I have the best memories of searching for the full size candy canes my parents hid in our Christmas tree. Every year they appeared, peeking out from the branches, just waiting to be unwrapped. As if that wasn’t enough, there was a little green sleigh that held the extras. It was always full, even after we stripped the tree bare.

My brother and I would lick the pointy ends into a sharp point and have sword fights in the living room. Or we would crush them into pieces to chomp seemingly endless bites of candy goodness.

Naturally when I became a mother, I wanted to re-create this wonderful memory for my children. So I carefully nestled each one in the branches, and filled the little green sleigh my mother handed down to me. The scene was set, nothing more than to release the kids to find their first candy cane of the season.

Their first candy cane of the season. It was pure joy.

You could see the joy in their eyes – and on their hands, and their clothes, and the furniture, and all over their toys (the ones that couldn’t be washed of course).

Their expression of said joy continued beyond their countenance and into their behavior. Running around the living room in circles. Talking so fast with a pitch so high their speech was otherworldly. Tackling not only each other but any object unlucky enough to find itself in their path.

And this was just their first candy cane – of the season!

So how do candy canes relate to parenting? Brace yourself. There’s no warm anecdote coming. Some choices are impossible. They don’t just “seem” impossible. They are impossible.

Give them the treat and deal with the chaos? Refrain from the sugar and be “that mom” and not give them your precious memory to hand down themselves?

To-do or not to-do? It’s impossible to answer. Believe it or not, that is the point of my story. Parenting can feel like a series of impossible choices.

There is no “win” in decisions like these. There’s only love. It’s not big sweeping gestures of love. It’s little threads of love sown over years of impossible parenting choices. And over time, those threads will bind together and keep a connection to your kids that will last a lifetime.