NOVEMBER/DECEMBER ARE DIFFICULT

My birthday is barely two weeks away which will, as always, be followed by the holidays. For the last however many years, I’ve thought it would be absolutely terrific if I could leave town the day after Halloween and return after the new year begins. I’m not sure from where or how this desire came about, but I can feel myself getting tense and stressed as soon as the candle in the pumpkin is blown out.

This attitude or feeling, if you will, wasn’t always at the forefront of the last two months of the year. I can remember being a child and viewing Halloween as the kick-off to two months of excitement, fun, parties, family get-togethers and gifts. Way back then, my folks didn’t have a lot of money, but my daddy was a baker so we always had extremely nice cakes. Plus, as each family member’s turn came, you got to choose a special dinner followed by cake, candles, the birthday song and presents. My parents always tried to get me something I really wanted for my birthday while holding back the special gift brought by Santa. I knew I was loved and appreciated, and had a great family with whom to celebrate.

November and December became even better once I was old enough to have a job and could purchase gifts for my family and friends. Then, after I was married, the fun/joy factor was multiplied even more. The first year of my marriage, I made Christmas stockings for everyone in my family as well as my husband and myself. My family didn’t have that tradition while my husband’s family did. It was one I happily adopted and even though my sons are 44 and 34, I still get this feeling in my heart when I see the stockings I made them their first year hanging from the mantle at their homes. 

Christmas dinner started being held at my house when AJ was a little over a year old because I didn’t want to take him away from all his Santa treasures. Previously, my mother had always done Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Without arguing or making excuses, she graciously gave up doing Christmas dinner years before she stopped doing Thanksgiving. I think she stopped doing Thanksgiving after daddy passed away. Instead, mom substituted Christmas Eve dinner and dinner over and the kitchen cleaned up, we’d exchange our gifts. Pictures and memories of daddy getting down on the floor with AJ to assemble and play with gifts tends to make my vision blur.

These happy extended family times and memories came to a screeching halt the day after my 31^st birthday. We had celebrated my birthday the day before in my father’s hospital room. He and mom gave me the boots I so desired. The following day, the doctors came out of the operating room to tell us there was nothing they could do about my dad’s brain tumor and that he had six months to a year left. Daddy died the following year 18 days before my 32^nd birthday.

The following year, after the funeral my mother went out of town to her Aunt’s home to grieve, and it was the first birthday in my life she hadn’t been with me. For the first time, we went to someone else’s home for Thanksgiving. Three years later my grandmother (mother’s mother) passed away the beginning of December. For my mother, the two final months of the year were to be endured rather than celebrated. Perhaps that’s where my avoidance desire initiated.

For several years it was as if my birthday weren’t the least bit important to anyone. Again, this was 180 degrees from what I’d known my whole life. Because birthdays had been so important growing up, I’d continued the birthday traditions for everyone else. Then, one year my mother called to say she just wanted to drop by and leave off my present. I, too, had been grieving because not only had I lost my dad, but apparently my mother’s joy in and concern for me as well. Crying, I told her to stay home and keep her present because my birthday was apparently no longer special and had become just another day of the year. That birthday, I had two birthday cakes because my mom came and brought one and my husband bought one as well because he had heard me on the phone. Still, it was hard for me to feel as though we were celebrating or that I deserved to have dinner, cake, candles and the birthday song. 

Eventually, Thanksgiving and Christmas changed as I knew they would when my sons left home and created their own families. I guess I just didn’t expect these holiday mornings/days to be quite so silent and lonely. I came to understand how hard it must have been for my mom to wake up alone on Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings and to return to an empty, silent place at the end of the day. Now, I do so wish she had been more forthcoming about this and more agreeable to staying with me or one of my siblings during the holidays. So far, I still have John with whom I can still share these mornings. 

After our granddaughter was born, Angie began to do Christmas Brunch and include her family. These are always great events and the food we all bring is absolutely scrumptious. I look forward to these mornings. Then, AJ smoked a turkey for Thanksgiving for several years and we had Thanksgiving there as well. I began doing Thanksgiving again when Angie was recovering from breast cancer treatment.  

When Thor met Amber, she’d always done Thanksgiving and Christmas for her family. We are all always welcome to go to their home for either of these holidays.

Like my mother, a few years ago, I began holding a Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchange. These are also fun and enjoyable, especially when the kid’s eyes light up or become huge when the wrapping paper is torn off the box. 

In thinking about this and typing it all out, I guess I’m more like my mother than I really want to be when it comes to the last two months of the year. I’ve let the negativity brought into my life by my father’s death continue to affect my feelings toward my birthday and the holidays. It’s time to push the negativity away and concentrate on the positive. I have two grandchildren now and one day I want them to remember birthdays and holidays with the same joy and comfort I take from remembering the ones with my parents and grandmother.