Your Christmas is not going to be perfect. Neither is mine, for that matter. I always try for a picture perfect holiday, and it doesn’t work.

Do you know how many takes it took to get this one picture of me NOT looking like a vampire? I’m a very, very pale woman, and I tend to look like the undead in photos, especially when I’m tired. So I said to Mr. Johns, “I need to post a picture for my Christmas blog post. Could you take one for me?”

No less than TWENTY-FIVE photos later, we got this one. I’m not even joking! If it takes this many tries to get ONE decent picture for my holiday post, I think we can give up on a picture perfect Christmas. 😉

And I don’t mind.

Perfection is too much stress anyway. That’s why I’m a writer and not an editor.

My 7-year-old will get tired and grumpy with all those sugar crashes. I chose, bought and wrapped my own Christmas gift this year. Mr. Johns has decided that he loves Christmas baking, as long as it isn’t sweet. (And I have no idea how to produce that.) My son knows what all his presents are, because his wish list was that short. Perfect Christmas? Nope.

But it’s going to be ours. ❤

And over our imperfect Christmas, Mr. Johns and I are going to snuggle up together and surf Netflix for hours, and still not find anything we want to watch. I’ll offer to read my son a Christmas story, and he’ll turn me down flat, because while I’m not out of the reading together phase, he is.

And at the end of it all, I’ll crawl into my husband’s arms after my son is asleep and say, “Merry Christmas, honey.” And he’ll say, “Merry Christmas.” And I’ll say, “Was it nice? Did you like it?” And he’ll say something man-ish and unrelated like, “I’m going to need to buy a cover for my new _____. I wonder when the mall opens…”

And I’ll laugh at that, and he’ll pull me close in the dark, and we’ll still be the same two people who aren’t complete unless we’re together. I’ll still fit right under his chin, and he’ll still think I’m the prettiest girl in the room.

And that in itself is perfect.