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.