Emotion Soup

Tis the season to be jolly, stressed, blessed, ornery, exhausted, frustrated, confused, angry, hopeful, and a whole plethera (I've always wanted to use that word!!) of other feelings. I LOVE Christmas, the whole Christmas season. Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be that my head isn't screwed on just right. Okay, that says it all. Can you guess what book I've been reading to my kids lately? I start counting down til' Christmas on December 26th. It's true. Ask my facebook friends. I have over 300 shatter-proof balls hanging from the living and dining room ceilings. Everywhere you look, there's a nativity. I love the nativity story from the Gospel of Luke. I love praying the joyful mysteries. I do love snowmen, and santas, all of the "fluff" that goes with this season, but I always put the "Reason for the season" first. I'd love for the family to act out the Nativity story, but the cats won't let me dress them up as sheep. As you can tell, I go just a little "nuts" this time of year.

I came from a very sentimental family. We have dozens of Christmas traditions, from the cookies we bake, to the carols we sing, the movies and specials we watch, and the decorations we put up. Unfortunately, there's another family tradition that is not so wonderful, atleast for the women in our family. We can all go from 0 to B in 1.2 seconds. The littlest thing can set us off. Heaven forbid, we don't have the house perfect before the company comes. What do you mean, you want to go look at lights? We need to bake 5 dozen cookies, finish the tree, wrap a million presents, and start our Christmas letter. I don't have time to go see how perfect everyone else's house looks. E said to me last week, "Mom, if you love Christmas so much, why does it make you so upset?'' Of course, I couldn't resist, "I love your father, and he makes me pretty upset, too." She laughed and said, "So when you get mad at us, you still love us?" Ah, so profound. She's a keeper!!

Christmas is torture for my kids. They want to love all of the great feelings, but they feel guilty for enjoying themselves. They are trash. Why should they feel so good about a time that caused them so much pain in the past. Their bio mom never did anything for Chirstmas. They got one gift, no tree, and unhappy memories. Christmas was an obligation, not a gift. A gift that God gave to us. They had no clue who Jesus was. Even the meager gifts they did get, were left behind when they moved. They never lived in any place longer than three months, and they never took anything with them when they "left in the night."

At our house, they get several gifts. Nothing extravagant, but something they wanted or needed (the obligatory underwear!) They have a place for their gifts, and we plan to stay in this house forever, or until my dream acreage opens up. We bake, we decorate, we sing carols, sometimes even in tune!! They have memories. They have tradidions. They have emotion soup. They can't even discribe their feelings. They act up. They have melt-downs. They get physically aggressive. It's not supposed to be like this. They are supposed to realize how good they have it and be thankful for the wonderful family who took them in and gave them all these wonderful things. WRONG!! They have never felt these warm, fuzzy feelings and it "hurts." They don't deserve all of this. They are terrible kids and should not experience all of these incredible feelings. SABOTOGE!! If they ruin what is going on, the bad feelings will come back and they will be comfortable again. Aww! Misery loves company. They will bring you down with them and then all is right in their little, twisted world.

Once I figured out where they are coming from, I pondered (always wanted to use that word, too!) what I should do. Logic told me to pare down the celebration, and make it easier on my kids. Put up a tree and a few decorations, and keep the gifts at a bare minimum. My heart said, WHAT! Keep my Rudolph collection in the totes for another year-- impossible. I hit the 90% off sale at Hobby Lobby last year to get more ornaments for my ceilings. I googled fattening Christmas snacks and bought the ingredients for caramel marshmallow yummies. You want me to just put that all away because the kids had a crappy home before ours? There had to be another way.

I decided to talk to the kids about what they expected out of the whole "Christmas Experience" at the "Mom of 5" homestead. They wanted all of the extras. They even came up with a few of their own. It's not like this is their first Christmas with us. They've had 3 with us already. They knew what to expect, they just didn't know how to deal with it. I decided to start slow. I did the decorations. A few close calls, but no major meltdowns. We went to the concerts. No problems. We had Christmas with the husband's family. Had to rein them in a few times, but we all had a great day. They are starting to feel better about feeling better. We need to take away the expectations, and add more fun. They love that! We went to a lighted parade and fireworks in 15 degree weather. They took away some wonderful memories. It's amazing what a hug will to to calm their fears, and mine. I'm learning so much about myself as I learn more about them. This is soooo cool. I'm still not Mom of the Year material, but I'm getting closer.

Guess it's time for me to get some sleep. Have to shut off the Christmas music, finish off the egg nog, unplug all of the lighted decorations, clear the wrapping paper off the bed and slip in between my Rudolph the red nosed reindeer sheets (yes, I really have them!!) Time to dream about the traditions we'll create together tomorrow.