The night before ...

I had another post planned, but it is Christmas Eve, and I am exhausted, though thankfully almost all preparations have been made for tomorrow. Like women all over the world right now! By the time you read this, it will be the 25th, and then it will all be over and we can just relax.

The three-year-old is very cute, a little overwhelmed by all the strangers he's had to meet in this house, very well behaved, and very sweet. All I can say is that I don't feel envy, simply because a) he's not my child, and b) at this stage in my life, I wouldn't have a three-year-old, and so can't relate. It might have been hard twenty years ago to watch him, but so far, it has been easy to simply be a loving observer.

We've set out the Christmas cake and glass of milk for the sleigh rider to eat when the presents are dropped. The stockings, which I bought thirty years ago thinking I might have children and we might have big family Christmases together. are under the tree. are spread out for my nieces and great-nephew, and for my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law, and myself. The first time I've ever used them. My sister pointed out that she, her husband, and her daughter use hers (which I gifted them 15 years ago when my niece was born) every year. But it's different to do that when you don't and have never had a child in the house. Continuing a tradition you started with a little one is easier than trying to start a tradition when it feels as if something is missing. So I'm feeling it a little, though not bad.

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I hope that you are relaxed and happy and get some peace over the next day or two. Sending love to you all. And I'm going to make a cup of chamomile and eat a piece of Christmas baklava!

Adjusting expectations

 

About a month ago, I invited my sister, her husband, and daughter to spend Christmas with us. After only a day or two, they enthusiastically accepted. I was excited. I’ve hosted Christmas dinners here fairly often to take the responsibility off my elderly in-laws. Sometimes it has been a small gathering – the smallest was my husband’s father and uncle three years ago (dare I say it, the most depressing!) – and the largest was when a couple of my husband’s brothers and their families returned home for the holidays. Not huge gatherings, but big enough for my small kitchen and fridge! Lol Once my in-laws were gone, I’ve spent the day with my one or both of my sisters and their families – in the south, and the north for a change of scenery. Last year, there were just the two of us here at home, and it was quite lovely, even though I had faced it with some trepidation.

But this year I was ready for a few more people, and I was really looking forward to it. My niece is now 15, and my sister and brother-in-law share our interest in wine and good food. It was going to be a lovely adult celebration, with the things we love. I was keen to use some things I have stored away to make the house seem more festive. I was going to dig out the beautiful tablecloths and candlesticks and serving crystal bowls I’ve inherited. I also thought it might be fun to use some spare Christmas stockings I still have. (I gave a number away once I knew I wouldn’t have children, and wrote about it here.) Especially as, cleaning out a drawer, I found some things that could be slipped into a stocking, along with some baking or chocolate or something fun, just to make it an occasion. After all, I’ve never been able to do this for children, and my husband and I don’t really “do” gifts, because we don’t want clutter of unnecessary gifts. But also I guess because The Husband gets stressed out. I’d already started meal planning, and activity planning, and cleaning out the freezer so I can freeze meals or pizza doughs etc to make hosting easy. For once, I was actively looking forward to Christmas.

Then I got a phone call. Someone close to us had asked to join us for Christmas, and my sister had accepted on my behalf. She texted me saying she hoped it was okay, following up before I even had time to respond to the text with a face-to-face call. (Note: Things I have always hated include: surprise phone calls, face-to-face calls when I am unprepared, and having to deal with surprise news in front of others. Argh.) So, I had no time to process any of it. And in honesty, I was so soooooo disappointed. Even though I knew I could never have declined the request, and understood the reasons for it.

So I was going through the logistics of it all, processing my thoughts out loud in front of her. Of course, all the negatives came up first – how to squeeze everyone in to our house, nothing to amuse a three-year-old, all the food/sleeping in/adult activity plans going out the window, our house and garden (is a deck a garden?) unsafe for a little one, etc. The degree of cleaning/sorting/decluttering I will have to do to squeeze them in.

My sister is a different personality to me. She loves being surrounded by people. The more the merrier. For her it’s probably a bonus. But not for me. I tried to explain it to her, but I don’t think she gets it. Yes, I have reclaimed the season and do it my way. Yes, I love my tree, and certain parts of the day – the croissant breakfasts, champagne, the desserts, the beautiful table! Yes, I like hosting a group at Christmas lunch. But yes, I still breathe a sigh of relief after everyone has gone home and we get the evening to ourselves, or at the very least on the next day when all the pressure (external and internal) is somehow lifted. I had looked forward to showing them <Mali’s> Christmas <Mali’s> way, and anticipated a fun, relaxed day. Now, it will by necessity be different.

My emotions are confused. I feel selfish for feeling disappointed, when the circumstances around the request are so much worse. I feel annoyed that I didn’t get a chance to process the change in circumstances in my own time. I assume (although this could be all in my imagination - those inner critical voices we all battle) that my sister will judge me and think that a) that I am selfish, and inflexible, and b) I am <fill in the blanks with any other pronatalist stereotype> because I don’t have kids. I feel empathy and compassion for the person making the request. And for the child who will be coming to strangers. As I said, I would never have declined the request. But time to breathe would have been nice.

