Cooking is not my happy place. Any meal that needs more than three ingredients and a stove sends me searching for takeout menus.
Thankfully, at Thanksgiving my sister hosts a family feast, which means I get to show up with something safe: lefse already buttered and divided into brown- and white-sugar plates.
But here’s the thing: I feel guilty about not cooking. Like there’s some unwritten rule that says “real Thanksgiving women” spend three days in the kitchen, humming hymns while basting turkeys.
And that little twinge of guilt? It doesn’t just show up at Thanksgiving. It sneaks into other corners of life too. Whispering that maybe I’m not measuring up to someone else’s expectations.
Know what I mean? Maybe the big Thanksgiving dinner, with all its groceries, serving dishes, and pressure, makes you wonder if you could just carve up a pizza and call it a day. I get it.
Everywhere we look, someone else’s life seems calmer, right? Easier. More put together. Their Christmas gifts are wrapped before the turkey’s even thawed.
And we can’t help but wonder… do they live in a fairy tale?
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Well, maybe not. Because fairy tales don’t make much sense when you think about them.
Like, say … Snow White.
What if we had the 18-inch waist, the long, thick hair that was sometimes styled into a perfect braid. What if we had perfect skin that didn’t know rosacea was a thing? If we walked through trees and wildflowers wearing tiny satin slippers that covered feet that didn’t have protruding bones or pinched toes, singing like an angel while butterflies perched on our shoulders.
We want the happy endings. Porridge that is just right. The glass slipper to fit.
But in fairy tales, things can get a little unrealistic.
Cue the Snow White version my sisters and I wrote one weekend, fueled by Special-K bars, chips and salsa, and very comfy clothes…
📖 Once upon a time, there was a teenage girl named Snow White. Her only crime? Being prettier than her stepmother — a queen with serious vanity issues and a talking mirror. When the mirror calls Snow White “the fairest of them all,” the queen decides that getting rid of her is the only option.
She sends a huntsman to take Snow White into the woods, but he chickens out and tells her to run. Snow White finds a cottage filled with seven eccentric bachelors who can sing but can’t clean. She trades cooking and cleaning for a place to stay.
But the queen figures out she’s still alive. Instead of trying therapy to deal with her issues, she goes full drama-queen and tries three times to get rid of her.
The poisonous apple finally does the trick, sending Snow White into a deep sleep.
The seven guys put her in a glass coffin — outside — like a department-store display window, because apparently that’s what you do when you love someone.
Enter Prince Charming.
Apparently, he thinks it’s normal to kiss a stranger who’s been lying outside in a coffin for who-knows-how-long … with morning breath that could peel paint. But it works!
Snow White wakes up, gasps for air, and they get married on the spot. Of course.
And that, my friend, is Snow White. The fairy tale that says housework + waiting for a man = happiness.
We giggle at the absurdity of Snow White’s story and yet, deep down, we kind of wish life were that simple. That predictable. That perfect.
But it’s not. And wishing it to be so just steals our joy. It feeds comparison and discouragement, convincing us that everyone else has it together while we’re still trying to find matching socks and a working pen.
So maybe our lives don’t sparkle or shine quite like someone else’s. But they’re full of moments that give us a hundred reasons to smile. Reminders of a God who is present in our everyday real-life stories. Friends who check in, smiles and words that encourage, naps, people to love, and lefse.
We can choose to notice and anticipate God’s goodness—whether we cook the feast, gather in community dining rooms, or order a Pepperoni with extra cheese while we watch football.
So how about this.
Let go of what really doesn’t matter.
Notice the good moments and loving people in your life.
And give thanks for the beautiful, imperfect, real-life story you get to live.
Fairy tales are cute.
Real life has lefse. ✨
