Gift Violence

Christmas is a complicated holiday for me. My family isn't religious. The holiday is a tradition with little meaning.

For reasons I don't understand, my mother has high expectations of what Christmas is supposed to entail. In addition to desired material goods, there is a vision before her about familial happiness that includes a specific setting and script. For example, she wants us to gather around and bake cookies, but to do so in a fabulous house we don't inhabit, while listening to certain music, wearing particular clothes, using exact ingredients, at the moment she wants it done, the way she wants it done, and without any scheduling or instruction.

I suspect a lot of people may carry similar ideas of an ideal holiday in their minds. It is composed of media images that have been generated over decades. Most likely, this ideal is kept in the back of the mind. There isn't anticipation that it will be realized.

My mother packs so much emotional emphasis in this holiday and raises her notions of success for it so high that it inevitably results in unmet expectations and despair. I dread it every year, and especially this year.

It is a conundrum. I don't want to visit my mother at Christmas for this reason but if I don't visit it is very hurtful to her.

Of course, this year, everything is compounded. My very being is a failure in this context. In addition to the usual disappointment that I am unmarried and childless, I have been out of work for nine months. I made gifts for my family members, but they seem inadequate.

In my family, the holiday invites a continual comparison to our extended family. My mother's sisters are significantly better off than my mother in all of the ways that matter to my mother: they have comfortable homes, married children, grandchildren, and ample incomes. This disparity is ever present but never discussed.

Although I appreciate my family's good intentions and concern, it is sometimes humiliating to receive their gifts. One aunt informed me that she continues to give me and my sister gifts because we are the only cousins who remain unmarried. She also asked me not to open her gifts in front of my uncle because she didn't want him to know that she spent money on me.

There usually is a one on one discussion about my mother and sister with my aunts or cousins, and they readily acknowledge that I am not to blame for the behavior of my mother or sister. However, I sense that I am blamed for my current jobless situation. That I insist on living in an expensive city instead of living in the area in which I grew up. That my expectations exceed what I deserve. There is disapproval.

It is painful to be placed in such circumstances. It is stressful to be a charity recipient who is expected to feel grateful for gifts laced with resentment.

I suspect the situation is awkward all around. No one wishes for relations like my mother and sister and now me. It must be irritating to have family that is doing poorly and to feel obligated to help them.

When I consider the religious meaning of the holiday, all of the baggage surrounding it seems absurd. I recall discussing it with my grandfather shortly before he died. He was disappointed by his daughters' emphasis on the material aspects of the holiday. The day after our conversation took place he was expected to travel to a granddaughter's house to watch great-grandchildren open presents and he resented it. All of the wrangling over gifts annoyed him.

During the depression family members exchanged a few gifts if they had money, but the aspect of the holiday they most enjoyed was eating a good meal together. He wished to do away with the presents and just savor the feast.

I quite agree with him.

How to be Grateful

My family is difficult, and I wish it were not this way. Basically, it is a good holiday if there isn't any screaming or crying.

This holiday it was just me and my mother. My sister lives in Arizona, and she is a person with a lot of problems. She was just fired from her job. She has been fired from every job she has ever had. It is a challenge to be around her, so I am glad she wasn't able to join us.

It is a struggle to find a silver lining in my family situation. My close relations are a burden. I strive to be supportive and understanding but also maintain a healthy distance.

A strategy that I am late to employ, is to try to conjure compassion for my mother. She has very poor judgement, which hurts her and those around her. It helps to try to figure out why she does the things she does. I attempt to cut her some slack, although I lose patience too often.

I have always used humor to cope. I try to regard what my mother says and does as a spectator. Her show would be funny if my proximity to her didn't render it tragic.

She lives in a townhouse crammed with stuff. It is almost impossible to get something out of a cabinet without having to move something else. Often things fall out when she tries to remove something, and then she curses as if she is surprised that there is a problem.

Her enormous pantry is so packed, there isn't room to add a single soup can. Her refrigerator is also stuffed with food. Yet, she insisted she needed to buy several bags of groceries to make Christmas dinner. I tried to convince her to take inventory before shopping, but my suggestions are not welcome.

She has a medium to large dog that is not properly housebroken. There are accident pads strewn all over the floors yet she insists the dog is housebroken. She controls which rooms the dog can enter by placing several childproof gates in the doorways. These are old gates that do not swing open. They are held in place with a tension bar mechanism that too often causes injury to operate. These gates block pathways and make an already cluttered house feel even more claustrophobia-inducing.

She lives in an area where cars are necessary to get around. Her car was given to her when my grandfather died 10 years ago. It is approximately 14 years old, and it shows. The locks are broken, the paint is wearing off, the indicator lights are not accurate, and the door alarm signal runs continuously (ding, ding, ding...). She lives on a meager pension, refuses to get a job to supplement her income, and does not put any money aside to buy a car.

I try to be patient with her, but after several days I get upset. Her situation depresses and angers me. It alarms me that she doesn't realize that her choices are unreasonable.

Yesterday, I borrowed the car to run an errand. As I was driving what my Michigan relatives would call a "beater," it struck me that one reason I get so agitated when I visit her is because I hated being in such a precarious environment while growing up. My mother hopes battered stuff would continue to work and deals with problems by ignoring them. Her car is a tangible expression of her approach to life.

As I drive and try to ignore the continual door ajar signal, I am concerned that a new car problem will emerge. I was reminded that when I was still living with my parents, I was continuously fearful of problem eruptions. When problems bloomed into affairs that could no longer be ignored, the response was surprise, anger, and despair.

As an adult, I've worked very hard to make my life as stable as possible. I save money for emergencies. I am annoyed when things break, but I am not ruined when they do. I try to avoid problems by addressing warning signs. My approach isn't perfect, but it is a improvement on that of my parents.

Now I realize that my mother has chosen this precarious existence. It is stressful and very unpleasant, yet she can't seem to see the logic in working her way out of it.

I know how bad that way of life is because I had no choice but to live it when I was a kid. I feel so very sorry that she is in this situation. Yet I am frustrated because she does little to improve her circumstances.

If I could, I would give her insight for Christmas. Unfortunately, this is something only she can do for herself.