How the Bright Eyes of a Child Morph into the Bleary Eyes of a Parent

And when appreciation of your own parents can finally settle in.

Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash

It’s Christmas morning. I’m up early. I’m thinking about all the parents of little ones who are up now too — frantically stuffing stockings and arranging presents under a tree, preparing for that magical moment when their kids enter the room and discover that Santa Claus paid them a visit overnight.

Perhaps those parents stayed up late on Christmas Eve instead — way past their bedtime to make sure no one else was awake. They got the room ready before heading to bed themselves, hoping to sleep as long as possible the next day but knowing their kids would rise long before the sun.

Those days are long gone for me, but I remember them fondly. Even the times when a complicated instruction manual challenged us to assemble a toy that was rarely worth the money but HAD to be purchased because it was the only thing our son or daughter asked for that year.

The holidays can be stressful. Time and money can be tight, and family dynamics can test your patience. It seems like every year around this time I have at least one meltdown, sometimes for good reason, but often not. I’ve cried over things like falling Christmas trees, broken ornaments, burned cookies…