Skip to main content

The Year Without Christmas

 I've handed over Christmas to Theo this year. I simply don't want to do it. Any of it. The little I have done feels obligatory. I bought each kid an ornament to symbolize something important about their year--as I do every year--but that's it.

I don't think there's any one reason I have absolutely zero Christmas spirit this year. But rather an accumulation of small things. 

a) Jane's weirdness around holidays has made me dread Christmas since the drama filled week before her birthday last Sept. 

b) The clutter in this house is getting too me. Too much time in a house filled with too many things--I want to throw it all away. The last thing I can stomach is adding more clutter to it. Last time I helped the kids clean their play room I was so angry about the chaos they created I told them I wasn't getting them a single toy for Christmas and I meant it. 

c) The unfinished dining room projects make me, not quite angry, but annoyed and exasperated every single time I walk through there. It should've been done by now. There is no excuse but laziness on Theo's part and I'm too frustrated about this long-simmering issue to feel light and joyful. 

And, finally, Christmas has become Theo's holiday.  He does an elaborate Advent with the kids. He is on a long fast and eagerly awaiting his giant Christmas feast. He does all the cooking now and there's little for me to do to prepare. 

And I'm stepping back from my role of always being the engine driving this family. Perhaps after 20 years of constantly planning, urging, and nagging I just don't want to anymore. If he's willing to make something happen then fine, please do. It's my turn to step back and be the uninvolved parent. It feels kind of nice, actually. 

I've proved for 20 years that our kids only need one parent doing the activities. Now it's his turn to be that parent.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flash Fiction - Guilt Free

And this one I wrote for the fun of it. It was delicious to wallow in such a world of self-indulgence I'll never know. This is flash fiction (less than 1,000 words). Guilt Free It was fudge sauce, thick and cold from the back of the fridge, dipped in gourmet raspberry jam—the kind from France with the understated label—straight onto a spoon and then suckled in my mouth, a frosty mug of milk tremoring faintly in my left hand, to be gulped in indelicate swaths allowing a dribble or two down my front, the first time I hit her. Not really hit. Shoved. A forceful push. A push that began with contact. The contact of my hand wedging so neatly between her small sharp shoulder blades, wedging in so that I almost could not retract myself from the catapulting force launching her into the tub. Not a hit—there was no smacking, cracking, sharp stinging rebound. No bruise. She’d laughed. She’d thought it was a game. Like when I clapped my hands together as she went up the stairs, cla...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Lied.

For the very first time I lied to a birth family member. I've been brutally honest even when it caused an uproar. I've been honest because I was personally committed to always telling the truth. Until now. Because this lie may actually be the best way to preserve Jane's relationship with her birth family. At our last video call with Grandma Jane seemed uninterested, unengaged, not showing any real emotion. I struggled to find things to prompt her to talk about. Over the next two weeks I waited and she never asked for another call. In the third week I casually brought up the topic and she did not really respond, certainly didn't ask for another call. Finally, yesterday I point blank asked if she wanted to do a video call and she said the word yes but her whole body language said no. It was clear that she was saying yes because she thought she was supposed to, not because she wanted to. So, I took her body language rather than her words and made the decision that we...
Post a Comment
Read more

We are thiiiiiiiissss close

Just got this email from the adoption worker: "We will be filing both girls’ adoption petitions tomorrow in [ ] County." Now I just want to sit right here with my cell phone and landline phone and email browser refreshing every thirty seconds until we get the final word. And today at 4:15 there's another social worker meeting at our house. I'm not doing this one. Theo is taking it, per my request, well, demand. I can't even think about them derailing us, again, when we're so close, again.   
Post a Comment
Read more