Xmas 2006

This goes down in history as one of the worst Christmas' ever.

For the past two days, everything I have done has been wrong, according to my mother. Last night I decided I wanted to go sing carols at my parents' church. I am agnostic so I don't go to church but I really wanted to sing all the carols that I remembered from my childhood. My dad went with me and we had a great time. Got back to their house and he invited me in for a cup of tea. Then my mother said to me, "I got up at 4:30 this morning to look after your dog and it's great that you got 8 hours of sleep and are all wide awake and everything but I want to go to bed!"

I looked at her in incomprehension, then said, "So you want me to leave?"

"Well, you're being really inconsiderate, dusk," she replies.

"So do you want me to leave?" I ask again.

"Yes," she replies, glaring at me.

"So why don't you just say so?"

"I said it in the best way I could!" is her response.

I went upstairs to finish my tea and I heard her saying to my dad that she can't sleep when there is company in the house and she wants to go to bed, but now of course everything is her fault and she's the bad guy. I was in shock. That is her idea of the best way of asking her daughter to leave so that she can go to bed? By making me seem inconsiderate because I am wide awake and apparently making her feel like she has to entertain me? And let me add for the record - this was at 830. It's not like it was midnight. And yes, I was awake because I hadn't gotten up until 2, because I drove S to the airport at 5am that morning and we hadn't gone to sleep, but I was hardly rubbing her face in it or keeping her up if she wanted to go to bed. My father and I were hanging out - she wasn't necessary at all.

Of course, that could have been the problem. She gets jealous when my dad and I hang out, although she would never admit it. But I think because we had gone to church and then come home and made tea together that she wanted to break up our little party.

Then this morning she called at 11 and informed me that she hadn't slept last night because she was feeling sick, and she would prefer it if I cooked the dinner today. Fine. No problem. She wasn't asking very nicely and her tone left a lot to be desired but it's Christmas so I was polite and nice and agreed.

When I got to their house, at 1130 on the button which is when my brother and I had said we would arrive, I hear them talking about me as I am downstairs taking off my shoes. My brother was wondering when I would be arriving and my mother said, in the snottiest tone possible, "Well, I woke her up at 11 so who knows when she'll get here."

I announced my presence and heard her continue to talk but too quietly for me to hear anything she said. Great. What a way to start Christmas morning.

We did stockings and presents. We don't go in for much materialistic stuff in our family so there wasn't that much to do. I was in the kitchen, getting my mum and dad and brother refills of the cider my mum makes - I wanted a refill too but there wasn't enough so I gave it all to everyone else - and Mum asks if I was staying for lunch. "I suppose so," I replied, because my brother and I always stay for lunch on Christmas morning.

"You'll have to make it yourself then," she retorts. Fine. Then she goes into the living room and sweetly asks my brother if he's staying. He says yes and she says, "Dusk's going to make it." Fine. Not only did I make dinner last night for my parents', and not only am I making Christmas dinner, but let me make lunch for everyone as well.

After lunch my dad was on the phone with one of his siblings when Mum decided she wanted to get the turkey ready. That's my dad's job, so she calls from the kitchen, "Can you go tell Dad that we need to do the turkey now?" My brother says okay and she says, "Dusk?" Fine. I go, ask my dad if he can call the person back in a few minutes because the turkey needs to get done and Mum is freaking out. He gets off the phone and goes to take care of business.

I called my best friend and told her I needed to get the hell out of my house. We met for coffee and I was almost crying, I was so upset. There is absolutely no reason for my mother to suddenly be treating me like this. We usually get along fairly well, although her communication skills are hugely underdeveloped and as I get older I realize just how stunted they are. I find it to take a huge amount of energy on my part to act a particular way around her that will not result in her taking offense or getting angry. However, there was nothing that I had done at this point to warrant her words. It doesn't come across well in print but it was her tone of voice - the sharpness, the muttering under her breath that I'm not supposed to hear but I can get the jist of.

I tried to bolster myself when I went back but it was still terrible. She wanted me to do the potatoes, peas, gravy, and brussel sprouts. I asked when the potatoes should go on, time wise so that everything would be timed to the turkey. She said that 415 would be good. It was 345. I sat in the living room for 20 minutes and read a magazine, but finally got up and went into the kitchen to see what all the banging was about. She had already put the potatoes on and made the gravy. When I asked her why she had done that, she retorted, "Well you were just sitting in the living room doing nothing and it had to get done!" It was 405 at this point - 10 minutes before she had told me that I should start cooking. But whatever. Fine. She took the potatoes off and put the brussel sprouts on to steam and then finally left the kitchen, asking snarkily over her shoulder if I know how to make the peas. They are the kind that come in the bag, you put a slit in the top and put in the microwave. Yeah, Mum, I think I can handle it. She had simply said to take the brussels off when they were done, so when I considered they were done, I took them off the heat.

