Living With Trauma? The Healers, 43

Here in Canada, Christmas is really the Great Grandmother of First World Problems. Here are some of the most common questions asked around Christmas: Should we cook a turkey this year? Maybe a roast or a ham, maybe a goose instead this year. What kind of booze? What kind of tree? Real one, artificial? Decorations? Too many lights on the outdoor display? Are we out of debt yet? No? Then just keep that line of credit going. Christmas is too commercial. Christmas is too Christian. It`s Winter Holiday, it's the Solstice holiday, we want to be inclusive. And the beat goes on. I've basically given up Christmas. It is a lot of First World nonsense with a huge Christian infusion at one level, and a gigantic orgy of greed and hedonism and spending on quite another. I didn't grow up in a Christian home and it was all about Santa, gifts, eating lots of rich food and getting drunk. We can't escape it. It's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. If you have close family and friends and if you're all relatively well-off financially then Bob's Your Uncle and it's going to be a lovely traditional meal, with fancy tree, gifts, lots of good food and booze and people silently hating and resenting each other as old wars and feuds continue to simmer. It's also all very neurotic because there are always those who are burdened with all the work, usually the women in the family, and they are the ones who make it Christmas for everyone. If you're poor and on your own, then you do what you can. You are likely to be alone and forgotten because no one wants to know we exist, except in cases of charity so they can feel good about themselves. You hope that you'll be invited somewhere, but that often doesn't happen. So you do what you can to cope. Maybe do volunteer work, since there are still going to be others who have it worse than you, and if you already have a home and no one to celebrate with, how about celebrating with the homeless? This is also a great way of really becoming an adult and getting over the expectation that others owe you anything. To become Christmas for others. All the hype and the piles upon piles of expectations and expectancy of this time of year make it very difficult to cope alone, though some manage somehow. They say they're okay. I think they're all lying. There are too many deep and unconscious ties that bind us to the holiday. We do what we can to get through it, even those who appear to have all the makings of the perfect Christmas with family and friends, year after year. Christmas has many meanings, and no one can get away with claiming that it means nothing to them, because this holiday is so deeply branded on our deepest unconscious and on our deepest memory. Even though I hung Christmas out to dry, and hopefully die, a couple of years ago, it keeps rising in my throat like undigested plum pudding, or it keeps rising from the dead, a fat vulgar Ghost of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet To Come, that simply will not go away and cannot be bribed into leaving us alone. I have decided to give it token acknowledgment. I no longer go to church, or not much anyway, and really, I already feel and sense Christ's presence every day of the year, making this sacred annual occasion for me somewhat anticlimactic and redundant. My parents are dead and my brother and I likely will never see each other again. I have still a few cousins and maybe a couple of surviving aunts or uncles but I have had no existence to them for many years, and I don't feel that they owe me anything. I have friends. They are usually not available for a visit at Christmas, which is annoying because this is one time of the year that you do not want to feel abandoned. But there are still things to do. There are still those friends who are also at loose ends, or have some time, or are not too proud and self-pitying to want to be available to you (you know who you are, and yes, I am referring to YOU!) Those are the most annoying friends. Usually they're single males, alone and absolutely miserable at not having anyone to see or anywhere to go, but they still lie through their teeth, tell you they're okay, refuse to see you and you simply want to end the friendship and not have to think of them ever again. I have some friends like that, one or two anyway, and it is only because I am a forgiving person that they can still wait till next Christmas to reject my offer of hospitality again. Toxic masculinity, anyone? I will be seeing a couple of friends this Christmas. One is coming for breakfast Christmas morning. Every Christmas morning I make a huge, fancy bread pudding for breakfast, and if anyone wants to come over and have some with me, they are most welcome. This is my Christmas dinner, even though it's breakfast! The other two I will be visiting this afternoon with gifts of homemade shortbread. That should be enough. I do hope that my proud toxic male friends will swallow their pride enough to get in touch with me, if their masculine pride permits it, though I am not holding my breath. In the meantime, I will continue as usual, refusing to feel sorry for myself and making myself available to others. For me, Christmas is a reset button that needs to be pressed every year and to reset the pattern of love and giving that really must mark, not one day, but every day of the year. Politically correct nervousness aside, Merry Christmas, Gentle Reader!