The Outsider

I'll be honest: I'm someone that doesn't usually like change. I know it's inevitable and a part of life, but it's disorienting, and that makes me uncomfortable. I like to always have a plan, and change tends to throw all your plans out the window.

This Christmas was a big change for me. Since I was a little girl, I've always spent it with my family, immediate or extended. Since my parents divorced, our celebrations have been much smaller than they once were, but there has still always been a comfortable familiarity about them. Until this year. This year, instead of my mother doing a Christmas Eve party, she asked my father if he was okay with her doing Christmas with my sister and I instead. Normally, my father does Christmas with my sister and I, since Christmas is also his birthday. Because my father is in a serious relationship with a woman whose family does a big Christmas Day celebration, he told my mother that would be fine. It took the pressure off of him to cook, and he's very comfortable with his girlfriend's family, most of whom neither my sister or I have ever met. So, on Christmas Day, he went off to his girlfriend's mother's house, and I went off to my mother's house.

Every Christmas Eve, my mother throws a party for her boyfriend's fiancé's (they live together and have been engaged for a few years, but there's no serious talk of a wedding) family. Her own family is not invited, except for my sister and I and our significant others, if we want them there. So, this year was no different, it was just that everyone was coming on Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve. No big deal, right?

Except in some ways, it was a big deal. I had become accustomed to the new normal: seeing my mother Christmas Eve, and spending Christmas at home with my father, having a really low-key day with good food, lots of time to relax, and being in the company of only those people I'm closest to. It allowed me to continue winding down from the day before, which was undoubtedly stressful. You see, I have never liked my mother's boyfriend fiancé. He and I are civil to each other, but we will never have a familial bond - I accept that he's a part of my mother's life and important to her, but that's where my regard for him begins and ends. He has done things that have had a direct, massively negative effect on my life, my sister's life, and my father's life, and as far as I'm concerned, the actions he actively chose to take - the things he chose to do - are unforgiveable. So... it's really quite awkward for me to be around his whole family.

His family loves my mother. They love my sister. They're civil to me, but they treat me like the daughter time forgot - even though I've been spending Christmas Eve with them for the past eight years at least. They all exchange their gifts for the holidays at my mother's house. My mother and her boyfriend buy everyone gifts. My sister and I never do. When it comes time for them to hand out their gifts, at least two or three of them always give something to my sister. I never get anything. And I realize that Christmas is about giving and not receiving, but I can't say it doesn't sting that my sister is always included, and I'm... just not. It doesn't help that it took most of them years to remember my name, and even now a few ask my mother what my name is when they walk in the house and see me.

This Christmas, I felt like an outsider, which is something I don't think I ever expected to feel on Christmas. Even when I realized, after my parents split-up, that someday it was likely Christmas would be celebrated with whoever they chose to be with, I had hoped anyone either of my parents chose to be with would at least try to make my sister and I feel comfortable during the holidays. I didn't expect gifts or to be considered part of the family, but people remembering my name after eight plus years and treating my sister and I the same as far as gifts/no gifts would be nice. I am my mother's daughter, not a stranger or a guest of my mother's they've never met before. I've thought about what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone who also celebrated Christmas and to celebrate with their family instead of my own - even if I felt like an outsider, that would be a situation I chose.

Have you ever felt like an outsider at a holiday celebration?

Holidays from Hell

Okay, so can I just skip the winter holidays this year? Pretty please?

I don't mean to be a Grinch, but I am having the week from hell, and my level of Christmas spirit is at an all-time low. I was looking forward to being done with finals, decorating the house, sending out cards, making cookies, making some money babysitting, seeing my family, and spending time with my boyfriend. Of course, then shit hit the fan, and it took all of my excitement for the season with it.

