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Home › Diaries › Amanda › November 29, 2006

Amanda's Diary Entries

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Goodbye Bah Humbug!

November 29, 2006

Mordecai's first Christmas was going to be great.  I set up all the Christmas goodies I'd been dragging around through all of my college moves.  I bought a huge new artificial tree (I have cats—no real trees).  I even splurged on Elvis, Bing Crosby, and the Muppets—all the Christmas albums my parents had played when I was a child.  All of his carefully chosen presents were wrapped and under the tree.  I was ready for this to be the best Christmas ever, the ideal holiday of which all new parents dream.

 

Christmas Eve Cai started a first:  His first projectile vomiting.  All over the carpeting in Mommy's room.  He was up a couple of times during the night doing it, too.  The next morning we all woke a little crabby and slowly did our morning thing.  Finally we sat around the tree.  My Jewish husband, having already celebrated Hanukkah the week before, ripped his gifts open, handed me mine, and then went into the kitchen to make breakfast.  He couldn't understand why I was upset when he wouldn't come in to watch Cai open his first Christmas presents.  I couldn't understand why he was reluctant to make the pancake-egg-bacon spread that was traditionally made by my father Christmas morning every year of my childhood.  Mordecai didn't understand why I was trying to get him to rip paper, since I was always telling him not to do that, and really, what was the big deal about books?  Luckily, my best friend had dropped off her gift before she went out of town for the holidays, and Mordecai was fascinated by the giant musical block with smaller blocks that fit into all sorts of cool spaces on the sides. 

 

Nothing was going right.  My husband didn't get Christmas—or what was Christmas to me, anyway—my son was sick, and he didn't even like my gifts.  I was a failure as a mother.  How could I ruin all the Christmas traditions for my son on the first try?  I had a good spat with my husband, then a good cry.

 

Then I realized I had done on my first try what my parents had done for years.  I had turned "The most wonderful time of the year" into the most stressful day of the year.  Every year my parents would blow their budget to shop for us, then Mom would stay up all night wrapping everything (which made for a crabby Mom the next day!), and after we ripped through all of our gifts, Dad would clean up and go make breakfast.  It was always delicious, but it was followed by the frantic preparations for the trip to the "family" party.  We had to find everything we were going to take with us, while at the same time trying to get four children into ridiculously uncomfortable Christmas dresses and slacks and sweaters.  Oh, and tights.  Tight, scratchy, fuzzy, runny little girl tights.  I had about a million aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents extending into the greats.  A present for each.  A dish for the pot luck.  A sure spate of silent, sullen jealousy from my mother about presents or success or home decorations provided by one of her sisters.  And when we got home with our piles of plastic booty?  We couldn't play with any of it until we'd written all of our thank-you notes.

 

It was horrible.  By the time I was in college I was inventing excuses about why I couldn't drive home for Christmas.  I even spent several Christmases with the families of friends. 

 

Why would I want to do that to Cai?  So he can avoid holidays with me when he got older?  So I can be old and jealous and chaotic on my holiday break?  Yippee.

 

Last year I typed up 12 of my favorite recipes, put a photo of food-sloppy Cai on the front, photocopied enough for my family and friends, and slid them into their own food-proof report sleeves.  For the small nieces and nephews I got an ornament each.  They were a hit, and I didn't have to worry about wrapping or being prepared.  I got only one thing for Cai—a fuzzy ducky towel (he was ready to graduate from the infant towels) of his very own, with a matching washcloth.  I got some candy for his stocking, and for Ben's.  I made sure Ben knew he needed to stay for the unwrapping.  And I got donuts for breakfast.   Cai loved his towel—he made me wrap him in it immediately, and wore it for an hour.  My best friend had gotten him a simple wooden train, and he played with that while we spent the luxurious day at home.  My family had decided to have Christmas the next day, and it was much less stressful to separate it than to try and pack it together into one rushed day.  The family loved the cookbooks.  On New Year's Day the tree came down.  It was the best Christmas I'd ever had.

 

This year I've already gathered 12 new recipes, at the request of my family.  I've even asked my relatives to go for gift cards or memberships if they want to get us presents.  "Stuff" is not important—memories are.  And I'm determined that Cai will have mostly good ones.

 

And now I have some good ones, too.



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