You Suck Santa

All I wanted for Christmas was to wake up from this nightmare.  Santa did not make that happen.  Santa, you suck.  I have been hearing for a while from different people that have experience with grief that the Holidays are the toughest.  I didn’t believe them.  How could one day or a week be any worse than the previous one.  They are all painful.  These advice givers were 100% right, it can get worse and yes the Holiday was incredibly painful.

If I had my way we would have planned our Arizona trip to include Christmas.  Our friends that lost Ben, they are in Costa Rica and are skipping Christmas.  They are brilliant.  But for me it was about my boys.  I can say my boys now.  There are no girls being left out in that phrase.  They insisted that being home on Christmas was really important to them.  I get it.  They are homebodies and maybe home gives them comfort for those days.  But guess who does the planning and the organizing for all of the holiday?  Yep that would be me.  It used to be Hayley and me and it was joyful.  Christmas was my favorite.  There is nothing that I like better than the hunt for the perfect gift.  The one they didn’t put on their list.  The gift that shows them I pay attention and remember everything.  Some of Scott’s favorite gifts of all time he says he didn’t even know he needed.

We had well established traditions.  Hayley had become the driver of that bus in the last 6 years.  When Scott and I were officially separated and moving toward divorce I believe she thought if we kept our traditions alive nothing would change.  For me it goes back to my own childhood.  I had very young parents.  I went to a different school every year until High School.  I went to 6 elementary schools, 2 years at a Junior High and 4 years at the same High School.  That is 8 schools in 13 years.  Add June Bug Pre-School and you have 9.  My parents divorce from hell began in the 4th grade and honestly didn’t end until he died at age 52 despite both being married to other people.    The upheaval of that event and a change of living situations in High School has always driven my parenting behavior.  It was super important to me that my kids stay in the same schools.  To attend with the same friends from Kindergarten to Graduation.  I envied those people.  The irony is that it was those experiences that gave me some pretty serious coping skills.  I always made friends quickly.  I collected one special friend from each stage and have kept them with me in some way my entire life.  Sheila from Kindergarten, David from Junior High, Sara and so many from High School that have supported me this past few months.  I chose Scott when I was 19 and he offered me a steady and stable personality.  Although after 27 years together I know that calm waters run deep.  I don’t remember any specific traditions from my childhood Christmases.  My Dad put coconuts under our tree for my brother and I on some years.  I still am not clear on that story.  He did always have a card for us in the tree.  A Hallmark card telling me he loved me.  I always felt it should have said “I love you and I hope you love me, despite my crazy behavior”.  Scott’s family was not much different.  He had no memorable traditions either.  His mom did decorate a beautiful tree with only clear glass ornaments.  The only other significant thing he could count on, was lots of drinking on their part.

Because of this I was religious about our traditions over the years and Hayley really loved and cherished all of it.  Here are some of our traditions and what I was able to muster for this year:

