What? Not what you imagined?

Yeah, me neither. I delved into day three of the 12 Pies of Christmas with visions of a gorgeous French Silk Pie. I thought about lofty, precise artworks portraying perfectly plump hens with red and gold ribbons–or something.

But no. Things just didn’t turn out that way.

Early in the day, I set out to pre-bake a crust so that it would have plenty of time to cool. I usually cheat on crust-cooling time, and sometimes things get melty. I was proud of myself for thinking ahead. Plenty of time, I said to my over-confident self.

I cheerfully crimped a beautiful crust, put it in the oven on exactly the right rack. At exactly the right temperature. And for exactly the right number of golden-brown minutes. Sigh. I am a fabulous holiday planner.

Don’t count your French hens before they hatch.

The oven let out its happy beeeeeeep. I sauntered over in my cheery red apron, ready to withdraw step one of a culinary masterpiece. Until….

This thing came out of the oven.

What the flippin’ French chicken is that?!! The bawkity bawk crust fell. Zut alors!

I was ticked. So I just left that French flop on the counter for a while and pouted through the afternoon doing other stuff. The kids had to be driven from holiday practice to Christmas party to this or that. I got home around eight. And there it still was.

I thought about starting over. I thought about giving up. I thought about throwing it in the yard. And then I thought about this:

For the last few weeks I’ve watched friends and family in a dither about Christmas and/or whatever else they celebrate in the last days of the year.

My cards should already be mailed.

It looks like they won’t be in town for the party on time after all…

I just couldn’t find the stuff I wanted to make the tree look right.

We completely forgot to put the Santa out front.

I can’t believe the office party is the same night as that church thing!

And it goes on and on. We’ve all got ideas about what SHOULD be happening to make the holidays perfect. Because we (or someone else) put pressure on ourselves. Because it’s always been done that way. Because we feel guilty. Because we have to be in control.

Some things are gonna turn out like they always have–like they “should.” But you can bet some aren’t.

So what?

It’s still Christmas. It’s still Hannukah. It’s still time for love and peace and being thankful for another year on this big round ball.

So start a new tradition if you need to, but don’t freak out if every old one doesn’t come through. Agreed?

Ok, since you agree, I can tell you that French Silk Pie now looks like THIS in our house:

I think it has everything it needs. Chocolate, a flag(not very French-looking), a bird of some kind.

Voila!

And it tastes good, too.

Give yourself and your family a gift this holiday season.Lighten up. Let it go. Celebrate what matters and don’t sweat the small stuff.