Don’t Spend Christmas Day In Your Pajamas

Christmas is one of the five days of the year for which you, as a conscientious husband and father, need to dress up. The other four are: Mother’s Day, your wife’s birthday, Thanksgiving, and your wedding anniversary.

Those are the five most special days on your calendar and, as such, you need to treat them with the proper respect.

So, please don’t spend ALL of Christmas Day in your pajamas!

Look, I get it. I have two kids. They’re six and three. They are in their prime “Christmas Craziness” years. They get up at about 5am. They’re chomping at the bit to rip into presents while you’re just trying to put on a pot of coffee. Your breakfast on Christmas morning consists of little chocolates and the oranges from the kids’ stockings as you man the wrapping paper garbage bag for the next hour.

For that period of time, it is perfectly acceptable to be in your pajamas and/or robe. I think it’s considered literal child-abuse to make your kids wait until you get showered and dressed before they can start opening their Christmas presents. So, don’t worry that you look like crap in all of this year’s Christmas morning photos. You’ll have crazy hair and a ratty beard. You’ll have dark circles under your eyes from staying up too late wrapping presents and drinking stiff eggnog. That’s all part of the season!

But once your kids are done with the presents and have scampered off to play with them and/or fight with each other, you need to pull yourself together and put on some actual adult clothes.

I noticed something interesting the other day while reading some Christmas books to my boys before bedtime. In looking at the illustrations, I noticed that the grown-ups are all shown “dressed-up” on Christmas Day. If not the parents then certainly the grandparents. It’s almost as if that’s how the illustrator indicates that those are the mature, responsible characters.

There was a book about dinosaurs and the, confusingly, human grandfather is in a jacket and tie. There was a Curious George book and the older gentlemen are all dressed similarly.

The illustrators are trying to show that Christmas is a special day and the occasion is marked with pictures of characters who are dressed up.

I’ve said it before in this space, but children will see how you mark a special day. Did a certain day cause Daddy to put on a tie? What about a jacket? When you get dressed up to indicate that a day is special, it makes it MORE special for your children. It makes it more fun for them because the whole ambiance of the day is different. It’s the same thing as when you go to a nice restaurant or a show and you see someone in shorts and tank top. It kind of ruins the “specialness” a little bit. It’s the same thing with holidays at home.

Your kids don’t have a lot going on in their lives. They LIVE for days like Christmas. To them, Christmas is THE MOST special day of the year. It’s fun for them if they see that it’s special for you, too.

So, this Christmas, don’t spend the entire day in your pajamas.