Hello – I am new here and I am just now (at the tender age of 48!) awakening to the possibility that for my entire life I have been dealing with an nMother. I will try and write a bit more of an introduction in another post – but this Christmas thread really REALLY hit home.
BTW, I am amazed at how difficult it is to key in these words, it’s like I am betraying my family by even thinking some of these things, never mind writing them.
Attending Christmas is non-negotiable in our family. Period. For years my husband, young son and I traveled 2 hours to visit my husband’s parents and have dinner with them at noon and drive 2 hours back to my folk’s home to have yet another Christmas dinner and “present session”. We were to pretend that we had not had dinner elsewhere. It was exhausting, overly tiring for a young child, but it was unthinkable that we would not attend.
Christmas goes down like this: You WILL arrive at the family home as early in the day as humanly possible. You WILL overspend horribly on a car-load of gifts because Christmas is about looking at a sea of beautifully wrapped presents (don’t ever forget the ribbon and bows) all over the living room floor and marveling at the sight (and then mom’s inevitable chiding – you guys have OVERDONE Christmas this year -- she will say that at least 25 times throughout the day) You WILL spend a great deal of the day praising Mother for her super-human, single-handed effort in preparing a lavish dinner of two or three main courses and about 15 too many desserts. She begins planning dinner in October and will ask at every opportunity “what vegetables do you want for Christmas dinner” (it’s always the same ones anyway). You WILL show sincere surprise and be incredibly grateful for the rather odd and very costly presents, (most of which will never be used) and compliment her for weeks on her splendid taste and almost psychic ability to know what you wanted.
By July or so, the credit card balance from your Christmas shopping will be almost paid down and you can start shopping again by September. At this time of year my anxiety levels increase by the week.
The irony of this whole charade is that no one in my family is in the slightest way religious! There is no celebration of the birth of Christ – when it comes down to it, it’s a day of over-indulgence and praising mother and presenting her with gifts to show your appreciation. The look that she gets on her face when she talks about presents is just unbelievable - rapture would be closest I can come to describing it.
Any small amount of joy I had at Christmastime died for me when I was 14 years old. That year I asked for a small stereo to put in my room. Nothing fancy – a radio and cheap turntable unit. Frankly I would have been thrilled with a secondhand record player and a transistor. It was 1970 and I was crazy about music and the only record player/radio we had was one of those huge consoles that sat in the living room. I could not use it in the evening as the family was watching TV (I hated most television programs so would read in my room). It was the one thing I ever really asked for and truly wanted.
On Christmas morning, I awoke to a large box under the tree for me and I just KNEW it was my record player... mother had a peculiar expression and smile on her face that I will never forget. She was excited and told me to open it. Under the fancy paper was a stereo box – and it was a better than the one I had hoped for. I looked inside and there sat... a small portable typewriter.
At some point, my parents had decided that my lot in life was to be a secretary – and this was the machine that would give me a head start to my career (lucky me!) I had no idea they had planned this “career” for me until that day. It was like giving a bicycle to a trout and I suppose I had the same expression on my face – just blank. It would be a huge mistake to show disappointment on Christmas morning – ungrateful and rude – so I did the best I could to suck it up. But I guess I was mostly stunned all day.
For years and years after that, my Mother would tell anyone -- company, relatives, boyfriends -- this story and how my face looked when I opened that box. It was humiliating, being forced to relive that moment over and over and I began to hate all things Christmas.
The one thing that haunts me is the effort that went into this deception. I told myself for years the box was a coincidence, but it wasn’t. My mother (or father, or both) had to go out of their way to find that freaking stereo box to hide the typewriter in. There was no electronics store within miles of our house. It took effort and planning to come up with this stunt. What kind of people would do this to a kid (and laugh about it for years)???
Anyway, I have rambled. But it feels pretty good!
KateW – I wish you the best in making your decision. I know how hard it is.
If no one objects, I’ll use the screen name Mariposa