• I always do the shopping for gifts, decorations, food.  For many years I bought my own gifts that Scott would then take and tell the kids he bought them and have them help with the wrapping.  Around Junior High, Hayley caught on and he was in deep shit!  It makes me smile to think of her chewing him out.  I had to explain I was just as guilty because I enabled him.  It is a strong personality trait of mine to want to make everything easier for others.  From then on, she and Scott did my shopping with a brief grunt of approval from Henry.
• We cut a fresh Christmas tree from one of the same two places.  When the kids cared about sitting on Santa’s lap it was Candy Cane Lane past North Bend where they could tell the real Santa what they wanted and ride on a trailer pulled by a tractor.  Hayley and Scott Always carried the tree.  I can picture her 8 year old self trying her best to not drag her end.
• Every year we get a new ornament.  We also purchase ornaments on most vacations or special occasions when they are available.  Each ornament in my valuable collection tells a story.  Hayley knew each and every one of those stories.
• Each year for 15 years I purchase a Costco wreath and it goes on the same nail above the garage.
• Every year I hide presents so well and start my shopping so early that there is always a present forgotten.  It usually turns up in person or in my memory within a month.  Henry still brings up the year he said in the backseat many days into the New Year.  I got everything I wanted but I wish I had gotten a gaming chair.  Shit.  Um, Henry, guess what, there is one in the garage for you covered with a blanket.  Uh, Merry Christmas?
• On the day of Christmas Eve we bundle up and go to Woodland Park Zoo.  It started when Hayley was a toddler.  There is usually only a handful of other people.  Keepers are happy to see you and will answer all your questions.  One year Henry fed the penguins.  Hayley was obsessed with orangutangs.  She would be able to sit as long as we could stand to wait for her and interact with her favorite female.  I wonder if she was looking for Hayley this year.  Only one year did it rain, one year it snowed.
• After the zoo, we would change the kids in the back of the mini van into their matching Christmas PJs.  Eventually they could do this themselves.  I am not sure what year it happened, but I was so tired of cooking a traditional meal for just four of us.  We started going to Burgermaster!  It could not be more festive.  Eat in the car, watching white Christmas on the Van’s DVD player.  The windows of the eatery were hand painted with different themes, I always loved the Peanuts the best.  We had the same waitress, she has worked their 20 years.  Last year Hayley insisted on purchasing a Seahawks hat for her.  If she noticed our absence from her section, she would know why this year.
• After a great meal we would drive around and see lights.  Go home and make peanut butter cookies with the Kisses in the middle.  I would make the breakfast casserole recipe I had gotten years ago from the back of an evaporated milk label that is still in the recipe box.  Cover it and put it in the fridge.  I usually only had stocking stuffers to wrap because I always wrapped presents as I purchased them.  I got smart after several all nighters that had me hating wrapping when I actually enjoy it.  Set out the cookies for “Santa” and go to bed.
• Scott and I would threaten the kids to stay in their rooms.  Santa will drop gifts off the sleigh if I see you peeking, this is still my threat.  We set up large gifts.  We have these wonderful Red Santa Sacks.  Each has our names embroidered on the front.  “for Hayley” “for Henry”, Scott and I shared the “McCutcheon”.  All the gifts went in the bags.  Christmas morning they grabbed their bag and carried or dragged it into the family room.  Henry in the corner chair,  Hayley on the couch.
• Scott always bit a cookie and tossed the milk down the drain.  He doesn’t know that the years we were heading to divorce I always licked the cookies quite thoroughly before putting the plate out.  This may have been the same years I also let Dudley the Dog lick his toothbrush often.
• In the morning the kids would always be ready before me.  One year someone gave us a glass pickle and I learned that you hide the pickle when the kids go to bed. Whomever finds it in the morning gets to open the first presents.  Of course being McCutcheons we broke the pickle the first year.  The following year at the zoo we chose our annual ornament, a green frog, this became the new pickle.
• Hayley was a gift hoarder and a gift counter.  Not sure if it is the oldest child thing or a girl thing because both myself and my cousin were saying today we did the same thing as kids.  You count your brother’s gifts and make sure he didn’t get more than you.  Now more often than not, Hayley’s gifts were way more expensive than Henry’s.  This concept never quite sank in, not even at 18.  So I had to count them.  I would wrap all of Henry’s gifts and then place like items in a larger box and wrap that to lower his perceived gift count.  Hayley also always wanted to open the last gifts.  I would watch her quietly skip her turn so she ended up with a few left when everyone else was done.  I like to think it was because, like me, she got more enjoyment watching others open their gifts.
• We would then end up eating breakfast casserole, play with gifts and take naps.  Except for that one year I got the norovirus and destroyed our bathroom, spent the day in the ER, while Scott cleaned up and fed the kids Chinese food.  On a non puking year we usually just heat up a honey baked ham and graze all day on snacks.
• Each of the kids would have a box or basket with their loot and take it to their respective rooms.  Sometimes we would drive around and look at more lights.

That is a McCutcheon Family Christmas.  My brother and his family go out of the country each year with my sister in law’s family.  My mom lives in Florida.  Honestly those are the only blood relatives we would care to include.  Having a foursome Christmas with these traditions has been one of the joys of my life for the last 19 years.  It feels good to document them, write them down to remind myself in the future where I want to get back to.  Maybe not the zoo, but something special for the three of us.

We skipped the Zoo, we skipped the lights, we skipped our regular tree, and I had very little shopping to do.  Henry always provides a list along with links.  I enjoyed going to the Verizon Store, the Golf Store and Mox Gaming to surprise him with some items that were not on his list.  I planted the seed of “Hey Henry you always have gotten Hayley’s or one of our hand me down phones right?”  “Yes, mom, my phone is rose gold”  “Really? Have you ever had a new phone? huh, that sucks for you, but Dad’s 6 Plus is super nice and not rose gold so that will be cool when his contract is up in May”   Of course his new 8 Plus was under the tree.

I am proud of us for going to Burgermaster.  I am proud that without missing a beat Scott and Henry looked for the “octopus” on the coastal themed tree.  Henry found it, so he opened the first present from his bag.  His stocking was full.  Hers was empty.  We ate the breakfast casserole and ham.  No PB cookies but no puking either.  I slept a lot that day, it was so long, I thought it would never end.  But it did.  Christmas #1 done.  We have all agreed that we will go on vacation next year.  Santa take a year off.