutritious breakfast and a brown bag lunch packed with fresh fruit and some sort of whole wheat pretzels that will be thrown away in the classroom waste basket.

He is entirely right that this would be a home of staunch routine and superior nutrition and a total lack of joy without him. And so I’m sorry to have blamed him for the things that I cannot change about myself.

Yesterday, 7:30 a.m., I received a call from my son’s teacher – Mr.S. There are few people I care to talk to at such an early hour. He is an exception, an affable, boyish, disorganized exception. He was calling to say that the party I had planned for the class will have to be rescheduled due to his forgetfulness. It appears the children have a school sponsored sing-a-along, the timing of which completely conflicts with our holiday fete. Usually such a snafu would have me cursing the ineptitude of the teacher at fault but this is Mr. S, so I calmly said, “It’s not a big deal that I now I have to call 25 parents and beg their forgiveness for changing the party time just two days in advance. Actually, it’ll give me a chance to connect with other Mom’s and Dad’s. It’s a blessing, a total blessing.”

With my forgiveness apparent, I could sense his relief. He explained that he has been tired and less than productive lately. He has had trouble keeping appointments and remembering scheduled events. A few months ago, he and his wife purchased their first home. And have spent every minute of their free time and every spare penny renovating the top floor as an apartment. They need to take on a tenant who will pay rent and help them pay their mortgage. The renovations have been costly and excruciatingly slow as they have only weekends to devote to laying new floors and replacing windows. He and his wife are exhausted and broke and losing faith in their ability to get the project done before the holidays. His despair, when he mentioned that he had little to give his most deserving wife this holiday season, was palpable and true.

He explained, rather sheepishly, that his plans for a X-mas gift for her are, in fact, a little home spun. He floated his idea out there as if hoping I wouldn’t laugh or scoff or otherwise deem it foolish and pathetic. Instead, hearing the earnestness in his voice, I wanted to sing out – “Oh, young love, Oh, the Spirit of Christmas. I am restored.”

Without a penny in his pocket, he will develop and draft a blue print for an artist’s studio. He will build this little space entirely devoted to his wife’s artistic gifts in the basement of their new home. He will deliver the scrolled plans, all bows and promises, with an IOU to begin work on it as soon as their tenant is installed in the upstairs apartment. I said, “This, Mr. S, is an excellent plan.” It’s so Gift of the Magi, so perfect with the spirit of Christmas. And like the character in the O’Henry story, his name is Jim. And his wife is Julie which isn’t exactly Della but has the same number of letters. I am so happy for this Julie who has a husband who gets it. And, simultaneously, I could die, pining away with wishing for someone to make ME a writer’s studio in the empty upstairs bedroom that has been home to only the cat litter-box for two years.

I can only hope that his wife has not sold her paint brushes on Ebay in order to purchase him a new belt sander of nail gun. Because, let it be said, “…that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.” (O’ Henry)

Driving around town, one would think that Old Saint Nick was beating an immediate path to our doors, like tonight, this afternoon, visiting only those previous and industrious enough to have the twinkling lights of holiday debt already erected in their living rooms.

While the bittersweet berries, their yellow beads bursting forth the fiery orange of November, still grace the mantel and the dining room table in my house, our neighbors have draped spruce boughs over their front doors and have erected glaring spotlights to shine notice on expensive evergreen wreaths with velvet ribbons. Everyone around here has moved right past Turkey Day and onto Santa door mats, white lights and giant inflatable Rudolphs. I’m still trying to sell my family portions of leftover stuffing as adequate school snack while invitations for cookie swaps and Christmas brunches arrive at my door. I’m just not ready yet.

Because I am a planner, all this premature decoration makes me wildly anxious. As if all these well decorated homes house residents who have long been done with their holiday shopping and are now laughing down their noses at the rest of us, pointing their superior fingers at our barren front porches.

I know people, people I find worthy of suspicion, who shop all year, quietly amassing a heap of gifts that just need to be boxed and wrapped and shipped out come December. I’ve always marveled at this practice. Wondering how anyone has extra cash laying around with which to purchase X-mas gifts in July?

Just yesterday a friend told me about Turkey Hill Tree Farm. According to her this farm offers the best Frasier Firs in the area. “A whole month in the house with the heat on and not a needle lost.” She said I better call right away. Turkey Hill is popular with premature decorators.

After several minutes on hold, a frazzled and curt Turkey Hill employee answered my call and kind of laughed at me. “Frasier Firs? The 8′ variety? You should have tagged one of those three weeks ago,” he said as if he’d been saying this very same thing, over and over for days. He might as well have chanted it….You should have/ You should have/ You should have.

It is November 27th and Larry over at Turkey Hill is laughing at me. I’m SOL, behind the eight ball, no place to go but the supermarket for my balsam evergreen that will shed great heaps of needles on the carpet and end up, somehow, in the closets upstairs, on the bedspreads, in the litter box on the third floor. But not yet, damn it. There will be no festive holiday cheer around here until Saturday, December 1st and not even then because I’ll be in Florida for the weekend drinking Rum Runners and sifting sand with my toes and pretending that this whole Christmas thing isn’t really happening at all.