We tend to allocate things as “specialty” due to its look, how long it takes to prepare, or tradition alone. Those specialty items don’t come out on regular days, just certain events. However, there’s no law against making your average Monday a special event just because you’re alive and able to do so. Holiday police aren’t going to come knocking at your door with a warrant for your nice things. Your great Aunt Mabel won’t be peering through your windows, clutching her pearls because “how dare you have that outside of Easter!” If she does, ask her to come in and join you or close your blinds, depending on your relationship with dear old Mabel.
The Deviled Eggs
The concept of have the nice thing even on a normal day popped up for me when my husband and I bought our own house. We’d been in apartments, living with family, and, for a short time, sharing a condo with friends. Now that we finally had our own space to do whatever we liked in, the freedom was a little dizzying. Perhaps it’s silly and something other adults realized as soon as they turned 18, but it occurred to me that we had far more free will than we were using.
I surprised my husband when he came home from work one day with a plate of his holiday favorite – deviled eggs. He asked what the occasion was (around a mouthful of his second happy bite). I shrugged and smiled, leaving him with the platter and going back to the kitchen to finish dinner. This was a new thing for him too. Normally, he’d have to sneak an egg before dinner, only to be swatted away by his mom or grandmother who reign over holiday dinners. Now he sat in the living room with the platter to himself…and our son who was happily helping him with the half dozen remaining.
It was a pleasant surprise how happy a simple plate of eggs made him. They were just eggs and no more difficult to prepare than egg salad, just presented a little differently. However, neither of us had ever had deviled eggs outside of a family or church event. It was one of those unspoken rules that these were designated as “holiday food” and not what they really were – just food. Food that made my husband happy. So I now make them semi-regularly, when we have eggs and I remember my free will to do what I like with them.
The Dress
It sadly took me a good while longer to apply this realization to other areas of my life.
I am a stay at home mom who homeschools. There are months that I only leave the house to take my kid to homeschool events or to buy groceries. Even my date nights with my husband tend towards staying at home or budget friendly. Not a lot of call to wear what my son calls my “fancy” dresses.
What would make it easier to wear my nice clothes regularly?
Protection.
I don’t want to mess up my nice dress with the everyday tasks of washing dishes, baking, cleaning, and so on. It occurred to me there was a very obvious solution to this – an apron. As long as I wear an apron over my dress while doing these tasks, the dress will be relatively unscathed. That doesn’t mean I’ll run around the block or garden in it – there’s a limit to what even a good apron can achieve but it does mean I don’t have to be terrified of getting flour or soap on my dress.
Styling.
Just like you can style up a pair of jeans for going out, you can style down a nice dress. If I’m wearing it to run errands, I won’t put on gemstone earrings and pearls. Instead, I might style my swing dress with sneakers and a pink bandana for my hair. My little black dress with the open back I’d style with a colorful cardigan. I still look a little dressed up for something as simple as a run to the store to get milk but no more than people who go on Sundays after church.
The point being, you can make small adjustments to your life if necessary to enjoy the “nice” things we reserve for celebration. We don’t have to let excuses prevent us from that enjoyment.
The Nice Things are a Gift
When I started to ponder why we don’t utilize our nice things for more than special occassions a few things occurred to me.
There’s the argument that if these things become daily or even weekly, they will lose their special-ness. I think that is only true if we stop celebrating those things. Life is special and so many of us let it pass by or even wish it away daily. We don’t pause and look at the sunsets or stars, we don’t marvel at the dandelion that, against all odds, has grown out of the side walk crack. Celebration is a choice.
The second thing that occurred to me was who we give this gift of dressing up or making the deviled eggs to. We reserve it for special occasions out with extended family or date nights or events. What it comes down to is we do it for other people outside the immediate family and hardly ever for the people we see every day.
I think about this a lot when it comes to children who are learning how to navigate life by watching us. What does it silently tell children when we only do special things for others? If we only dress up and make treats for extended family and strangers? Sure, kids might not ever say it, they rarely have the emotional vocabulary to express how they are feeling or the ability to process complicated thoughts like this but…the foundation is there all the same.
When I put on the nice dress and make the deviled eggs (or whatever, I hope that you get this is just one example) and its just for my child or my husband or myself – its a message. I love you. I celebrate being with you. Every day.