Holidays...bah humbug!
I went to my first holiday party and already I'm pissed. Ate GREAT food but still pissed. Isn't Christams supposed to be about love and joy and sharing your gratitude with others...yeah right.. I am a single mother who has just shopped, wrapped, baked, tree-shopped, wrote lists, did errands, drove kids a million different places, missed her workouts, worked every day through the last two weeks in the name of the holidays I got my energy from the holiday cheer and the excitement of my kids...I love surprising them. I always start out with good intentions and I promised myself this year would be different. Christmas is not only a holiday but my birthday..what could be better than that. Last weekend my kids picked out a tree while it was snowing...it was postcard beautiful and when I'm with them I feel the joy that I think Christmas is about..they are so HOPEFUL...they sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer when they put the angel on the tree. They are my angels and if I had enough money I would take them both and escape to an island for a week because when the three of us are together we are crazy and happy and have so much fun. It's when everyone else comes into the mix that things start to unravel. First I'm the UNATTACHED one. The one most likely to be voted the "Cat Lady". People don't even ASK if I'm seeing anyone anymore because they've given up hope. Can't drink because I have no designated driver to take me home. No funny stories of "my husband did this ... my husband did that". I'm looked on with pity and people avoid me like the grandma with dementia! The only subjects have to do with kids or husbands so if your kids are older and you have no husband ...what the heck else is left? I want to scream at them: "I am a person! I'm a fun girl! I am not pathetic and I don't go home and cry all night" (well sometimes but its not a regular thing). I always end up with the kids. I love kids and they seemed far more entertaining than the adults. So I bought my life-long friend's (like a sister to me) THREE children Christmas presents and she didn't even THANK me and she critiqued all my presents asking how I could buy her six-year-old daughter a Bratz doll. Okay I'm sorry but it's a DOLL..but according to her the Bratz doll is "ugly" and "slutty". (May I point out her daughter was ecstatic and played with it all ngiht) Wow...I'm sure Barbie could be considered "slutty" if you wnat to really look at things. So my friend's husband told me he would step on it and smash it's head in when he got home. I was furious. My daughter had Bratz dolls and she is the best sixteen-year-old I could EVER ask for. I was furious. I had gone out of my way to get her kids things and that's the response I get? Maybe I should mention that she hasn't bought my kids Christmas gifts EVER since they were born. I am not a materialistic person and I really don't care about presents but it's the THOUGHT. Its expectations and even though mine aren't even that high anymore they are faltering.
Replies
Hey. Its my bday now too.
Totally agree crap starts to gown down hill as soon as others get involved. Other than people with with a clue like on DS. Where u can actually talk to these people and they get it!! ugh..
So sorry you are having such tough time with the friends kids/presents for them. The present is just fine. Its crazy to critize it. ROLLING EYES AT your friend :)
I would like to escape to an island for holidays. apparently it is healthier to socialize... ugh .. lol :)
Hope it gets better this comin week.
First and foremost, you may have to evaluate your choice of friends. I do not know what a Bratz dolls is, but I do have friends that do not allow their girls to play with barbies and dolls like that because of their \'feminist\' interest. I might also add that these friends are big pains in the ass, but that is not the point.
At least, they let you know from the get go: Please do not buy John any guns, GI Joes or anything military and do not buy Pam anything barbie or princess or fairy tales.
Regardless if these parents did not give you those parameters (obviously you would have respected them) then what happened to showing your children good manner and \'do not look a gift horse in the mouth\'. My mother taught me to show gratitutude for every gift regardless of how much you like it because someone took the time and effort to buy you a gift.
So anyway the point of this discourse is that your friends appear to be illmannered ingrates. Remember that friends are family you get to pick!!! They were not randomly assigned!
About being the crazy cat lady, that is a bunch of societal BS (belief system = bullshit) that you do not have to buy in.
If there is anything that I have learned from Pageo is that we have to learn to disconnect from everything that invalidates us. Our familys, soceity rules, whatever.
So many people stay in loveloss and some in terror filled relationships and marriage. Does that mean they are happy? Does being part of a couple equal a magic prize. I know the holidays is the worst, every song, every commercial markets the magic \'of relationships\', but we have all been in them and they are not all sugar and spice and everything nice.
You are learning to be content where you are and who you are. Being happy is an inside job and it has nothing to do with who is or is not by your side.
You are a wonderful amazing mother, daughter and friend. You are enough. Please never forget that.
Arat...you have some real great stuff going on and you are having to see how other people are rude. I am sorry about the rude people. Then there is the whole single mother thing.
Well, I am singel and I do not have kids and it has been quite a lesson about people and their level of comfort due to their conditioning. I know how it is to not be able to talk about a significant other. I don\'t have one. Most people ask..so is there any one in the picture yet as if that is the main deal...not me but have I step into the box again??? OK I used to get out raged but not any more.
You may be loads of fun but other people just want something comfortable. I mean I think other people would be happier if I had a suckee relationship and they could sit around and listen to my relationship pain.
If other people do not know how to communicate about other stuff besides who do you date or who are you married to then their lives are very slim. I hope you are able in the future to see others as not a determinant of who you are to yourself. If people are unkind, judgmental and rude then that is that. It isn\'t about you and you don\'t have to change you to change them.
I have been in the awkward state of not only not aligning with the coupled head space but the children head space and even the work head space. My life style is more like either a young persons. I don\'t have any responsibilities but myself. That sticks out like a sore thumb during conversations with people wrapped up in insurance and what their husband is getting for christmas. what ever.
People project all kinds of thier own identification on people who are single unless they are single or have a clue. I have had ot explian my self too many times and now I am done with it and am fine about my present singleness. But yeah...every one want ya paired up. I can not figure out why exactly but at this point I don\'t care.
Seems to me that if you are having a great time with your children that it speaks volumes in comparison to party peoples issues and friends lack of consideration or what ever it can be called.
Maybe it is time to invest in new kinds of relationships. It seems that the friends you gave gifts to are extremely ungracious. Christmas is happening. It is happening with you and your children. One place can be enough.
You guys sure know how to make a girl feel better and remember the big picture again. A lot of my friends are from my \"old\" ways and I know I will probably outgrow them...I am already doing so. And being alone doesn\'t bother me half as much as it bothers them!
Thanks everyone!