Carving the turkey with Dad was fine. We always drink wine and giggle and eat the stuffing with our fingers and nibble on the best parts of the bird. Finally we sat down to eat and I didn't talk to my mother that much. Really, at this point, I didn't have anything to say. I did respond when she took a bite of her brussel sprout and remarked, "You must like your vegetables al dente. I would have cooked these for longer, but I suppose they are all right."

I said, "I like crunchy vegetables." My brother actually chimed in and stuck for me and said he thought they tasted fine. Which they did. It was just another thing to pick at me about.

After dinner Dad and I were dealing with carving the rest of the bird and putting the leftovers away. He was trying to make me feel better by joking around. I said, "I don't understand though. I didn't do anything to deserve the way that she has been treating me today. And ... it's sad. It makes me sad." And then a few tears escaped from the barricade that I had been holding up all day. He understands though. He gets the same treatment a lot of the time. He was trying to give me memories of times past when she wasn't like this, but it's hard to remember them. It's hard to remember a time when she wasn't judgmental or picking at either my father or myself. Never at my brother though. Even though he is completely unreliable and selfish, even though he would not do anything for my parents if it seriously inconvenienced him, even though he only uses my parents and me when he needs us but is never there when we need him - she still spent the majority of the evening chatting with him and there was no snarkiness or picking at him. I don't understand that either.

Mum came in to put some stuff in the fridge and looked at the plates of leftovers I had put together for myself and my brother. She snifffed, "I didn't realize you were taking stuffing." I gave us each a little bit of everything that was left over, and she hadn't said not to take anything in particular.

I did the dishes, even though my brother had said that he would. However, it's difficult to do the dishes when you are not in the kitchen, so I just did them. He did come in and dry, but really. Please don't put yourself out at all.

Dad and I disappeared downstairs so I could show him Dinosaur Comics on the computer. Oh I love that comic strip. Then we looked at maps of Ontario so I could see where S has gone to for Christmas, and we talked about trips that we had taken when I was little and had gone to Ontario to see family.

When we reappeared upstairs, Mum wanted pictures, so there are two pictures of my brother, Mum and me. I'm not happy to be in either one. Dad and I got a picture together and that one is going to be a better memory for me to carry from today.

And then, after everything, after her making me feel like I was stupid or incompetent or both, she hugged and kissed me goodbye like everything was fine, wished me Happy Christmas, and reminded me that we are going to see "Charlotte's Web" together this week.

WTF???

She spends the last 24 hours making me feel like I'm not welcome in her home or that I can't be trusted to do anything more complicated than putting water on to boil, and then suddenly butter won't melt in her mouth.

Thank goodness for Dad, who cheered me up and hung out with me. Thank goodness for Guns, my best friend, who let me rant for an hour and tried to give me solutions to make the situation better. And the best part of my day was finding an email from S, apologizing for not phoning me today but he had left his phone at his apartment and he was at the family's house all day so he emailed instead to say hi. I had told him that the only thing I wanted from him this Christmas was for him to phone me while he was away, but I didn't expect a phone call on Christmas Day. I figured he would be so excited to be back with his boys (his nephews) that he wouldn't give me a second thought. After all, we haven't been seeing each other for that long and he does have memory problems. But he did think of me and he emailed me, and it made me feel special on a day when I didn't feel special at all.

The memories that I choose to keep from today are:
- the philosophy magazine that Dad bought for me
- that first bite of moist stuffing, scooped up with my fingers amidst giggles with Dad
- love from Guns (always)
- looking at the maps with Dad
- the email from S and the thrill I got when I saw his name in my inbox

The rest of it - gone. This is my therapy: writing it down for anonymous strangers to read. And now that it's written, I don't have to keep it any longer. Whatever the reasons my mother has for treating me like she did today ... I don't need to carry any of those remarks or emotions. I know who I am. I know that I am a good person, a person worthy of being treated with respect, especially by my family. And I refuse to let her attitude or her problems negatively affect my life. I will rise above it and be the bigger person.