This morning we found our Elf on the Shelf and then I made breakfast with fresh eggs from my backyard flock of fat hens, but we ate on paper plates.

My child has adorable Christmas pajamas that she’ll happily wear during the day but has to change out of before bed because long sleeves and pants hurt her feelings.

We played in the first bit of real snow that we’ve had in six years and my daughter built her first snowman. The next day, the puppy proudly brought us the chewed up carrot nose.

My Christmas shopping is done, but wrapping might be a last-minute dash to the Christmas day finish line.

We’ve been on a family Christmas movie watching mission, but I scrolled Facebook through half of the last one.

I’ve done a daily Advent adventure calendar with my daughter and let her buy a dollar store gift for each of her cousins, but she hasn’t seen Santa and there are no twinkling lights on our house.

We bought gifts for all three of our adorable dogs, but the squeaky hamburger makes me want to scream Clark Griswold obscenities and the squeaky reindeer was a scattering of chewed up plastic in less than 10 minutes.

I’m going to use my Grandma’s recipe to make her famous pie, but I’ll be using a store-bought pie crust.

My 5-year-old can sing a Christmas song that will make you teary, but she’s apparently been using her hand-me-down camera to take pictures of the dogs’ butts because “THEY’RE SO FUNNY.”

Nobody has it all together, you guys. You think they do, but they do not. We’re all doing some things right while other things fall through the cracks. That’s life, even during the holidays. Especially during the holidays. The snapshots are picture-perfect, but it’s the outtakes that make the memories.

*Follow Mandy McCarty Harris, Writer for more stories of standing happily in the awkward middle of life, love, and parenting.