Here's why:
One child has doting grandparents on both sides who spoil the child rotten with toys and with clothing beyond what one child can possibly wear in a year. (Three brand-new coats within two months.)
The other child has... no one.
So I end up taking back the presents I bought for one child in order to buy more for the other to balance things out. And I spend the week after Christmas taking things away from the first child who has turned into a raging brat.
Then, with myriads of extended families (my own, as well as theirs) I cannot keep everyone connected and happy during the holidays. My school break ends up getting so carved up that I never get to spend time with my own small children building our own traditions. I love all the extended families. And I love all the half-siblings my children have. But I can't please any of them. I'm seriously considering going abroad for the holidays next year -- and not telling anyone!
Plus also (as Junie B. Jones would say), Christmas is all about family, and babies, and perfection. And my little family is cobbled together from odds and ends. Some very odd bits. And loose, ragged ends. And the complete inequality between the two children only emphasizes again that these children -- in spite of paperwork -- are not really mine. And I am not really their real mom.
Merry Christmas.
Actually ... I don't think Christmas is about "perfection" at all.
ReplyDeleteMaybe about families, although I'm not so sure about that.
Maybe about babies ... at least, One Baby.
And when you talk about cobbling together something out of odds & ends ... have you ever thought much about what God did with the First Christmas? I mean, stables, and a baby, and a young couple totally "out of place," and probably animals, and shepherds, and angels, and a lot of people who didn't care. Later, there were kings (good and bad), and soldiers, and lots of inequality among children (as in: who lived and who died).
And through it all, God didn't really create any "traditions" for His own family.
He just showed them how He loved.
Come to think of it, it seems to me that doing Christmas in a way that merely passes on the love of God to people "who aren't really mine" is a pretty fine way to do Christmas.
In fact, maybe you should be giving lessons....