I remember being in my late 20's, living in Philadelphia, watching my three year old wander around the apartment, and wondering why nothing felt Christmasy.

There were no decorations up. We didn't have a tree - they seemed so very expensive! And is it really worth all the trouble hauling it up, finding ornaments, just to take it down again?

We had no fancy cookies. No delicious fruitcake like my mom always made (that is not an oxymoron). Nothing seemed festive.

I tried to remember what made Christmas magical for me as a kid. Driving around looking at lights. Decorating the tree. Neon pink herring salad. Doing the same silly thing year after year after year - complaining all the time (do we HAVE to?) while really loving it.



I remembered a story one of my professors had told about his own Christmas as a kid. His dad had died young but every year his uncle had set up a train set around the tree. It was beautifully decorated but only out for the week or so around the holidays. That's what made it special. The professor told me about it because that year he was building a train for his own children. Every year he planned to add another car or feature or figure - just to make it special.

Which is when it struck me: Christmas had been magical because we did things that took work. All those things that I was thinking were 'too much trouble'. They were a lot of trouble. That's why they were special. Someone had spent a lot of effort to make goodies. To set up a tree. To make sure we had eggnog and stockings and twinkling candles. To take us to church and drive us around to gape at lighted houses.

Those people had been adults: my mother and father and grandparents. The reason it didn't feel like Christmas in my home was that it was my turn to be the adult and I hadn't stepped up the plate. I was waiting for Christmas to happen. But it doesn't. It was MY turn to make Christmas for MY child. But I had been too busy.

Adulting is hard.



Emerging Adulthood

Jeff Arnett has argued that emerging adulthood is a life stage between and adulthood. (Other developmentalists refer to this more simply as 'early adulthood'.) One can think of infancy as a state of dependence. is a period marked by the rapid acquisition of skills. Adolescence is a period really characterized by finding one's place in the adult world and gaining and refining the skills one will need to fit one's particular role. Adulthood has traditionally been marked by role termination and acquisition: specifically completing school, beginning work, forming a stable romantic partnership, and having children. In taking on those adult roles you stop being a trainee and start doing the job yourself. Arnett argues that emerging adulthood is a transitional state where you are behaviorally autonomous in many ways, but have not yet committed to adult roles.

Making Christmas

One of the tasks of emerging or early adulthood is taking on the tasks that others had always done for you.



When I was in my early 20's I had set up little trees with my husband. We'd made cookies and exchanged gifts. But the real Christmas was at my parents' - their tree for all of us together, doing what we'd always done. Now as an adult my job was to making a magical holiday for my child. So we had a wonderful slog through the snow, dragging a tiny Christmas tree in a red shopping cart through the Roxborough streets, stopping for hot chocolate on the way home. We made cookies and decorated. We sang songs. My husband and I were the adults.

And for my son, it was magical.