My week started off with me getting sick again, right after finals. I've felt crappy for days, all stuffed up and gross. Then, the father of the two little kids I babysit for got hurt at work, meaning he was home with the kids instead of me. I love those kids to death, and babysitting them seriously makes my day when I do, so that was super depressing along with meaning that both the father and I were out the cash he'd get by working and I'd get by babysitting, right before Christmas, when it's usually needed the most. My mother then decided to turn everyone's holiday plans upside down and cancelled Christmas Eve dinner, replacing it with Christmas Day dinner - which would be okay, except my sister and I was planning to be with my father, as we have for the past eleven or so years since my parents split up, since Christmas is his birthday. He's okay with it, because now he'll go spend Christmas with his girlfriend and her kids, but my sister and I aren't invited since we're supposed to be with our mother. My mother is having her boyfriend's entire family over, and none of her own besides me. It's awkward, especially since her boyfriend and I have never and will never be on good terms due to the circumstances surrounding them getting together.

As if that wasn't enough, there's relationship crap going on - I couldn't even tell you if I'm in one anymore. I've been really upset, so now in addition to being all clogged up, my face is sore and swollen from crying and I'm nauseous. (And he's not speaking to me.) A bad fight right before the holidays when you've been together for almost three years will do that to you.

Originally, I'd planned to make a happy post about holiday traditions, but for obvious reasons, that isn't happening. I'm happy that nothing worse as happened yet (like a death in the family or something), but at the same time, it's hard to be grateful that the worst hasn't happened, you know?

What's screwed up your holidays?

Spirit of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving for Americans is tomorrow, and it's always been a bit of a strange holiday for me. There's always the normal stuff: food, family, and watching at least a little bit of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. But... Thanksgiving has always been a bit different for me, because I literally would not be here without it.

Since I was a little girl, I knew that I was descended from one of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Our genealogy is well-documented, and I grew up fascinated with my father's copy of the Mayflower Compact and all the information about my ancestors that came along with the book on the first four generations of that family in America. My 9th great-grandfather was one of the few who survived the first harsh New England winter; around half of the original passengers died. Not only did he survive, but he went on to have... more children than I could ever fathom having, went from being an indentured-servant to a well-off landowner, and died when he was in his eighties. None of that would have been possible without the help the Pilgrims received from the Native Americans that permitted them to get through another winter.

A lot of people like to talk about how Thanksgiving is a BS holiday, given the many conflicts between the Europeans and Native Americans that came after. As far as I'm concerned, those people are missing the point. No matter what came after, the First Thanksgiving was the result of people who could hardly be more different coming together, working together, and tolerating each other. What's more, the Pilgrims expressed that they were grateful for it. In a nation built on personal freedoms, it's easy for us to get caught up in idealogical battles and forget what we can accomplish when we set aside our differences and prejudices and simply try our best to tolerate each other, whether or not we actually accept each other.

For me, Thanksgiving has always been about the virtue of tolerance, of being grateful we live in a society where people are different, because when we pressure ourselves to get along, we can accomplish great things. The fate of our nation depends on our tolerance of differing points of view, of realizing that we all have something to bring to the table, if everyone can be respectful enough to let us.

My family has never been the type to go around the dinner table and have everyone say what we're thankful for. That isn't because we're not thankful, it's because we're hyperaware that we have so much to be thankful for, including the fact that we're even here to celebrate the holiday at all. This year, I discovered that my family is actually descended from another Mayflower Pilgrim, a few generations down the line, one of my 9th great-grandfather's descendants (who was also a great-grandfather of mine) married a descendant of another man who came over on the Mayflower, and I'm descended from their children. This wasn't unexpected, since most of the families in the area married each other at some point or another, but now I know there wasn't just one person that needed to survive that second winter for me to be here, but two. I am thankful I was given the opportunity to be alive, to be on this earth and breathing. I've been through a lot of ugly stuff, but I'm still here. I'm still breathing; I'm still living. I don't need to "count my blessings" - I'm aware they're numerous. And isn't that the point? To realize that no matter how hard things may be, we still have hope, because we're here, aren't we?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Americans celebrating tomorrow - and a Happy Hanukkah to those who begin celebrating it tonight!