Apologies and Christmas Thoughts

I haven’t written much lately. I feel I owe an apology to my few but loyal readers. Or an explanation. Only there isn’t a good one. It is more an array of reasons.

First, I have to admit I’ve been a bit petrified by Coco’s nomination for Julie Pippert’s December Class of Amazing New Blogs. While incredibly flattered and grateful, I think it somehow made this whole little online endeavor a bit too official and legit. It freaked me out and I froze. What to write that would be worthy? Nothing has seemed good enough a subject.

Second, my Angel has been very needy lately. One of those phases where he requires his mommy’s attention, arms, voice, smile, milk, smell and heartbeat on a near constant basis. He has needed to be held, nursed, rocked, played with, sung and read to, a lot, for a couple of weeks now. The house is a disaster but it can wait. My little guy is only going to be this small for so long. Reflecting on their life journey, I doubt anyone on their deathbed ever regretted cuddling with their babies and paying some focused attention to them. Quite the opposite. As the Rebel would say, taking care of our Angel is the most important job I have right now. Everything else can wait. Unfortunately, my writing is included in the “everything else”.

Third, the holidays are upon us and in what little free time I’ve found recently, I have been busy shopping for gifts, baking, decorating, planning menus, and attending a few parties. I love this time of year.

And this is a perfect segue to the last and probably most important reason for my blogging absence: I have been happy lately. The dark cloud has lifted quite a bit in recent weeks. I am not sure what the turning point was. Perhaps this focus on Christmas is lifting my spirits.

While I love this holiday, my enthusiasm has often been dampened in years past by my father’s purposeful efforts to be the biggest scrooge on earth, or by family drama of some sort. This year, however, I find renewed energy for enjoying the holiday. You see, this is my Angel’s first Christmas and being a mother puts in all in perspective for me. I want to start meaningful traditions, I want to make and purchase thoughtful gifts. I want to spend time doing things for and thinking of others. And, I want my baby to be happy.

I remember so many Christmas mornings ruined by the Monster. Like many children around the globe on December 25, my siblings and I would rise with the sun, anxious to open gifts. Every Christmas morning, part of our family tradition was for my father to take as long as he possibly could to get out of bed while all 3 (and then 4) of us kids begged him to get up from behind the living room door. Fidgeting with consuming impatience to get past this last barrier so we could discover what gifts awaited us under the lit tree and in our stockings. For some reason, it was important to us that our father be there to witness our awe at the magic of Santa Claus’ visit. Even when the older kids knew “Santa” was my Mom in her flannel pajamas dragging trash bags full of neatly wrapped gifts out of the garage at dawn and artfully arranging them under the tree, there was always a younger sibling for whom we had to uphold the myth. Once the Monster was finally up, we would rush into the living room and try to enjoy the morning. Inevitably though, my father would make some snide comments about the choice of certain gifts, or roll his eyes at my Mom, or chastise her in a theatrical whisper for spending too much money. She, of course, was the sole party responsible for orchestrating the Christmas festivities.

When I was younger, I thought my father was teasing us, making us wait so. With age and perspective, I realized he actually took a sadistic pleasure in making us wait. He languished in our naive, desperate desire for his presence. That, or he just didn’t give a flying rat’s ass about his children and preferred to linger under the warm covers, and under the pretense that patience was a good skill to teach us. There is probably a bit of truth to both theories. Toward the end of my parents’ marriage, the Monster would let the time drag longer and longer before rising, and I believe this Christmas morning ritual became a way for him to taunt or punish my Mom for whom the holiday was important (because of what it meant to her children). Until one year, she finally refused to let him have his fun, and ushered us into the living room without waiting for him. Rebellion! We opened presents without his presence.

It was quite a turning point. For us all to see that life could go on without the Monster’s self-important attendance. To see him asserting himself as the childish, selfish being that he was. To see him going a step too far and voluntarily diminishing himself in our eyes. And to see my Mom demonstrate the authority we believed she wasn’t allowed to own.

I think my father realized he dug his own grave on this one. He stayed in bed most of that morning, sulking, getting up only when nearly all of the gifts had been opened. Nonchalantly strolling into the room, pretending he hadn’t noticed anything had changed in our dysfunctional Christmas morning tradition. That same year, he barely looked at the gift I got him, which he only opened grudgingly because I was standing there next to him expectantly. Like many others, I remember that particular slap in the face vividly. But, he had warned us a few weeks before Christmas he didn’t want any presents. So I guess I deserved his contempt.

All this sickening reminiscence to get to the point that, this year, I have the beautiful opportunity to start fresh and make Christmas for my baby what it ought to have been for me. This sense of control over my destiny — in terms of things Christmas-related — makes me feel grounded. It makes me feel happy and giddy and hopeful and powerful, like I haven’t felt in quite some time. Probably because this sense of control over this part of my life adds another layer of distance between me and the Monster. It concretizes the progress I’ve made in separating myself from my father and his poisonous, destructive, manipulative dynamics.

And, as often happens when I am happy, I don’t think of the Monster so much these days. I don’t brood over my issues with him. It is easier to dismiss him as an afterthought. As a result, I don’t feel the urge to write and hash out my angst in words. If I liken this blog to my therapy experience, I’m going through one of those phases when a therapy session used to feel pointless. I would go in, sit on the couch, smile rigidly at my therapist, and start the session with an awkward silence. I would let it be known that there wasn’t much to discuss this particular week. I would then babble on about the latest trivial occurrences and eventually, usually, some thread of thought or discussion would come up and lead us somewhere more or less interesting.

Perhaps I need to do the same thing with my writing. Perhaps this realization is good incentive to make it a weekly habit. At the same time, I can’t force it. I started this process to find some therapeutic relief and it has been quite organic. I don’t want it to become a burden. I don’t want to see it as a chore or resent my readership. Yet, even those seemingly pointless therapy sessions contributed to a beneficial whole. I may make weekly writing a New Year’s resolution. We shall see.