Wreath Rivalry
It was wreath only a mother could love.

It started with the show "100 holiday ideas for a total of $100." Beautifully dressed interior designers frolicked through their demonstrations of ideas that often required a master's degree in glue guns. But then a man in a black turtleneck with a meticulously developed air of bored superiority showed how to make a wreath with drycleaner bags. By tying shredded strips of the plastic bags around a disassembled coat hanger, you could create a shiny, ecologically friendly wreath.

Since motherhood cut down on my dry cleaning (by staining every outfit I had that required dry cleaning) I substituted grocery bags and started cutting and tying strips. A few hours later, I was astonished. Hey, I thought, this looks pretty good.

This is what cable does to you. You actually come to believe that plastic bags tied around a coat hanger "looks pretty good."

I even decided to give it to my mother. When I delivered it early in December, it was fourth grade all over again. She loved it, and promptly displayed it on the mantle. I was a little embarrassed, but also ridiculously proud.

We returned to her house for the big holiday dinner weeks later. On her mantle was a huge wreath. It was gorgeous, the greenery absolutely perfect, the colors flowing in a holiday harmony that would have silenced any decent choir. Martha Stewart would have given her left tit for this wreath.

And there, on the little music stand next to the mantle, was my recycled bag wreath.

"Oh! Did you see the wreath Christy sent me?" my mother said.

Of course. My sister. From across the Midwest she had reached into the open-ended game of sibling rivalry black jack and tossed down a big, fat ace right here, in my mother's house.

I turned to look at my mother, to apologize for my sad little homemade wreath. But one look at her brought me up short. She had no idea of the vast gulf that lay between my wreath with the ripped grocery bags and the Epic Salute to the Spirits of Yuletide on the mantle. In her eyes, they were somehow THE SAME.

I was floored. First, I realized I'd have no chance to ditch my plastic ring of economy Christmas in the closet, sparing myself the inevitable comparisons that would race across the faces of every relative present. Then, it dawned on me.

My mother is incredible.

In her heart and in her eyes, they were from her daughters. They were our love shaped into circles and she cherished them both.

Already I find this beautiful blindness within myself. I see gifts given from the heart of my children are the same, despite all appearances to the contrary.

As a daughter, I'm still completely mortified by the memory of the wreath rivalry where I was so completely left in the dust. Yet I take considerable comfort in knowing that to my mother there was no contest—and there never has been.

Mail Call!

So many things sound like a good idea when you're a mom. You read about it in a parenting magazine and you think "Hey! I need to try that with my kids!"

Someday I'll stop reading those magazines.


In our home, we are now faced with the mailbox maelstrom. Every day it's someone's turn to check the mailbox. This involves leaning out the car window and plucking four tons of sales circulars out of the mailbox so they can be disassembled then transported into the trash.

I got this idea from a magazine that suggested it was a great way for children to learn how to take turns and allows them be part of the mail experience even if they don't get a letter.

Right. I should have canceled my subscription right then.

It started out fine. There was great excitement pulling up to the mailbox, as if I was uncovering a lost treasure chest.

Then I forgot whose turn it was.

My children, (whose minds, I've been told repeatedly by those aforementioned parenting magazines, are like sponges) couldn't remember who had checked the mail the day before. My mind has long ago become a sieve, barely able to retain my shoe size, let alone the details of "the turn."

And the battle of wills began.

Like little lawyers, they pressed their case. Suddenly I was thrust into the role as Supreme Court Justice of the Mailbox.

"She checked it – remember she dropped the blue postcard!?"

"I didn't drop it! It's my turn!"

"She always gets her way!"

"I wanna check the mail!"

"If she cries, she's going to get to check the mail and it's not fair!"

By this time I'm wishing it was Columbus Day, or Martin Luther King Day or Postal Carriers Get A Break Day and there was no mail delivery anywhere in the world. I didn't care if there was a letter in there saying some distant relative left me a million bucks – I didn't want to even drive within a mile of the thing.

How did checking mail become such a battleground of sibling rivalry? Why can't I get this kind of dueling over the privilege of unloading the dishwasher or putting away the laundry? Are my children destined to become the next Postmaster General of the US? Or maybe direct mail queens with a special affinity for bulk rates?

One day we had discovered a black widow spider had set up housekeeping in our mailbox and required eviction by our official bug smusher, Dad. You'd have thought the threat of a poisonous spider lurking in a dark corner you repeatedly reach into with unprotected fingers would have taken a little of the shine off.

Not a chance. It was almost as if the whiff of danger increased the allure.

With any luck all of this will wear off by the holidays. I hope so, because I'm really looking forward to opening up the mailbox and pulling out all those red, green and white envelopes. My turn!

Sisters are forever.
Sisters, I tell my daughters, are forever. I imagine that Moms with boys say brothers are forever, too.

It’s part reminder, part plea for peace, especially when they seem willing to shove each other off the nearest cliff, or into a bucket of purple paint.

Be nice to each other, I tell them, you’re stuck with each other. This can be a bad thing, but it is mostly a very, very good thing. When friends fade, when people move, when things you think are solid suddenly give way, you’ll have your sister, hopefully.

Your sister is the one you’ll turn to when you need to talk about how crazy your Mom is and she’ll be the only one who really gets it.

Your sister is the one who you’ll call in the middle of the night when you would worry about waking anybody else.

Your sister is the one person who won’t forget that time you had a cow in the grocery store and we all had to leave the cart in the check out lane. But it doesn’t matter, because you’ll remember when she freaked out over that alien in the movie that everyone said was a good kids movie and wouldn’t sleep with the lights out for four years.

Your sister is the one person who knows when you’re really hurt and when you’re just playing for some extra TV time.

Your sister is the only person who gets all your jokes, or at least laughs at them even when they’re really lame.

Your sister is the one you’ll turn to when you realize that the ground under your feet has turned to quick sand and you can’t remember if you are supposed to do the breaststroke or the freestyle to get out of it. She might not remember either, but she’ll probably have a rope to throw.

Most of all, after you finish arguing over all the silly things of childhood like who gets the most attention, who is too bossy, or who your parents like the best, after your spirit and limbs grow past the time where you fight with your family and into a time where you fight for it, everything will change.

You’ll realize this is your relationship; it belongs only to the two of you. And it’s forever.