If Mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy Part 2: Perfection is passé

If Mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy: Give your family the gift of a happier you this holiday season
Our week-by-week action plan for having the best holiday season ever with your family. Don't forget to read the other parts in the series:

• If mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy 1: Mommy martyrs

• If mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy 3: Lose the holiday guilt

CanadianLiving.com motherhood columnist and bestselling author Ann Douglas gives you the inside scoop on getting through the holidays without snarking at your family or totally losing sight of the spirit of the season

Part 2: Perfection is passé
If the holiday martyr suit doesn't fit, don't wear it....

Laura Byrne Paquet doesn't mind talking turkey when it comes to holiday perfectionism.

"Because moms set this impossible goal of perfection for themselves, no present, no turkey and no Christmas tree can ever measure up," the author of The Urge to Splurge: A Social History of Shopping (ECW Press) explains.

"Moms feel that they could always have done better because our culture is always telling them they could do better in all aspects of their lives -- because, after all, a dissatisfied consumer spends more. Every mom who has ever worried because she isn't as skinny as the Desperate Housewives or as domesticated as Martha Stewart will feel even more lackluster during the holiday season when the pressure to be perfect -- and to shop one's way to perfection -- is immense."

Welcome to the world of "mom as fashion accessory" -- a world where the perfect mom seems to be that final, much-sought-after touch for the perfect family holiday. ("If you're going to have the perfect holiday, you have to have the perfect mother," notes Stephanie Wilkinson, co-founder of Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers.)

Just as moms with new babies can feel tremendous pressure to smile through the postpartum highs and lows, there can be tremendous pressure on mothers to be as happy as the moms in the media during the holiday season.

"The powers of our consumer culture really peak at this time of year," says sociologist Kerry J. Daly, PhD, a professor in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. "And a lot of those pressures are comparative pressures -- the pressure to measure up to other families."

"It's a big marketing campaign -- one that starts way back in October," insists Orleans, Ontario, mother of four Anita Paradis. "If you're not enjoying the holidays as much as the people in the magazines, it's like there's something wrong with you."