Christmas has been tough for me since my therapist and I decided it was time for me to stop returning even as an adult to my elderly parents' home for Christmas.  My parents, he said, are probably mentally ill, which would explain not only how I got PTSD from their violence toward each other and toward me in the home growing up, but also why the last Christmas I spent with them in 2010 my elderly father hit 52 year old me in the face again.  It was time for me to establish safe boundaries, even if that punch didn't amount to much in his old age compared to when he'd knock me around when I was a kid.

I've had peaceful Christmases since I stopped returning to my parents' home for the holidays, then, but it does get to me to spend Christmas alone and see others spend Christmas with family.  In order not to sit around and mope about it, for the last few years I've given myself the Christmas present of spending the holidays in Mexico, where I lived when I was a kid in second and third grades.

Traveling usually works to distract me from moping about being alone for the holidays, but yesterday down here walking around town here in Mexico it got to me anyway.  I fell into such a funk that I sat down and journaled about it to do some logotherapy and get it out of me.

Then at 10pm last I had the most pleasant surprise.  Outside my hotel room I heard a commotion in the patio.  I'd flossed my teeth and needed to get across the patio to the bathroom to brush them.  So with toothbrush and toothpaste in hand I ventured out of my hotel room door and into a party in the patio!  Not only was I surprised to walk into a party, but I was surprised to be invited as the center of attention.  It was a Mexican Christmas "posadas" party for the hotel staff, and there was a piñata and I was expected to break it.  They put a blindfold on me and gave me bat and sang songs and clapped while I swung at it until I took a final mighty swing and busted it all over the patio.  The hotel staff's kids were delighted as they fell upon the candy contents that sprayed all over the grass.  One of them happily brought me a handful of candy as my reward.

Then the boss, the hotel owner, made a nice speech of appreciation to her employees.  I felt I was intruding, so I went to tip toe away, but the whole group turned its eyes on me and told me to sit back down and stay.  It was very touching. The boss gave each staff member a bonus envelope and then a Christmas wrapped present, too.  

When it was all done, I piped up and said "this is why I come to Mexico, because people here are so human and nice to each other."  I told them I used to stay at another hotel in town, and even though I don't stay there any more the staff from that other hotel still reach out to me as friends and want me to hang out even on their day off, as we did all day just this past Tuesday.  It was icing on the cake now to get to say I love Mexico for that, because it's totally true. 

After that they all said it was ok for me to go on to the bathroom and brush my teeth after all.      :-)

I'm glad I'm here.  After writing below a confessional about how lonely I felt while I was out during the day, all of that got addressed as if by karma in the evening.  Suddenly I was in a group that made me feel like I belonged, and enjoyed a celebration right here back home at my hotel by surprise. 

Ain't it funny how things can just turn on a dime sometimes?