That Time of Year

by Frank O'Brien

Fall and winter are busy seasons. Starting with the Labour Day weekend—the last chance to complete the school supply list—and culminating with New Year’s Eve, the months in between are filled with sports, Halloween, Thanksgiving, birthdays (a lot of Scorpios in the O’Brien clan) and Christmas. Yes, it is now that time of year when newspapers bulge with Christmas flyers.

This time of year should also be a time of great family moments. I know for me, it should be a time I spend with my daughters and enjoy all of the special times with them. Yet my family is like so many other families; one thing leads to another, and time falls short. From the moment the Thanksgiving turkey is put into the oven, to the day we pack up the Christmas decorations, life is a blur. And that’s a little backwards when you think about it.

Of all of the parenting literature I have ever read, I have never once seen it written that our children need or want to spend less time with us, or that they need or want to spend time with us that is harried and rushed. In fact, some sources report that the quantity of time isn’t as important as the quality. A recent study by the Families and Work Institute found that time spent with parents wasn’t as important to Grade 3 students as was their desire for their parents to be less stressed and less tired.

And for some reason, most of us think that all of the running around we’ve done this year is doing some good. I know I do. Biggest tree, most lights…there is a bit of Chevy Chase in all of us.    Take Halloween, for example. I have always felt a compulsion to make sure my girls have great costumes. And I feel the urge to make sure we have the ultimate candy on Halloween night. I won’t bore you with my quest to put three Christmas trees in our townhouse that only has room for one. It’s easy to get carried away.

Recently there were a number of deaths in my extended family—a great aunt, a close family friend, and a grandmother-in-law. Now having the perfect Halloween candy doesn’t seem so important, nor does winning the Christmas light competition with the neighbours.

This time of year can be commercially lucrative, but what’s important is time celebrated together with families and loved ones. I know it’s nice to give a gift that maybe cost a few more dollars to buy—and therefore a few more hours of work—but I can’t look my daughters in the eye and take my Christmas lights seriously any more. It is not what is important. My daughters will not enjoy the latest gadget if I don’t spend time with them watching the games they play or the discoveries they make. They will not appreciate how long it took me to earn the $200, after tax, to buy the device if I don’t appreciate the time it takes them to master the applications for it.

We can learn lessons from these busy times. If we are stressed because things are too busy, we need to slow down and simply take on a lighter load. There is always a way of doing this. If we need a holiday to recover from the holidays, we are doing something wrong. Our kids want us to be as happy as we want them to be. Think about what this really means. For me, maybe trying to have the most elaborately carved pumpkins is not as important, rewarding, or as many laughs as, say, raking the leaves and then having a leaf fight.

Trying to make the dinner table look like a picture from Martha Stewart Living is probably not as rewarding as showing my daughters how to carve the turkey and watching them laugh together as they pull the Christmas crackers and wear those funny tissue-paper hats.

In the upcoming few months, slow down a little. Remember what makes good memories. It’s you. Your children will remember the smile on your face and the way you helped them smile. This year, instead of mimicking Chevy Chase and trying to have the most Christmas lights on the block, I think I will provide something much more important and long-lasting—memories.

Frank O’Brien is the father of Aideen and Megan, and husband of Amanda O’Brien. He is currently working on a book about his experience in the restaurant industry.