An Interview With Melissa Llarena

Being a mom to three little boys, I could have inherited this notion of delivering on a perfect Christmas experience – from the hot cocoa and the annual outing to seeing the best neighborhood Christmas decorations. Then I realized that perfection was the worst possible ambition I could ever have in my own life.  No matter how hard you try to deliver perfection, there would always be an imperfect Christmas table setting for someone seated at the table, or an imperfect Christmas Eve menu for someone who disliked my brown rice, Latin-dish alternatives. And there’s always going to be an imperfect Christmas party outfit for a party guest. There's always been a difference in how we define the perfect Christmas. Yet, we have this notion of striving for perfection when we know there's no one universal definition for perfection. So much time and effort go into ensuring that our kids have the perfect Christmas, maybe it's a Christmas that we never had. This idea of perfection that we show our kids is stressing out a lo