The Brutally Honest Christmas Card

One of my favorite writers, D.L. Mayfield, shared an older post of hers a few weeks ago on Instagram. It was her Brutally Honest Christmas Card, and it struck a chord with me this holiday season because all things are not merry and bright under our roof. As a writing exercise, I decided to make my own Brutally Honest Christmas Card using Mayfield's as a model for mine. We are not Christmas letter people or even Christmas card people, but it felt good to write this. It felt genuine. Perhaps if you've have had a hard year, it might be a helpful exercise for you to draft your own honest Christmas letter. One final note: the phrases in italics are her words. I decided not to change them because they fit so well, but I want to give credit where credit is due.

__________

Seasons greetings from the Helzers.

My fave photo of us from 2017 even though you can see all the fillings in my enormous mouth.

2017 has been a terrible year, and we're happy it's almost over. In the last year, we...

had to replace two of our kitchen appliances in the same week that our dog of ten years, Sam, died. We continued to help our kids through tough traumas and losses. Trump is still president. White supremacists are emboldened, and our daughter is grappling with being one of a few black children in a sea of white children at school. Our son's trauma has twisted his brain so much that he believes if he is bad enough at home, then he will get to live with his birth parents again. This manifests itself in the form of constant sneaky behaviors. We've installed alarms on bedroom doors, locked up the medicines/knives/garage, and monitor the kids at all times.

Consequently, we've all started attending therapy. Some families fill their free time with extracurricular activities; we fill ours with therapy appointments! I started in on a regimen of anxiety medications to help settle my brain down. We have lived in a constant state of hyper-vigilance and anxiety since August, so we stay cloistered in our home where it's safe to cry and scream and throw things. Some of our friends and family send prayers, and others have sent meals; we are grateful for their support. But for the most part, we remain isolated from the world--our struggles tucked away like an emergency spare key. It was the year of hard things. We are surprised we are still standing.

But the other day when we were serving folks in need at a local church, my daughter saw a girl from school in line for food with her family. She left her post serving green beans and jumped in line so she could eat with her friend. She had no reservations about being on the other side of the table. My son dried dishes in the back and chatted it up with the church ladies like it was nothing for him. It wasn't a huge moment--just one Saturday in our lives, but I can't tell you how grateful I am for that moment.

Mother's Day Gift-Giving Guide: Consider Your Audience

I teach English, so I am always harping on my students to understand the rhetorical situation when writing. In a nutshell, this means that a writer must be aware of his/her audience and the limitations in which he/she is working. For example, if I am writing an essay to persuade a Donald Trump supporter NOT to vote for Donald Trump, I first need to understand why my audience is voting for Donald Trump (Note: I don't need to agree with said reasons, but I have to acknowledge these in an unbiased way in order to reach my audience). Next, I have to consider the limitations here. Do I have unlimited time and pages to write on all the reasons why Trump would make a terrible president? I might...but does my audience have the time to read it all? Probably not, which means that I have to make some deliberate choices about the information I include in my piece.

I think this whole rhetorical situation business can be applied to purchasing a gift for Mother's Day.

3 Reasons why the elf will not be on our shelf this year...or ever

Recently our family was over at another family's house having dinner; since it is the Christmas season, I took in the beautiful sights of all their festive decorations and felt the cliche warm and fuzzy feeling...until I spotted the damn Elf on the Shelf. I waited anxiously, praying my kids would see the elf and think of it as another Christmas decoration--a cousin to the creepy nutcracker statues. My hopes were dashed within thirty seconds when their adorable three-year-old proudly shouted "Look at Bernard!" pointing to the elf on the piano.

"Who's Bernard?" my son asked staring at the doll, perplexed at the tree-year-old's excitement.

Our friend's oldest daughter, a wise seven-year-old, explained the concept: Bernard watched to make sure they were good until Christmas. He changed spots each day, and if you touch him, you lose three presents. My kids' confusion turned to sudden admiration for the damn doll.

"Mom, why don't we have a Bernard?" my daughter asked.

"That's a good question. Where's the playroom?" I replied--diverting my kids' attention. But here's the reasons I wanted to give them:

1. Your dad and I are simply too lazy. When you guys go to bed at night, we savor the freedom. We do really important things like eat cereal, watch TV, and go to sleep. The last thing we want to do is figure out a cute way to pose a doll. I guess that makes us selfish, too...

2. If we were in charge of Elf on the Shelf, you'd be frightened at our cynical sense of humor. We'd take our notes from the #elfontheshelffails and ruin Christmas for you. We're really looking out for your best interest by not participating in the elf hype. You're welcome.

3. Do you really want another thing to monitor your behavior?! C'mon...don't be stupid...

At first, I felt guilty that we hadn't shared this piece of cultural tradition with our kids. But the guilt wore off when a fellow mom shared with me how stressful it was to think of something new for her elf to do each day. There's enough stress that accompanies the holiday season without the damn elf: picking out and wrapping presents, hiding the wrapping paper that only Santa uses, standing in massive lines of crying children so my kids can sit on a random stranger's Santa's lap for five minutes, Christmas programs, baking cookies with my kids (seriously, the stress of this almost pushes me over the proverbial ledge), extra trips in the car to see family, etc. etc. I just don't feel guilty anymore for not participating in the Elf on the Shelf excitement.

