Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’

You know who you are. You’re the one who must make your red velvet cake look like the professionally decorated masterpiece gracing the cover of Southern Living. You’re the one who must ensure each wrapped gift under the tree resembles a work of art. You’re the one who goes into the woods in search of the perfect tree, who bakes 4500 cookies to distribute to each year, who wakes the family at exactly 6:30 a.m. on Christmas morning.

You are the holiday perfectionist.

But it’s okay if your cake has more icing on one side than another, if your gifts have stick-on bows, if you pick up a tree at the supermarket, grab some cookies at the bakery while you’re there, and if your family sleeps in. You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to impress people during the holidays … as Martha Stewart discovered during her 2004 incarceration on a stock-trading case.

Small and homey

According to People magazine, while serving her five-month term at West Virginia’s Alderson Federal Prison, Stewart led a team of fellow inmates in the holiday decorating contest. The theme was “Peace on Earth,” and each team was given $25 worth of glitter, ribbons, construction paper, and glue. But only one had a secret weapon: America’s Queen of Domesticity, the woman who published magazines offering step-by-step instructions on how to decorate for the holidays.

Stewart’s display included paper cranes that hung from the prison ceiling. But when the prize was awarded, judges preferred a “small and homey” offering from the firefighting unit—a Nativity scene with pictures of snow-covered hills, sleds, and clouds.

Sometimes simple things are simply impressive … and far less time-consuming.

‘Tis the season for spending time with family and friends, for renewing acquaintances, for cookies and cocoa and Christmas stockings.

But for many people it’s a season to be reminded that you’ve lost loved ones with whom you once shared the holidays, another year has passed and your life isn’t where you’d hoped it would be, you’re unemployed or in debt and unable to shop with the abandon you’d like, or maybe you’re just lonely and depressed.

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