Hey, moms, welcome to this episode of the Dorenda Wilson podcast. I'm Dorenda Wilson,

wife to one, mom to eight, Nana to eight, and 26-year veteran homeschooling mom. Well, this is another one of those

spontaneous sort of pop-up podcasts that I've been doing this month. I've been doing some

throwback podcasts from previous years with Christmas theme. But every now and then, God just seems to get my attention and lay something

on my heart to talk with you about for a few minutes. And today I want to talk about when the

holidays are hard. Now, you know, having been a mom for over 30 years, I can tell you, some years were better than others when it came

to the holidays. Some years were very, very hard and others were almost magical in a lot of ways.

You know, I think this is just the ebb and flow of life. But there can be so much pressure on us as moms to perform during this season,

to live up to just a massive amount of expectations. And, you know, expectations aren't always bad.

Goals aren't bad. Desires aren't bad in and of themselves.

But when they become front and center and we lose the focus of what the holidays are really about, what

Christmas is really all about, I think that's a great time to ask ourselves if maybe we've sort of lost our way

in the midst of the holiday season and the Christmas season.

For me in particular, it's having done this for so many years and having kids grown and now grandkids,

I've done this season so many times. And I'm at a point in my life where this year was

particularly hard for different reasons.

And that's why I wanted to talk about this today,

because if the holidays are hard,

maybe the title caught your attention when the holidays are hard,

but the reason that they're hard

could be different for you than they are for me.

In fact, I'm quite sure they probably are because we're all on

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