The English Geek

Finding my Holiday Spirit

Since today is the tenth, December is one-third finished. I've decorated every free and available space, finished a significant amount of shopping and wrapping, survived our Christmas card photo shoot (my sanity was shaky), and gotten the annual "why are we spending so much money on gifts?" argument out of the way. I have managed to proccur the perfect Christmas-Eve pajamas and to settle on the exactly-right new ornament for each of my kids. I've got Christmas music playing and Christmas candles burning and even a few Christmas treats settling into my chubby thighs.

I should be brimming with holiday spirit.

But I can’t seem to find it.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t written either my November in Review or my Thanksgiving posts. Perhaps I can’t embrace December until I get November out of my heart.

Maybe it’s because the Christmas Fabric Selection at my local fabric stores was dismal this year, so I have zero sewing projects.

But really I think it’s because time seems to be going too quickly. Back on make-some-decisions Wednesday (aka the day before Thanksgiving) as I was talking to the kids about what they were hoping Santa might bring them for Christmas, I felt an odd sense of despair growing in my chest. I literally wanted to weep, watching my kids write down their wishes. Didn’t I just do this? It feels like we need to invent another month, insert it right here, and then just exist for 31 days. Maybe then I would feel it—if I just had some time to take a deep breath. Instead it feels like I have only seconds before Christmas will arrive, and everything I have left to do paralyzes me.

I don’t like that I feel this way. I used to love the entire Christmas process, even the stressful bits. In fact, I’ve made it a goal to not be all bah-humbug about the holidays. I remember, as a kid, listening to my mom talk about hating Christmas. Hating Christmas? That sounded like the saddest thing ever. Of course, my perspective was different—I was on the receiving end of the magic, not the making. But I decided after our first Christmas in our house (the year we didn't put a tree up because we'd moved in just a week before Christmas and we were in the no-Christmas-joyland of not having kids) that, even though the magical part—the believing in Santa—was long gone for me, and even though I'd never feel that tingly anticipation of looking at the gifts under the tree and wondering which ones might be for me, I'd still love Christmas. I'd find joy, I promised myself, in making the magic. And really: I’ve never hated Christmas. I’ve always loved playing Santa, figuring out the perfect surprises, wrapping gifts in color- and/or pattern-coordinated wrapping paper. I searched for extra things to do, like crafty, handmade gifts, or a quick mini scrapbook, or a quilt, or even (last year) 35 pieced hot pads.

This year feels completely different. The joy seems to have seeped away and I feel dangerously close to repeating my mom’s pronouncement about hating Christmas. No—the word "hate" is definitely too strong. Instead, I feel like something is missing. Perhaps it’s energy, because the process of shopping and wrapping gifts for each of my kids feels overwhelming and exhausting. It doesn’t feel like I’m fulfilling desires but just checking objects off of a list they each made out of obligation and because it was time, not because they actually need these things. Perhaps it’s the magic I’m missing—Nathan let me know that he knows, now, the Santa-Claus Truth, so that means I only have one believer left. Or, maybe it’s a feeling of freshness that is missing. All of our traditions seem repetitive and hollow to me right now, motions we make because they are the same motions we’ve always made.

In fact, just now, I had an ah-ha moment. (The very thing I love about writing: it brings you to truths you didn’t know you had in you.) I’m sad because I don’t have a houseful of little believers—but perhaps instead of mourning the loss of what has passed, I need to figure out new ways of enjoying what I do have. Perhaps I need to create new, bigger-kid traditions.

Only—and this is strange and I’ve just recently realized it—my memories of adolescent Christmases are vague. I remember a few things: cracking open my fresh copy of The Clan of The Cave Bear in front of the fireplace on Christmas night when I was 15, putting my Alphaville record on to play for the first time, coaching my mother on which tapes she really should buy for me ("No, Mom, not Paula Abdul"). I remember the excitement I felt the year I got my stereo and I remember shopping for a bottle of perfume for my mom that I was totally getting her because *I* wanted to wear it. (Passion by Elizabeth Taylor.) (Which, by the way, you can still buy, although none of the department stores near me carry it. They sell it on Amazon, though. I just checked.) But I don't remember traditions or experiences that stood out or made things extradordinary.

