Break the Rules Christmas
Somewhere along the road, I learned that life’s unspoken rules were worth looking at closely and if they didn’t make sense to me, I broke them and made up my own. Take my divorce, for example. We had a friendly one. My personal rules always included the “Do unto others...” and luckily, so did his. So this Christmas, three years post-divorce, I feel incredibly lucky to have my three flown-the-coop children with me and my ex-husband. So far, it’s been a lot of fun. When telling a friend who had an equally amiable divorce about our unusual Christmas, she countered me with, “Well, for us it looks like we'll have my ex-husband's ex-wife and her daughter as well as the ex-wife's ex-girlfriend for a Christmas visit. And my new "beau" is coming too.” She wins.
This brought me back to my family Christmases growing up. My parents divorced in the late fifties. At the time this was pretty unusual and any divorces of the time were filled with unspeakable nastiness, usually with the children used as bait in the power struggle. However, my parents never said an unkind word about each other to any of the five children. For me, the split was about as pain-free as a split can be. The complication arose with two households and then eventually, two step-parents. It wasn’t so much figuring out a timetable as to which house I was to go to and when. I was fairly adaptable to change but I remember having to be a chameleon due to the marked difference in household styles.
My mother was a creative free-spirit and certainly not like any mother I knew in the sixties. Her house reflected that. The hall closet was a cornucopia of coats, boots, skates school bags and mismatched hats and mitts that overflowed into the hall. In the living room there might be a blanket fort taking up most of the room. In the dining room, several unfinished art projects. In the basement a pile of costumes waiting for the next play, in the bedrooms blasting music and thumps from made up jazz routines and always, always, a loud game of hide and seek.
On the other hand, my father married a very wealthy woman who I never got to know well nor particularly like much, in the short time they were married, before his untimely death. Her household was smack in the middle of the Embassies in Ottawa. She had a uniformed couple who were the full time housekeepers to make sure all dust motes were kept in check. All shoes were removed at the door and placed neatly in rows before you entered the spotless house. We were taught the most useless manners, table and otherwise and her favourite rule, “children must be seen (in pressed and clean clothing) but definitely not heard”.
The most shocking adjustment for me were Christmases. At my mom’s house, the only orderly thing about the day that I remember, was that we had to line up outside the living room door after a pancake breakfast, in order of oldest to youngest (me) to have our pictures taken. This led to almost hysterical anticipation before they opened the door to the heavenly abundance of Christmas presents that spread half way across the room. The chaos that ensued was like a pack of hungry dogs being thrown a plateful of sirloin. Hundreds of presents opened in ten minutes flat leaving a detritus of wrapping paper and ribbon and scattered, screaming children already testing and breaking their toys. Dinner was always an enormous turkey, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and frozen peas. The evening would be filled with games at the table and afterwards, endless plays made up by the children for the adults. We fell into bed exhausted, stuffed and very happy.
Next day at “the palace” we had to wait till the evening to open presents. We would be invited into the living room, after a formal dinner of roast beef served by the “servants” as my step-mother so fondly called them. Very boring conversation at the adult table and sharp looks thrown across at the children’s table if we got too rowdy. It was Christmas after all…very solemn. We would all sit around the formal room in a circle while I, as youngest, got the dubious honour of handing out the presents – one by one. Each person had to open their beautifully wrapped present, ooh and ah, and then go over and kiss the gift-giver before the next present got handed out. To me this was like someone excruciatingly slowly running their fingers across the chalkboard. I remember one Christmas asking if I could go to bed before I’d opened all my presents, out of sheer boredom.
I like to think these experiences of wildly different households has made me a very adaptable person. But also as a result, as I said earlier, it has made me a rule breaker and I encourage my children and everyone I know to be rule breakers. Christmas should be fun, not stressful. If it isn’t fun then don’t do it no matter who says you “should”. If handing out presents individually fills you with joy, then by all means do it. However, at my place, I look forward to the turkey and marshmallows, a big mess and I even let the servants have the night off!