I admire the parents who post pictures on Facebook of their elf having another fun shenanigan. I think it takes creativity and perseverance to do this every day for the entire month of December, but it's just not for us. So, we'll continue finding little ways to make the holidays fun for our kids: like attending our community's free showing of A Christmas Carol, decorating my daughter's hair with red and green beads, enjoying Christmas-themed movies by the light of our Christmas tree, or fishing out millions of egg-shells from our cookie dough as I bake with them.

Kids with histories of trauma and the holidays

My husband and I have two six-year-olds adopted from foster care. Our son has lived with us since he was four, and our daughter moved in when she was five. We're still a relatively new family, and prior to our kids' arrival in our home, their lives were filled with turmoil and trauma from neglect, exposure, and abuse. This trauma manifests itself in interesting ways, especially during the holiday season. For kids with histories of trauma, consider these four reasons why the holidays are not so merry:

1. The holidays are a mix of sugar, relatives spoiling our kids, Christmas programs, late nights, and trips out of town. Basically, the holidays blow--especially for kids with trauma who often have “chaos brains” (brains that are accustomed to a constant state of fight or flight). Chaos brains are best regulated by having predictable, consistent routines (routine may as well be an antonym to the phrase holiday season). The minute there is a break in this the everyday structure, our kids’ chaos brains tend to spin out of control and breed more chaos. For our kids this looks like excessive silliness, constant running wherever they are (home, school, stores, etc.), and an increase in impulsive behavior from November through January which all lead to an increase in mamma's drinking.

2. They worry their behavior will prevent them from receiving presents from Santa. Our six-year-olds know the whole Santa story; they’ve heard that Santa only brings presents to “good” boys and girls...we’ve tried using it as leverage on many occasions. Desperate to stop the madness, my husband downloaded the app, A Call from Santa. During a fit of crazy behavior from our daughter, he used the app to have Santa “call” and tell her she was being a naughty girl and reminded her there were only 27 days until Christmas. There was a rare two minutes of silence when she gave the phone back to my husband, mortified. The silence was really the calm before the storm, and before long wailing and fat elephant tears ensued. Immediately we became the worst parents in North America; I wanted to apologize to her and spill the beans about Santa being a fraud.

Many kids fear that their bad behavior will earn them a lump of coal on Christmas morning, but for our kids, this fear is rooted deep in trauma because they believe their bad behavior has earned them way more than just a lump of coal in their stocking.  They believe their poor choices are what got them removed from their birth parents. So the Santa business or the Elf on the Shelf crap--all of that reinforces our kids’ belief that they are not good enough to receive presents or love or affection.

3. The holidays can cause them to self-sabotage. It’s common for kids with traumatic backgrounds to want to control situations. The holiday season is rife with enjoyable opportunities for families: trips to visit Santa, picking out and wrapping presents, baking cookies placing store bought cookies on fancy paper plates, eating massive amounts of Life-Savers from those $.97 Life-Saver books. Unfortunately, kids with traumatic pasts often don’t trust that they’ll get to participate in these festivities because they think their behavior will cause the fun to be stripped from them or because they have experiences of previously unfulfilled promises. So, on the brink of fun activities, they will often self-sabotage so they can choose to miss out rather than risk having an experience taken away from them again.

Our kids are known for self-destructing. After recovering from a turkey, stuffing, and family hangover, we decided to put up our Christmas tree. Our kids love to read, so we busted out the stack of Christmas books, set up a cozy spot for them on the couch, and asked them to read together while we put the fake branches on our fake Christmas tree trunk. “Once we get the tree built, then you can help us fluff it out. Please stay on the couch and read until then, okay?” They both nodded and got busy reading. Approximately 47 seconds later, our son jumped off the couch and proceeded to run through the piles of fake pine needles that our fake tree had shed during its removal from the box. Our living room was a disaster zone of Christmas decorations and fake pine needles, so to avoid more chaos, we sent him to his room where he happily played with his cars and trucks as if that’s what he wanted in the first place. Twenty minutes into our attempt to decorate the tree with our family, both kids were in their rooms for what appeared to be intentional defiance, and my husband and I swore as we proceeded with the terrible job of fluffing out our fake tree by ourselves.

4. The holidays remind them of all they've lost. Our kids didn't have much in the way of material possessions to begin with, so you'd think that receiving gifts on Christmas morning would be exciting for them. While it is exciting, it is also overwhelming.

The first Christmas with our son, we showered him with gifts, which resulted in an immediate tantrum that lasted most of the morning. We couldn't figure out the cause for the melt-down; did he want a blue sled instead of a red sled? Did we not explain clearly enough the purpose of a sled and how much fun it is? We had given him nearly everything from his Christmas list. Pissed that our Christmas morning didn’t meet the expectations I had of our first Christmas as a family, I stormed off leaving my husband to deal with our new son’s confusing behavior. It wasn't until after the chaos of the holiday season passed when he said something out of the blue about never receiving Christmas gifts from his birth parents that we were able to understand that perhaps his Christmas morning tantrum came from a place of loss--a reminder of the gifts promised but never received from his birth parents, a reminder that it wasn't natural for him to be spending Christmas morning, a time normally reserved for immediate family, away from his immediate family. Remembering my response to his behavior on Christmas morning, my cheeks burned red in humiliation, and I reached out to hug my boy.

As a foster-adoptive mamma, I’ve learned to accept that the holidays will most likely be difficult for our family. We probably won’t be able to engage in every fun activity our community has to offer, and we may not be able to attend every holiday party we’re invited to. Instead, we’ll spend extra time at home together. It takes an extra dose of patience, so if you know a foster parent or foster-adoptive parent, send them extra empathy and love booze this holiday season to help get them through it.