Which makes me wonder: How did your parents make your adolescent Christmases feel magical? Or what traditions have you implemented with your teenagers (or your older non-believers) to make the holiday feel fresh? My sagging Christmas spirits would love to be advised!

Compare Me Not

When Kendell and I were first married, there was a couple in our apartment complex who we became friends with. Katie and John were one of those just-right-for-us couples wherein everyone liked everyone, our situations were similar (newlyweds, working, going to school), and we never had to argue about where to go to dinner because the answer was always "the Brick Oven." (Ah, for those good old days when the Brick Oven had the Eat Great Late special: all-you-can-eat pasta bar for $3.99 and OH! for the days when I could eat two enormous bowls of pasta with cream sauce without gaining an ounce.)

Our friendship started to sputter, however, after an argument Kendell and I had. We were fighting over what I hadn't yet learned we'd fight over for the entire foreseeable future: the clash between his neat-as-a-pin tendencies and my clutter-isn't-a-big-deal opinions. He pointed out that Katie and John's apartment was never cluttered. It was always clean and tidy and vacuumed and there was never mail piled up on the desk or unfolded laundry in baskets. This was because Katie was one of those perfect women. That her apartment (and later, her house, even after she accumulated four children) was always tidy isn't an exaggeration. It was true, and it happened because of her personality: she couldn't stand clutter. She needed a clean space to be happy, and so she made sure her space was clean.

We stopped spending as much time with Katie and John because after that argument I couldn't stand being around her. It didn't help that she was pretty, blond, thin, and majoring in something useful (computer programming). Or that when you opened her kitchen drawers you'd notice that her towels were arranged in neat, color-coded stacks and her pantry shelves were neatly organized, soups next to soups, black beans next to kidney next to refried, all in orderly rows. Or that she always seemed put together—she didn't leave the house until her hair was gorgeous and her make up perfectly applied.

We'd go somewhere together, the four of us. I'd sit in the back seat and look back and forth between Katie and Kendell. I was just young enough to let the comparison sink in, to let it start an endless loop in my head. If I were a real woman, a successful one, I'd be like Katie. I would put my whole heart into cleaning the house not because it mattered to my husband but because it mattered so much to me. We wouldn't ever fight anymore, I thought, if I could be just like Katie. If I could fix the not-like-Katie flaws in my personality, everything would be OK.

I don't think, in that long-ago argument, Kendell intended to make such a scar. (He was young, too.) But it festered nevertheless. Every time we argued about whatever I'd failed at around the house, I'd think of Katie and I'd know: she will never have this fight with John because she will never fail this way.

It's taken me a long, long time to disinfect the wound left by that comparison. It's really still here, festering just a little. But—and only through the process of time, and of thinking and talking and writing, of accomplishing goals and of forgiving myself—I am finally able to see something else. This became so clear to me over Thanksgiving weekend, when I found myself watching the different couples in our lives. Our friends, for example, came to eat Thanksgivin with us, and they hung out at our house for a few hours before we went to Kendell's sister's house for dinner. I was elbow-deep in Thanksgiving prep when they came; flour was everywhere, the cinnamon pie crust was just about ready to burn in the toaster oven, and the floor was sticky from where I'd dropped the apple peels. But it was warm and fragrant and welcoming, I hope.

Staycha hung out with me and Haley while we put the rolls together. I got the pie out of the oven just as Steve walked into the kitchen, and he said something like "Hon, why don't we ever bake pies?" and I thought don't. Don't compare us. I thought about how insecure I was feeling, with my kitchen in a disarray and my guests starving and there was nothing to snack on but an assortment of nuts. With my knowledge that I've never been in their house and found it a mess. With my memories of Staycha, who always looks gorgeous and is one of the kindest people I've met, who is smart and compassionate and dedicated.