Somewhere along the road, I learned that life’s unspoken rules were worth looking at closely and if they didn’t make sense to me, I broke them and made up my own. Take my divorce, for example. We had a friendly one. My personal rules always included the “Do unto others...” and luckily, so did his. So this Christmas, three years post-divorce, I feel incredibly lucky to have my three flown-the-coop children with me and my ex-husband. So far, it’s been a lot of fun. When telling a friend who had an equally amiable divorce about our unusual Christmas, she countered me with, “Well, for us it looks like we'll have my ex-husband's ex-wife and her daughter as well as the ex-wife's ex-girlfriend for a Christmas visit. And my new "beau" is coming too.” She wins.
This brought me back to my family Christmases growing up. My parents divorced in the late fifties. At the time this was pretty unusual and any divorces of the time were filled with unspeakable nastiness, usually with the children used as bait in the power struggle. However, my parents never said an unkind word about each other to any of the five children. For me, the split was about as pain-free as a split can be. The complication arose with two households and then eventually, two step-parents. It wasn’t so much figuring out a timetable as to which house I was to go to and when. I was fairly adaptable to change but I remember having to be a chameleon due to the marked difference in household styles.
My mother was a creative free-spirit and certainly not like any mother I knew in the sixties. Her house reflected that. The hall closet was a cornucopia of coats, boots, skates school bags and mismatched hats and mitts that overflowed into the hall. In the living room there might be a blanket fort taking up most of the room. In the dining room, several unfinished art projects. In the basement a pile of costumes waiting for the next play, in the bedrooms blasting music and thumps from made up jazz routines and always, always, a loud game of hide and seek.
On the other hand, my father married a very wealthy woman who I never got to know well nor particularly like much, in the short time they were married, before his untimely death. Her household was smack in the middle of the Embassies in Ottawa. She had a uniformed couple who were the full time housekeepers to make sure all dust motes were kept in check. All shoes were removed at the door and placed neatly in rows before you entered the spotless house. We were taught the most useless manners, table and otherwise and her favourite rule, “children must be seen (in pressed and clean clothing) but definitely not heard”.
The most shocking adjustment for me were Christmases. At my mom’s house, the only orderly thing about the day that I remember, was that we had to line up outside the living room door after a pancake breakfast, in order of oldest to youngest (me) to have our pictures taken. This led to almost hysterical anticipation before they opened the door to the heavenly abundance of Christmas presents that spread half way across the room. The chaos that ensued was like a pack of hungry dogs being thrown a plateful of sirloin. Hundreds of presents opened in ten minutes flat leaving a detritus of wrapping paper and ribbon and scattered, screaming children already testing and breaking their toys. Dinner was always an enormous turkey, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and frozen peas. The evening would be filled with games at the table and afterwards, endless plays made up by the children for the adults. We fell into bed exhausted, stuffed and very happy.
Next day at “the palace” we had to wait till the evening to open presents. We would be invited into the living room, after a formal dinner of roast beef served by the “servants” as my step-mother so fondly called them. Very boring conversation at the adult table and sharp looks thrown across at the children’s table if we got too rowdy. It was Christmas after all…very solemn. We would all sit around the formal room in a circle while I, as youngest, got the dubious honour of handing out the presents – one by one. Each person had to open their beautifully wrapped present, ooh and ah, and then go over and kiss the gift-giver before the next present got handed out. To me this was like someone excruciatingly slowly running their fingers across the chalkboard. I remember one Christmas asking if I could go to bed before I’d opened all my presents, out of sheer boredom.
I like to think these experiences of wildly different households has made me a very adaptable person. But also as a result, as I said earlier, it has made me a rule breaker and I encourage my children and everyone I know to be rule breakers. Christmas should be fun, not stressful. If it isn’t fun then don’t do it no matter who says you “should”. If handing out presents individually fills you with joy, then by all means do it. However, at my place, I look forward to the turkey and marshmallows, a big mess and I even let the servants have the night off!