“Two weeks from today, Syl,” Erma announces.

Sylvia, somewhat preoccupied by deadlines and preparations for the upcoming week, asks, “Two weeks? Til what?”

“Christmas! Honestly, where are you these days? You’ve got me a little worried.”

Sylvia, with pen and another to-do list in hand, chuckles at the thought of Santa, Christmas, elves, and all the rest that overwhelms the actual spirit of the holiday. She knows all too well that it was her mother (and other women in her life) who made the magic. She decides to make one list to get her through the next fourteen days: Naughty & Nice. Don’t make her choose, Santa. She knows exactly what she deserves!

Her life is not yours to judge. Only Mrs. Claus knows what every woman faces and overcomes during this most joyous season, and sadly, it’s not all joy!

---

“Still in many 21st century homes, there is ‘the taken-for-granted notion that a mother is in charge of the tracking and the knowing and the thinking and the planning and the feeding and the caring and the checking and the doing unless she has worked to make other arrangements (which then entail more knowing and more thinking and more tracking and more doing),’ Darcy Lockman writes in “All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership.”
(https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/opinions/holiday-labor-toll-on-women-alaimo/index.html)