Fall: The Perfect Time for Pinterest Fails

It’s Fall! In Texas that means its 90 degrees instead of 100, you still sweat walking to and from H-E-B, and everyone pretends like it’s cold as they walk around with as many pumpkin spice lattes as their hands will hold. We don’t care that it’s actually still summer weather – it’s Fall and we are going to light spice candles and MAKE our life feel like we are surrounded by beautiful color-changing leaves!

To go along with this, we MUST decorate! And we all know the best way to decorate, pick halloween costumes, and achieve anything worthwhile in life is to scour Pinterest for hours after our houses have mellowed and the kids are in bed. I don’t know about you, but I have a Pinterest board for just about every season. I even had one for a baby long before I was ever pregnant with my first.. and just like all of my Pinterest boards, I forgot I actually had it once I had a child. I’m sorry, but Hobby Lobby and Marshall’s got the best of me. Why Pinterest when Hobby Lobby does it all for you, and half price at that?! 

Halloween Costumes

My son’s first Halloween I had more costumes saved to DIY than any human could possibly make in a season. I was ready for him to be cute, original, and even better than the kids I saw all over Pinterest. He was going to be a little old man with a walker.. oh wait, he couldn’t walk yet. He was going to be an octopus.. oh wait, how do you actually connect that many socks to a shirt and fit all that in a car seat? He was going to be a subway sandwich.. oh wait, who wants to spend the night wrapped in crinkly paper? Also just no. 

What did he end up being? A $5.99 dog from Marshall’s. Yep. He wasn’t even a character dog, just a random dog from the sale section that no one wanted the day before Halloween. I couldn’t let it go though and still wanted to be something creative. So my husband was a hunter, I was a dove, and our son a hunting dog. NO ONE got it. Not 1 person. Everyone thought I was an angel or a goose. Fail. 

My daughter’s first Halloween was last year and I had big intentions for her too. I bet you can guess.. they didn’t work either. She ended up going as a cow because someone had given us a random cow costume. My son also went as a cow because a different friend had that costume in his size. I pretended it was intentional so they could have that sibling, matching thing going on. Both hated their costumes, my son told everyone he was allergic to nuts (he’s not), and we left after probably 45 minutes of trick-or-treating because the candy bucket was heavy and my daughter was screaming. 

Could you imagine if I had ACTUALLY put work into their costumes? I tried making my son a “Cowboy” for another fall festival and he had the meltdown of the century because he thought I said “Cat Boy” from PJ Masks and could not understand why I was making him wear overalls. It was sad and hilarious all at the same time. Poor thing just wanted to be Cat Boy. I just didn’t want to buy another costume. 

Fall Decor

If you aren’t thinking I’m the worst, laziest mom ever by now.. thank you. I actually do love the holidays. I love treating my kids to fun activities and traditions. I just also can’t Pinterest. I’ve tried for years and it’s never worked. One year I saved all the wine and beer bottles anyone drank at our house so I could make cute bottle decorations. I was going to cover those bottles in twine, paint a cute saying on them, and post it all to Instagram. I tried once. It just looked like I was cheap and put beer bottles all over my living room and hot glued some leaves on them to try to be fancy. It was terrible! And then I looked like a raging alcoholic throwing out a years worth of bottles in 2 giant trash cans one random Thursday morning. Complete Pinterest fail.

Holiday Themed Food

Of course we’ve all tried to make cute little foods on Pinterest too. Pretzel turkeys – how hard can it be?! Hard. It can be very hard. The icing doesn’t dry right. The chocolate gets all over the place. And no one has any idea it’s supposed to be a turkey. Luckily, the glob of chocolate, pretzels, and orange icing tasted good, even if no one knew what is was. You want to know what’s even worse about that fail? I didn’t realize it was a fail until a week or so later. I posted it all over social media thinking I was THAT mom. I had succeeded. I had created a cute, festive snack. It wasn’t until later that I looked back, mortified that I was clearly blinded by my own hard work to see the disaster that actually was produced. Live and learn. 

So fellow moms, if you are a Pinterest-failer like me – embrace it! I’ve decided that if I can’t buy it on sale somewhere, I probably don’t need it this fall. By the time I buy all the stuff to make that “$3 wreath” Pinterest rubs in my face, I’ve spent over $50 and end up being too ashamed to hang it. And as far as costumes go – not a chance I am going to pretend to make those. “Maybe next year” has become my new favorite motto. It takes the stress out of the need to be perfect and limits the Pinterest fails I set myself up for. Enjoy the holidays, don’t drive yourself crazy trying to make something you can get at Hobby Lobby for $8.99. Your sanity is worth it. And so is mine!  (Unless you are one of those people who actually ARE crafty – then enjoy making all the things I’ll never be able to!)