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.

The Obligation

Sometimes too much of what I do seems like an obligation. There are the usual obligations like work and social reciprocation, and there are the daily things that must be done such as washing, brushing, cleaning, paying bills, and preparing food. Somehow meeting obligations takes the bulk of my time.

Getting mail has become a dreaded activity. I used to look forward to getting letters and magazines, but now I get guilt bomb letters from my mother and bills. The bills I expect are fine, it is getting sideswiped with charges I didn't make, fees, and refusal of insurance coverage that is wearing me down. My cell phone bill was sky high last month because I spent hours on the phone trying to sort out these issues I did nothing to create.

The letters from my mother are worse. They usually make me so upset I can't sleep. Then, I am upset, tired, and not thinking properly for days. I should throw her letters away without reading them.

A major cause of my distress is her distorted thinking. She writes things she would never say to me. She implies that she is incapable of surviving on her own and that it is my duty to take care of her. Her arguments are insane; it infuriates me that she is sufficiently devoid of reason to write out her rationalizations and send them to me.

My mother is a 63 years old welfare queen. She enjoys imagining herself in poor health, but aside from being obese, is fine. For reasons I cannot fathom, she is convinced that she is not capable of working. She seems to believe it was her birthright to have others care for her. When she was married, she was a full time wife and mother although she only had one child to look after and the house wasn't exactly spotless.

She is lucky to have gotten a pension of approximately $30,000 a year from my father as part of her divorce settlement. Of course, her view is that she is entitled to more. She is convinced she has been denied what she deserves.

Unfortunately, she was enabled by my grandfather who continuously paid her way when she found herself over her head in debt. Now he is gone, she has squandered her sizable inheritance from him, and she is coming to me with her hand outstretched.

It infuriates me that I worked hard to put myself through college without the help of my family and have scrambled my entire adult life to make a living, and now that I am laid off she has the nerve to send me a six page letter telling me it is my obligation to move back home and take care of her.

I have worked since I was 14 years old. I would be delighted to get a $30,000 check every year for doing nothing. If my grandfather's inheritance had gone to me, it would be earning interest now.

I can't let myself think about what has happened and how stupidly my mother has acted. There is nothing I can do to change her behavior. The past cannot be revisited. It just makes me angry and depressed.

However, her letters thrust her self-created problems on me. It is the ultimate insult that when I am in crisis my mother sees it as an opportunity to get me to abandon my aspirations to do her bidding.

I don't know a way to resolve the problem that is my mother, except through humor. Now I wish I hadn't torn up her letter upon reading it (a fact that would mortify her). In the future I should keep her toxic missives and mine them for their absurdities. Perhaps I could compile them in a book: A Treasury of Letters from the Insane.