I’ve managed to take one item off the list of possible Christmas plans and yet I’ve added another. So here it is, Christmas Eve, and I’m still making up my mind. Yeah, everything works out this way for me. It’s a curse.
I’m not going to my brothers. That amounted to the most work for the least benefit.
However, a friend (Hi, Skwid!) has offered an invitation to their Christmas festivities. There will even be another kid there and several other friends.
Staying home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning just doesn’t sound ideal. Several of you wrote to say that doing your own thing in your own home with your own kids is the nicest way to spend the holiday. And, in principal, I’d agree. But my situation makes that less desirable. If we only leave gifts under the tree for which there is someone present to receive it, then every gift will be for Celeste, either from me, from a few long distance family members, or from some fat guy in a red coat and silly hat. There are no other kids here. There are no other adults here. And Celeste isn’t old enough to have made or bought me anything on her own. Anyone else that could have helped her do so didn’t. Or at least, if they did, I don’t know about it and the gift isn’t here to open. While I’m a big fan of making our own traditions and having our own little life, I don’t ever want Christmas to amount to a tower of gifts in front of a child and nothing more. Because, to me, that’s not what Christmas is about at all.
To me Christmas is supposed to be about family (chosen and inherited), friendship, and togetherness. It’s supposed to be about giving, and sharing, and believing. It’s supposed to be about hope, and rebirth. The best way to make that happen is to spend it with people that care about us and that want us around.
My parents (well, my dad anyway. my mom still isn’t talking to me) have said, “come whenever you want”. And while that may seem ideal and certainly is from a “cram the most into two days as possible” standpoint, I want to feel wanted. That doesn’t make me feel wanted. Christmas in the past has always been at my parent’s and it has always been mandatory. There was simply no doubt about where everyone was going to be on Christmas day. If you had other stuff going on, that was fine, but you’d better show up and you’d better be there a lot. I liked it that way. Between me spending every other Christmas in Canada with my ex-wife, my older brother moving to Vermont, my sister desiring to have Christmas in her new home the year she bought it, and my brother having to share his kid with his ex-wife on the holidays, the ritual was strained. It could have lasted anyway. Because it was NEVER about WHERE we met, only about who we were meeting with and why. But, all of that fell through the cracks.
I put a lot of importance on ritual: with family and friends, in our day to day lives, and in my own spirituality. This is part of what makes living my life so special to me but also what makes it so difficult from time to time. If I didn’t, then these days would just be ordinary days like any other day and it wouldn’t matter nearly as much what we did or who we saw or whether everything worked out in an ideal fashion. I give Celeste gifts all the time. And we spend time with people all the time. And we spend many, many, many days and nights home together alone. And these days should be no different. Except they are.
So, all of this means that spending time with friends on Christmas Eve is really the best possible option. Friends that have gone out of their way to make sure that we know we’re invited and very welcome. It is, sadly, also the most difficult. Since I’d rather not have Celeste wake up in our empty house on Christmas morning this means that I’d have to drive out to my parent’s house late that night after Christmas Eve festivities, get our room ready for sleeping, put a toddler to bed, unpack a car full of gifts, and then get myself settled in. Or, go to my parent’s house earlier, set everything up, then head out for a lovely Christmas Eve, then head back.
So, in the midst of this pile of wrapping paper and ribbon and tape and too many cups of tea, I’m trying to figure out a plan of action that’s actually going to work, involve the least amount of driving, leave me with the least amount of stress and, most of all, let Celeste have the best possible time.