This fact is not something I've really hidden over the years, but I am one that has always tried to do a pretty good job of just putting on the happy face, diving in, and just getting through.
It's not that I don't want to celebrate the holidays ... because I do. I enjoy time with my family, but does it have to be so ... planned?!? I just want to somehow figure out how to fully celebrate the birth and grand mystery of the birth of Christ - without having to fall victim to the over-advertised, materialistic, ho ho ho santa clause version of holiday celebrations.
I know I have myself to blame, because just today I ventured over to the local library and ushered my nine-year-old in to sit on santa's lap and tell him what he wants for Christmas. An iPhone 8 of all things I heard him say. I'm assuming if he already hasn't figured out that santa isn't real, this is going to be the year of reality - cuz sorry charlie, there will not be an iPhone 8 wrapped neatly under the tree waiting for you Christmas morning.
I've struggled through this, year after year with a hopeless and overwhelmed "holiday cheer" through the lens of a divorced person, a co-parenting divorced person at that, and now married to a child of a divorced family. I've traveled through endless holidays clutching the shirttails of miscarriage and infertility, with a spicy mix of adoption and all the micro and macro intricacies all that brings to the mix. I've attempted to balance through the traditional uber high, absolutely unattainable, expectation of perfection lens as well. And through an exhausted mom lens, as one who has taken care of nearly all the details from dates, to cards, to cleaning, to food, to shopping, to gifts, to wrapping, to going, to coming back home, to cleaning it all up, to putting it all back away. I've also traveled the holidays with a raging empathetic heart through the lens of dear friends who are still single as yet another Christmas looms closer and closer. The cribs are still empty, the relationships still not begun, the reality and dreams still far from perfect, far from wished for. It all just breaks my heart a little and leaves me emotional and physically overwhelmed.
In this house, if the holidays are to arrive, the details will basically have all had to have gone through me.
And I won't even touch on the fact that I don't think the others in this house never quite realize the giving thing should probably go both ways. Meaning - don't forget to go shopping for mom, cuz I guarantee she's the one that has gone shopping for you all and stayed up until 1:00am wrapping them all. But please don't let that make you actually feel bad, she merely loves you and it's what all moms do. (What's a holiday without a thick ol layer of mom guilt, hu?)
Yes, the gifts and extravagance is a statement of love and gratitude. Yes it is a moment for memories and merriment. Yes it is seeded in tradition and generational family heritage. But I can't help but continue to ask why!?! Why do we do holidays the way we do?!? Why all the crazy, the chaos, the credit card bills, the expectations, the excess, the calories, the overbooked schedules, the under stated true reason, the unseen, nearly forgotten story of a baby in the barn over two thousand years ago?
I don't want the advertised, high glam, super sparkly holidays portrayed on tv and social media. I want a silent, quiet, matte finish holiday inside the walls of my house, next to the few near and dear to me. Nothing more, nothing less.
So, every year about this time of year I find myself stomping around my house being moody and grumpy, feeling overwhelmed and overlooked. Oh woe is me. I dislike Hallmark christmas movies. I can't stomach listening to the radio as they feature five christmas songs sung by fifty different artists. I battle feeling utterly selfish knowing no one in my house is shopping or thinking about my gifts, yet at the same time also feeling angst about having to shop and spend all this money to buy gifts for people that don't need anything, and I, of course, am the most un-needy of anyone. Honestly, there is nothing on my list, on any of our lists, that we honestly and truly need. We are really merely buying gifts simply to buy each other gifts. And as much as I don't want to have to do it, I do enjoy the giving, and I do enjoy watching those I love receiving, and I do, in all honestly and full discloser and selfishness, also enjoy receiving. Heck yea I love tearing the paper off a brand new pad of beautiful and bright scrapbooking paper, and fun earrings, and massage gift certificates, and...
But why?? ... I again pause and ponder this why of it all.
As I sit here evaluating all my feelings and thoughts on the inside, as I silently sit and mildly simmer in my continued frustration, as I mire through yet another year of the same ol thing, as the days on the calendar continue to cross themselves off more quickly than slowly, leaving this year's Christmas arrival really only days away any more.
The gifts are nearly all bought (thank you online shopping. If you asked for something I cannot order it online, well, then sorry but you won't be getting that said item from me) Over half the gifts are already carefully wrapped. We're wresting through the many issues about what dates to do where and with which family. We're fighting over who is getting to get what gift off who's list. We are attempting to discuss menu for each gathering and assigning who needs to bring what. Oh yes, we are in full on holiday mode ... while my husband sits by clueless on his phone on the couch in front of the tv. While my children are off doing and playing and adding to their wish-lists.
Does no one see me over here running around like a crazy fool?!? Does no one care that I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and I don't want to do all of this?!?
Maybe it's me, maybe it's everyone, but every year at about this time I seriously just want to throw in the towel and be done with it. I want to curse and scream and swear I will not be lifting one figure next year. Next year, mom is going to be MIA, mom is going to be cashing in PTO, and mom is going to be OMG don't LMK bc I am not available and I am not going to make anyone's holidays become magically delicious. Every year I swear that this year is the last year... that next year everyone else can just all have at it - it's all up to you, mom is checking out, will not be available, and will not even be showing up.
You clean and decorate the entire house, you set the dates, plan the menus, pass along the lists, coordinate with everyone else who has also gotten that same list, shop, purchase, pay for, hide, wrap, organize all the wrapped gifts per party, get the food, make the food, pack the car, pack the family and drive us there, load the car, unload the car, go through all old things in the house, clean, put all new things away, take down all the decorations, put them all back away, re clean the house, be sure the recycling and trash get taken to the curb on their proper days. Now that ... that would be thee best gift ever that anyone could give me (well, next to a massage gift certificate anyways). The simple gift of simplicity. The gift of nothing, which really would actually be the gift of everything to me.
Why yes, I do love this idea, don't you?
Ok, so maybe all that is a bit extreme, a bit drama queen-ish, and in full reality, every year my family usually does manage to come across with at least a gift or two for me (that I'm sure if bought on Christmas eve and rarely wrapped)(and last year my hubby did rock it out of the park with a fireplace and custom surround). And I do deep down enjoy the time spent with family and watching the excitement they all carry. But amid all of that I do find it all a little hard, a little frustrating, a little stressful, a little well... bah humbug-ish.
So my apologies if I'm a little grumpy and short tempered, my apologies if I'm a little weepy and emotional, my apologies if I'm a little quiet and disappear for a while. I do love you, I do love the holidays (at least to a small degree) and I do love the art of giving, it's just that all the rest of it is well ... tricky. And tricky for me is hard.
I'm doing the best I can... just like I'm sure so many others out there are doing the best they can. I have a sneaky suspicion that there are a whole lot of us walking around with large smiles on the outside but feeling pretty similar on the inside.
Holidays are hard on many levels for many people. Holidays are also magical on many levels for many people. And for some, holiday are just a crazy mix of hard and magical all rolled up in one lumpy bumpy roller coaster ride of emotions, moments, and memories.
So... 'Tiz the Season one and all. Best of luck. Cheers. Tally Ho. Mazel Tov. Feliz Navidad.
And happy Bah Humbugging! xoxo
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