This post will be short and simple and is dedicated to Alison Haley Cloud who would have turned 19 today…and a lovely 19 she would have been.  Everything that needs to be said I have said before.

I hope she is celebrating well.

I am repeating this post from 2004 in honor of upcoming holiday preparations. Don't let this happen to you.

Well, the holiday season is upon us and I am fearful. Time to deck the halls, the porch and the tree. Time to shop, chop, wrap and bake. All of this to do and I am frozen with indecision. It’s the most wonderful time of the year and my seasonal icon… my decorating diva and garnishing guru has hung up her potholders and is currently somebody’s bitch in prison.

Martha, how could you? And really, what was that judge thinking? Throwing Martha in the slammer before the holidays is like taking away Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve. But, instead of a million crying children, there are a million domestically challenged women standing around weeping over an unopened bag of fresh cranberries, some pipe-cleaners and a can of gold spray-paint.

Come on admit it… you hated her… but you couldn’t stop watching. You ridiculed her over-the-top ideas and despised her smug, know-it-all demeanor… but every night when you crawled into bed—you wished that you had taken the time to hand embroider your family tree at the top of your Egyptian cotton sheets.

When I think about the years I devoted to that woman. Pouring over magazines, ripping out recipes, collecting everything from antique linens to celebrity cigarette butts…AND LOVING IT! I was the queen of the home improvement project. Armed with only duct tape and a staple gun there were no projects too big to conquer in a weekend. I had no fear. Make a 19th century train station out of cardboard? No Problem. Make a banquet tent out of PVC pipe and tuille netting? How big do you want it? If Martha could do it then so could I.

Martha raised the bar and set the standard. If there was a way to take an enjoyable task and turn it into a drawn out, stress-filled, expensive holiday nightmare… she had the recipe. Red frosted sugar cookies at Christmas? Hell no! My Christmas cookies would have a stained glass pattern that was an exact replica of the windows at Notre Dame Cathedral. "You! Child! Get that cookie out of your mouth this instant! What can you possibly be thinking—It took me two hours and twelve dollars worth of food coloring to decorate that cookie. Now go get a Chips Ahoy and I’ll pretend this never happened".

Buy a pre-made wreath for $12…are you kidding? And have everyone know that it is not a one of a kind frivolity in foliage…an expression of the latent botanist inside of me dying to get out? I don’t think so. No, Martha taught me that I should gather the boxwood from the left quadrant of the garden and the holly from the right. Then with diligence, trim the spruce with specially serrated scissors so I do not tear the delicate stem. I wrap each piece with wire and hook it to the form using an age-old pattern that originated with one of the royal families of Norway.

Then, so that I don’t distract from the beauty of the pine boughs, I will touch up the Heavenly Alabaster White paint on my front door and hang the wreath on a sterling silver hook which I have hand-polished with a chamois cloth and the spit of a yak found only in the foothills near Tibet.

Ah, yes, the joys of yak spit. But that was then.

Now it is Christmas, 2004 and I still haven’t cleared away the corn stalks from Halloween. My pumpkins have black spots and are imploding. There were no cornucopias for Thanksgiving… just a banana and a can of Mexican corn. My boxes of ornaments are gathering dust in a corner. The lights sit idle. My tree has no theme. I have hit bottom.

To my children, I apologize that, for the first time in thirteen years I will not be sculpting the city of Bethlehem out of a stick of butter. Nor will I be making musical cupcakes for you to share in class. And the days of slaughtering the cow for our Christmas dinner… gone, little girls, all gone. The spirit of Christmas past has left me.

Prison is too good for you, little Miss Martha. You deserve a life filled with chipped beef on toast. You are responsible for spiraling an entire generation of women down a dark road toward insanity… competing over centerpieces, birthday parties and stuffing recipes. We clawed our way up the domestic ladder… spurred on by rave reviews, compliments, oohs and ahhs. And for what? The wicked fall back into a world of mushy pumpkins and a store bought roast beef? God help us.

I don’t feel sorry for you, Martha… with your millions of dollars and your striped jump suit. I feel sorry for sweet, Paula Tidwell, in Lincoln, Nebraska who, without a source of creative direction, passed out while attempting to stuff a turkey with a box of Velveeta Shells and Cheese and cinnamon-coated macadamia nuts, leaving her family to eat a lukewarm can of Beefaroni and frozen pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving Dinner. Let me ask you Martha, is that ‘a good thing’?

It’s time to wake up and smell the unflavored generic coffee. Perhaps now, we can all get back to the business of living. We can hang up the skill saw and calligraphy pen, the French Press and the Cuisinart. Put down the cranberries and spray paint, ladies… and dry your eyes…with a hand-tinted heirloom tea towel if you must… but, let’s get back to our lives of peaceful mediocrity.With the time I save on etching Shakespeare sonnets into my drinking glasses I can read a book or catch up on my television viewing...

Oh for crying out loud…..what in the world is Queer Eye? Oh, wow… would you look at that centerpiece? That is gorgeous! Gosh, I LOVE those guys. Heck, I could do that…I just need…Megan, get me a bag of cranberries, some pipe cleaners, gold spray paint…and the duct tape…stat!

It snowed the other morning and it was--in my mind anyway--magical. Immediately I felt that stirring anticipation for the holidays. I got out my IPOD and turned on Windham Hill Winter Solstice. Just watching the snow dance through the sky made me smile. I drove through Starbuck’s and got a Pumpkin Spice Latte. It was a perfect morning.

Minutes later, I found myself crying. That’s just how it works. Before i am able to enjoy the present, I must pay homage to the past.

As you get older, you imagine a time when you will face the holidays without your parents. You know that there is a possibility that you may have to face them without a spouse. But, never in your wildest nightmare does there come a time when you can imagine a Christmas morning where one of your children has no presents under the tree.

How do you ever reconcile that?

I love the holidays—everything about them—the preparation, the food, the music, the decorating, being with my family. I think part of my restlessness right now is due to having all of my traditions shot to hell. My house is gone; the place for pumpkins on the porch and the corner by the window where we put the tree.

I cried in the car, not just because I miss my little girl so very much, but because I want so badly to be able to feel the warmth of things that are special to me without feeling the pain that inevitably accompanies it. It is so much easier said than done.

I need to reestablish my sense of self—to hold on to my past, learn to enjoy my present and find a new way to view my future. Building new traditions are a huge part of that and there is a delicate balance as to what must stay and what must go.

Megan and I began that journey last Christmas with our little tree and handmade ornaments. We took a giant step forward this fall when we went to the orchard. The trick is to change it enough to make it ours but, to always acknowledge the empty place at the table.

I guess that it is good to find tears in the remembering; it means that our life was good and our time together precious and enduring--frozen forever like a collection of snow globes lining the windowsill.