I can tell it’s Christmas by the sounds of arguing from within my family. It happens every year. There’s always something to go wrong. This year I guess it’s my fault. Or rather, I’m the one with the problem. I want to spend Christmas with my family: inherited and chosen. This isn’t completely possible, of course, because so many people have so many plans. But, at least I try. And that’s what I’m doing: trying to get as many people in one place as possible.
This is the first Christmas Celeste will really remember. I’m trying to make it really nice for her and it seems like my family is doing everything they can to combat that.
For starters, I flat out told my mom that I hadn’t completely decided how I was going to do the “Santa” story with Celeste but that, whatever it was, her mom and I would work it out together so that we had the same idea. So, the next time my mom got Celeste alone, she told her only two things about Christmas: 1) Santa says “HO HO HO” and 2) Santa brings you new toys. Skip over the spirit of giving, all of the fun folk lore, the idea that Santa brings every kid toys, and just focus on the worst aspect of it all: “Santa brings new toys”.
But that’s just an annoyance more than anything. My mom has also decided she’s not speaking to me. Or, rather, speaking to me as little as possible so as to not seem like she’s doing the whole “I’m not talking to you” thing. On top of that, my mom and my brother live 15 minutes from each other. Of all of us, they live the closest. Yet they are the two deciding to be stubborn and unwilling to leave their own houses Christmas morning or Christmas eve. So, no matter what, I can have one or the other, but not both, even though neither of them have anyone else coming over unless Celeste and I show up. I really wanted Celeste to enjoy Christmas with family around, including her cousin and her grandparents. But, my family is making it difficult.
These are my options, I think:
1) Spend Christmas Eve/Morning at my brother’s house. His son will be gone from 5pm to 9pm on Christmas Eve which means it’ll just be Celeste and him and I for a big chunk of the evening. Then, when his son gets home, we can leave out some cookies and such and then do the whole Christmas thing in the morning. Then, we’d go to my mom’s house and he’d go do a few other things and eventually show up there himself.
2) Spend Christmas Eve/Morning at my mom’s house. My sister won’t be there for Christmas Eve. And my mom isn’t talking to me. So, it’d basically just be Celeste and my Dad and I. Then in the morning my sister would be there. And then, later still in the morning, my brother would show up. This is slightly better because Celeste will have grandparents and an aunt and uncle there, but slightly worse because she won’t have any other kids to enjoy it with.
3) Spend Christmas Eve at our house and show up to my mom’s house on Christmas Day when my brother does. This is slightly better because we can have our own traditions and our own house and I can really make it special for Celeste in whatever way I believe to be best. But this is a lot worse because it’ll just be her and I for most of it and I really want to to be about togetherness.
I know I’m making this into more than it needs to be. It just frustrates me, that’s all. I think, more than anything, I hate having to beg people to spend time with me, and hate even more to have to beg people to spend time with my daughter, and yet that’s exactly what I feel like I’m doing.