So what if I can make a pie? I started to think. She always has a clean house. The wound started bubbling away—but then I stopped. I realized: I can make a pie; she can keep her house perfectly organized. Both of those things are strengths—and neither of them are better than the other.

I don't know what to name this knowledge, but I saw it at work a few hours later, when we'd finally arrived at my sister-in-law's house. My brother-in-law, who is well known for not really being one to do husband sort of things like fixing broken whatevers or replacing light bulbs or weeding the flowerbeds, was in the kitchen with an apron on, cutting the turkey and mashing the potatoes. I found myself thinking of Kendell, who is known for doing those husband-esque things (sometimes he does them for our brother-in-law) but would never, ever step into the kitchen to slice the turkey and mash the potatoes.

I started, just for a second, to yearn for a husband who would help in the kitchen, but then I stopped myself. It is enough that he does the other things. He might not mash potatoes but he does clean out the gutters and make sure the leaves get taken care of in the fall and fix dents in walls and repair broken whatevers.

I am realizing, right now in my life, exactly how destructive comparisons are. They create an endless store of discontent because there is always someone who has a quality your spouse doesn't have. They wound because they strike out at the very core of what love is supposed to be about: loving that person for exactly who they are. I am finally growing up enough to feel a little bit more secure in the value of who I am. I know I will never be like Katie, with her organized linen cupboards and her always-vacuumed floors. But I know enough about myself that I will continue being friends with Staycha, whose house is always clean. My marriage would be easier if I could be like them, but, you know, Kendell didn't marry Katie or Staycha. He married me—with my lack of being made crazy by a cluttery house, true, and all the other faults I have. But I also can bake a pretty decent apple pie (or peach, cherry, three-berry, chocolate, or even pumpkin). My strengths (and my failures) are what make me who I am, and if that is not enough then our troubles are deeper than our cluttered kitchen desk.

On mornings like this one was—when we were out of Carnation packets for Haley's breakfast and I couldn't find the sandwich bags for Kendell's peanut-butter sandwich and Jake thought he could wear shorts to school when it is 18 degrees outside because he really needs some new jeans and I haven't gotten around to getting him any and the kitchen is still dirty from Sunday's afternoon pancakes and the bathrooms need to be cleaned and I still have three loads of "weekend" laundry left—the bitterness starts to creep back in. It's too bad you're not like Katie, my inner monologue goes, because everyone would have started today happy instead of annoyed with you. The self-hatred starts to flare and I start making mental lists of all the things I've failed at so far this month.

But there is also the salve of my recent knowledge: this is who I am. I need to try harder and do better, of course; obviously. But I hope—I hope—that my failures this morning aren't larger than my successes last night, when the kids and I laughed together as we took out the Christmas tree ornaments. I hope what is good about me is enough to overcome my failures. And I want to be better at noticing the strengths of the people I love—especially my husband—instead of their foibles.

I Believe (the Civic Duties edition)

1. I believe that if you use a public restroom, it is your responsibility to actually flush. More, it is your duty to make sure everything gets flushed, including the grody leftover bits of toilet seat liner.

2. I believe it is morally disgusting (not to mention physically icky) to leave said public restroom without washing your hands.

3. I believe that if you are the first car in line for a left-turn light, you are required to put down your cell phone, stop playing with your kids, and pay attention. Then, when the light changes to green, you must rapidly get yourself across the turn. This is especially true for those lights known to allow approximately 3.2 cars through before changing back to red.

4. I believe there is a measure of spirituality in what you do with your grocery cart in the parking lot. "A truly spiritual person puts her cart back in the cart-thingee," a friend once told me, and I heartily agree.

5. I believe that you should drive down the street as if you need to get somewhere, even if you don't. Because, you know, other people do.

There. I feel better having gotten that off my chest. What failed civic duties bug you?