If I could learn the easy way, I would have arrived here long ago. Sometimes I pay attention to life's little nudges, but more often I don't. Most of the the really meaningful lessons in life come as I stumble through through life's challenges.
It's holiday time again. My Facebook feed is overflowing with plastic eggs and artificial colors. Smiles amid furry costumes, new clothes, and flower-covered crosses. I added my own little piece of bragging righteousness. My simple celebration, my joyful children, my rejection of materialism. In my own way I stood up for my values amidst a flood of commercialism. That's OK, but it's only part of the story. Here, with room to reflect broadly, there is space for truth.
The truth is, I love a good holiday. I love to wrap presents and fill baskets. I love to buy joy for my sweet children. I remember my childhood holidays, the magic of a basket of eggs transformed overnight into chocolate treats and a fabulous game of hide-and-seek. Even as nostalgia rules the day, I'm sure I can make it even better for my children. I can add that great new idea from Pinterest. I can make the gifts bigger, the treats more varied. I convince myself that doing more will create more magic.
The truth is that I have bought plastic eggs and Easter dresses. I have bloated my children with sugary treats, I have made holidays ever bigger. Yes, I have come to see it as too much, but I didn't get there gently. I might have been led by the gentle observations of my mother noting how things have changed since she raised her children. It could have been a news story of how much is spent each year on Peeps. It might have been a post on the dangers of food dye or the simpler example of a friend. All of those things were around me, and while I attended to each in some way and many caused some small change, none could overcome the momentum of my enthusiasm for holiday extravagance.
The truth strips away my righteousness and forces me to confess that it was not my values or my convictions that changed the celebration at my house. It was the challenge. We live with the challenge of histamine-intolerance. My children can't eat wheat, dairy or eggs. Easter brunch is a minefield for us. The candy aisle offers nothing but temptation. Community egg hunts offer no treasures. I've taught my children too well that cheap plastic toys do little but stuff the landfills. How then, is a mother to create Easter magic? It is a challenge that opens the door to learning.
I don't like this learning space. I'm much happier "doing my best" in this crazy, busy world, often relying on commercial substitutes for the ideals I dream of. I prefer drifting off to sleep knowing that come morning my children will wake to the expected joys and I will be rewarded with the expected smiles. I'm not brave enough to venture far into the unknown when I have the option of the comfortable norm.
This Easter I am blessed not to have that option. This Easter one idea after another was foiled and in the end celebrations were pretty small. Pennies were hidden instead of eggs. Candy was homemade and poorly formed. Baskets never found their way out of the attic and rain interrupted our planned bout of spring planting. I feared my children would simply "outgrow" Easter at far too young an age.
They didn't. It turns out the magic of Easter isn't measured by the size of the basket. The joyful power of novelty is greater than that of fulfilled expectations. The satisfaction in solving a puzzle is greater than the reward of eating a chocolate bunny. And the candy? Well, if I'd bought Reese's eggs, my children would have found it much harder to share out the bits - chocolate for the chocolate-lover and peanut butter for her brother.
Once again, my children and life's challenges have taught me lessons that I couldn't learn the easy way and I am grateful.
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