Holidays after family dies are a special kind of hell. And not just the holidays immediately following the death. I mean always and forever until you die and maybe cause some other people to have their holidays ruined.
People will think they are helping by inviting you to hang out with their family, blissfully unaware that attending another family’s holiday is only going to make you feel even more alienated. Other people will call themselves “orphans” on family holidays while their parents are very much alive and just on a cruise this year to celebrate their retirement. And maybe the worst of all, you’ll be subjected to people who tell you that you can “choose” who your family are while they’ve never experienced life without several familial safety nets. As if the privilege of having people who care about you and support you is something you can just manifest by wishing it.
It’s gonna suck and my advice to anyone with dead (or disowned) family is to try to find as many other orphans as you can to commiserate. You will need time away from parented people.
When I was little we went to church, but it trickled to only holidays and then not at all for the few years before Mom died. Mom was Christian, but not like an anti-abortion, tell people they are gonna burn in hell kind of Christian. We were Baptist, but I was never baptized because my mom thought it was something I should consciously consent to, and by the time I was old enough I most certainly did not consent. She never gave up on God, but she didn’t feel good about church by the end.
When I was younger we (my mother and I, never with Dad) would go through the motions of going to our church on Christmas Eve for a candlelight service. Everyone received this cheap little candle with a paper disk around it so the wax wouldn’t drip on your hand, and for the last 10 minutes of a 40 minute service they would turn the lights off and you’d sing with the candles lit. I don’t know why but it looked pretty. (It definitely did not sound pretty. White churches are not known for their parishioner’s musical abilities.)
I had a tradition for a few years of getting up before the sun on Christmas morning, turning on the multi-colored lights on the tree, and reading A Christmas Carol until my parents woke up, more because I enjoyed Dickens than I enjoyed Christmas. Though I also supported the increase of cookie production during the month of December.
And then there was the awesome bonus of my mother pouring a lot of her guilt over our lives into spending any extra money she could on gifts for me. There was no fun extended family for visits or big meals. No real traditions or events. There was a tree and there were presents, and the tree was just to have something to put the presents under.
Without any extended family, big meals, or other traditions we mostly just had a tree and presents, and the tree was just to have something to put the presents under. In fact, the tree was often one of the more stressful parts of the whole Christmas deal, since we had to “as a family” drive to the local tree-selling place back in the woods. Our house was surrounded by trees, but for some reason we had to drive to someone else’s house and pick out a tree, pay for it, and drive it home in the pickup truck. And any activity that involved my dad usually devolved into someone crying.
One year, the tree stayed outside of the house for a few days once we got home, waiting for my dad to decide he was ready to struggle with the tree stand. If you’ve ever attempted to maneuver a tree taller than you are into a tree stand and have it stand up straight, you might understand waiting until you were prepared and had help. It is not an easy job, and it is most certainly not a 1-person job.
I was at the kitchen counter doing homework. It was evening, and my mother wasn’t home. I don’t know if this was because she was not yet home from work, or she was out elsewhere. But I was home alone with my father and this was when he decided to bring in the tree. I was probably 10 or 11 years old, and so my dad’s Vicodin addiction was ramping up.
He did not ask me for help, or indeed even give any warning that he had decided to wrestle a 7-foot tree through our front door that doesn’t open all the way because it hits the stairs. All I heard was some rustling and grunting noises from outside, and then the front door burst open.
The kitchen was around the corner in the back of the house, so I couldn’t see what was happening. Within seconds, before I even had time to hop down from the kitchen stool, there was a thunderous crash. As I rounded the corner into the living room, there was another slam – the front door again.
I heard my dad’s truck start up and roar out of the driveway as I surveyed the scene. There was the tree we had picked out a few nights earlier, sprawled across the living room on its side. It had landed dead center onto the coffee table, which had before a few moments ago a single round top of glass that was now scattered in shards all over the room. The tree was also blocking both the front door and the only route to my room.
The first thing I did was start looking for the cats. They were indoor/outdoor cats, so I made sure they were all outside away from the glass. After that, I just sat back in the kitchen and waited.
This was one of many events where I had a sliver of hope that my mother would finally reach her limit of ridiculous things my dad would do to endanger himself and others and leave him. My mom’s limit was not reached before dropping dead.
I didn’t have Christmas spirit, but what I did have was a mother who tried to compensate for the daily abuse and fear in our lives by giving me many gifts on every holiday that she could afford. And when she died, I suddenly took up the mantle of wanting to be that person. I didn’t want gifts, I needed to give them. That’s how I thought you showed you cared for and about people.
Over time, this need warped from “people will like me if I can do things for them” into a wider altruistic nature, trying to give people things or money or help wherever I could, and I eventually dropped the “people will like me” part. I would call it a compulsion, but that makes it sound bad. If everyone was like this then no one would need anything. It’s only bad because only some people give and other people take when they don’t need, or don’t give when they should.
I’m right, but let’s not jump down an ethics rabbit hole.
My coping strategy for dealing with the Christmas after Mom died was to get as much cash as I could from my dad in whatever way I could and buy presents for my boyfriend and whoever else. I could read my dad’s moods/levels of intoxication enough to know when he’d be game for giving me money, and I took as much cash out of his wallet as I could without it being noticed. Stealing from drug addicts is pretty easy, and there’s very little guilt when it’s actually your dead mom’s money.
The overwhelming need to feel like I was doing something for other people by getting them things coupled with my desire to be away from my father was a perfect recipe for spending an inordinate amount of time at the mall. Not the local mall where I had worked, but the big mall much further away. It was a long drive with a CD player to a heated, indoor place with lots of food options.
I think my mom liked Christmas for the exact same reason I was suddenly hoarding things at the mall. She wanted other people to feel taken care of because she didn’t have anyone to take care of her. And she was vulnerable to people who showed her any sort of interest or care, much like I was for a long time. The abuse does that.
I drove over to my boyfriends house on Christmas morning with my car filled with whatever I had managed to buy and wrap over the past few weeks. His mom’s mom had recently died, too, and everything was at least a little terrible for everyone. I knew my being there was a downer for everyone, but anxiety about that wasn’t enough to make me want to be home.
And this is when everything starts to get darker and out of focus for me.
There are clear memories, enough to write down for you, but they are less frequent. This must have been when the shock wore off. Or maybe it’s where the shock kicked in. It could be that events that happened after this point were retroactively damaged by trauma yet to come. Whatever the reason, the start of the next year is where the flashbulb memories are less and the tunnel narrows.