Holiday of Joy
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 9:53 PM
Every day last week Camilla’s first question upon opening her eyes was, “Is it Easter yet?” immediately followed by, “How many days until Easter, Mama?”
In my early teen years I can remember feeling wistful when I realized that my favorite holiday traditions from my childhood had lost some of their appeal. I still enjoyed them, but my heart no longer leaped with joy at the prospect of finding the Christmas tree or decorating Easter eggs or setting off Independence Day fireworks. I also didn’t spend the nights before the big days sleepless with anticipation.
Later in my teens and as I moved into my twenties, I gained perspective and began to see the holidays as a source of a different kind of joy: less thrilling, but deeper. I grew to appreciate the religious celebrations for their meaning to me as a Catholic. I learned to love every holiday for the opportunity it gave me to spend time with my family. The act of painting Easter eggs might not have been as fun for my twenty-two-year-old self as it had been for my eight-year-old self, but the laughter my sisters and I shared while we were doing it was wonderful.
Then I became a parent. During the first years, I appreciated the holidays for one main reason: it meant other people were around to hold and play with my daughter so I could relax. I got the privilege of seeing my family loving my baby, but on the other hand the responsibilities of parenthood meant that traveling and logistics around holidays were more of a hassle. So they were sweeter, but harder, which meant they weren’t always better.
But Camilla got older, as children do. By her third Christmas she was twenty-six months old, and her father and I were thrilled to discover that she was old enough to appreciate it. We must have spent half a dozen evenings during that December driving around looking at Christmas lights, because we loved listening to her squeals of joy each time she spotted another house alight with them.
The eighteen months since then have been so much fun. All the things I loved as a child, things that had lost their luster for me, are shiny and new again when I see them through the eyes of my daughter. Even activities as relatively mundane as apple picking feel like holidays when Camilla spends a week ahead of time jumping for joy every time she talks about going to the orchard. Fireworks, snowmen, birthday cakes, and Christmas trees are all imbued with childhood magic.
It just gets better as she gets older, too, which is why this Easter was the best one I can remember. Camilla’s anticipation was not disappointed. She loved every minute of painting eggs; she shrieked with delight when she saw the bounty of her Easter basket; she skipped with energy around the yard searching during our egg hunt. When we talked about Christ’s death and resurrection she understood only a little, but the joy of that resurrection? She was living it.
And I was loving living it through her. The holiday joy of my own childhood was lovely, but if my fourteen-year-old self had known what was to come she wouldn’t have been wistful. Easter as a child is wonderful, but for me, Easter as a parent is even better.
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