Before I became a parent, I always envisioned how the holidays would be once we had children. We'd decorate the Christmas tree together, bake cookies, sing carols, curl up under a blanket and read Santa stories...All the things I always wanted to do when I was a kid. Once I had kids of my own, I would finally be able to do all of this, and more, with them. It would be like all of the Christmas songs on the radio; merry, bright, jolly, beautiful.
We would be a family.
Only the holidays haven't been that way at all.
The holidays are a reminder every year to my children that they're celebrating, once again, without their family.
And that usually means we get treated like garbage.
Not all the time...but more than I expected we would.
Kids in general can be ungrateful, and unappreciative, and really just brats. All kids. (I know mine are not alone in this behavior).
But this year has been extra hard. With the boys finding out about the adoption, there's been a whole slew of regressive behaviors. And I've been blown off, laughed at, ignored, lied to, and straight-up dismissed by two littles boys that still call me, "Mom."
It doesn't scream, "Merry Christmas."
And yet Christmas is still here, around the corner, and I'm forced to reconcile our reality with all the things I love(d) about the season.
It's difficult to get into the holiday spirit when your kids are always acting up or being mean.
It's hard to find motivation to shop for kids who are pushing your boundaries and pushing you away.
It's a challenge to muster up the energy to participate in seasonal activities, like baking cookies and putting up Christmas decorations, when your kids constantly destroy things, a lot of the times on purpose.
I know the right answers. I know the psychobabble. I know that they're struggling to carry the weight of never. I know I should be a living example of grace and mercy and charity, especially towards my children, who are victims in so many ways.
But part of me just feels disappointed that this is our family experience.
That this might always be how it is around the holidays.
That once October rolls around, what used to be my favorite time of year is now just a trigger for my sons. A glaring reminder in a season of hope of their very own hope lost. And a little bit of my old hopes lost, too.
I'm having to find a new way to celebrate the season. I'm having to readjust my expectations of what Christmas will feel like every year. I'm having to catch myself from becoming resentful. I'm having to remind myself what the season is truly about: Rescue for the weary.
And aren't we all just that? Weary.
I'm tired.
So tired.
And my kids are tired, too. I know they are. Outright exhausted from the truth.
And so our Christmases may not be like the songs on the radio. We may not have a holly, jolly Christmas. Halfway through they might be going through the motions of opening gifts while holding back tears. When they're done they might ask to call their mom. And of course we'll oblige.
Whatever they need.
But it's hard to not be what they need. To not be enough.
It's hard to want to give them so much of the things I wanted as a child, to always be partially rejected. Half-empty. Not quite what they asked for. A gift they would return in an instant if it were possible.
I don't know that that will ever get easier.
And yet I know that their mom would trade places with me in the blink of an eye.
Because I get their every days. I get their mornings and their evenings, their laughs and their tears, their hugs and their kisses. I get more of them, in so many ways, then she does. And those ways will never overlap as long as they're children. She will always have their hearts; and I will always have their bodies. And that will have to be enough for me right now.
As we celebrate our third Christmas together, we will bake the cookies, and string the lights, and read the stories and watch the movies and sing the songs, and we will be a family. But we will be fractured, too. We might be hurting. It may be sad. They may turn away, for the hundredth time.
But at the end of the day, in this season of advent, we will continue to hope. Hope in a future that feels a little bit easier, a but more fair, more kind, for our children, and for ourselves.
What is Christmas without hope, anyway?