Of course, almost immediately I started coming to terms with the change, and adjusting plans. Since then, I keep seeing the perils of my house for a young child, and what I will need to make it safe, and how impossible that will be in a house with four separate staircases, no lawn, and a rickety dangerous outdoor staircase that is on our to-do list to fix later this summer. I am thinking about activities – the playground down the road, the zoo that will be open, the beaches that might be safe, the walks we could do that aren’t too onerous. What we can put in the little one’s Christmas stocking (that is not too onerous for the person to take home). Whether I will need to rent a car seat, pushchair/stroller, other things to make the visit easier for our two new visitors. Not the thoughts of a selfish person, I would think, but no-one sees that. We’ll make it fun, and it will be a nice time together, and won’t last forever, and we will ease the troubles of someone we love for a few days. And I’ll be okay. We will have to do a fun, more adult, celebration some other year.

But as a childless person who has been through the painful process of learning to embrace the joys of an adult Christmas, and for years has successfully done this,  I’m now going to be reminded, closely and intently, of what I will have missed. Maybe that’s what has been hard to adjust to, just as I enter this awkward anniversary season of two pregnancy losses (the first anniversary begins today/tomorrow), and the end of my fertility journey. I don’t know.

Now, some days later from that first explosion of words and feelings above, I think I’ll be fine. I don’t want a three-year-old now, after all. And my expectations for the time have adjusted. I've had to do that before. I will have to do it again. I can do it now. After all, it is a privilege that we were chosen as the most desirable option for these two over the holiday period. It will be a privilege to share these days with them, and to brighten their time (we hope). I’m fine with it now. I have a couple of weeks to prepare the house. And I just have to think about what dishes I have in my repertoire that might be okay for a three-year-old; almost everything I cook is spicy. Maybe we’ll just barbecue every day and eat leftover ham sandwiches – it is summer after all!

Just the Two of Us

 It is always just the two of us. But, apart from some Christmases spent overseas in Thailand and Hawaii, this was the first we ever spent in New Zealand just the two of us. I was both looking forward to it, and feeling apprehensive. Christmas, in New Zealand, is a time when everyone travels or gathers together with family and friends, celebrating the arrival of summer. Even those who don't celebrate it get to enjoy the time with loved ones, the summer weather, the time off work, the opportunity to do something different. With doors and windows wide open, you can hear the groups outside on decks and in gardens, laughing and enjoying themselves together. It's a cruel reminder that you are alone. If it was held in the winter, I would have relished the time to just snuggle up at home. But in summer, it felt a little different knowing it would be just the two of us this year, and I was unsure how I would feel.

Still, I got to sleep in, we enjoyed a lazy croissant breakfast, and then I began cooking our Christmas meal, listening to a Christmas playlist on Spotify that a friend's daughter put together last year. There was no rush - we could eat whenever we wanted. The Husband even did some gardening! I pulled out my white tablecloth I bought on a work trip in the Philippines, the good china and cutlery from diplomatic days in Thailand, the inherited crystal and silver platter and jug and glasses, and serving plates that were a gift from a sister-in-law. I even put flowers in a vase. I made an effort!

When it came down to what we might eat, I realised that in the last 20 years, I have already established a tradition of what food we (jointly) like, and so it was simple, but yummy. We decided, after the croissant breakfast, that we didn't need any nibbles or appetiser. So we just had a glazed ham for main course, though I tried a new asparagus and avocado salad to go with the new potatoes, and pavlova and summer berries for dessert. We opened a bottle of Bollinger we had discovered in our wine rack, sat outside in the warm breeze under a tree enjoying a sip or two, and then ate our meal. It was, I discovered, really nice not to be running around serving others, worrying if they liked it, if there was enough, if everyone had everything, was anyone bored, etc. We just relaxed and chatted and enjoyed it. Perhaps too much, because - without the need to serve dessert before the kids got grumpy and the elderly fell asleep, or before it was time to go to the tree and unwrap presents - we decided to leave the pavlova for later. In fact, we left it for hours, and ate it at dinnertime, with the last of the Bolly! Still, there were lots of leftovers.

I had had plans of wearing something floaty, and doing my hair. I ended up in the T-shirt I cooked in, with my hair merely combed and tied back! No make-up. No jewellery. Just us, come as we were! And it surprised me, how relaxed and comfortable it all felt. I'll admit to a lazy afternoon, a nap on the couch, and an evening reading, and watching a light TV show. With a piece of Christmas baclava and a cup of tea. No stress. And, we discovered that when you clean up after just the two of us, we only need one load in the dishwasher! An added bonus.

Turns out, just the two of us was pretty wonderful. It's like life. I should have known!

Enjoying the Season

December has arrived. Quite how it is here already when it was May just last week (!), I’m not sure, but here it is nonetheless. Temperatures are warming. I sat out in a vineyard having lunch recently, and on a deck at a beach that evening. It would have been my father’s 94^th birthday yesterday, but he has been gone now 17 years already. His birthday always makes me remember my first ectopic pregnancy. In the space of a week or so, I suspected I was [pregnant, tested positive, had some bleeding, and was sent to the hospital. As with many early ectopics, it then took about six weeks to diagnose definitively and then to resolve, with ongoing treatment. My second ectopic was the following year, and a few weeks later, but took about six months to resolve. The beginning of December is, for me, the beginning of ectopic season. So inevitably, when I’m happy that summer is arriving, and the windows are open and I can hear the birds singing or Christmas music, or see the first red blooms of pohutukawa, I might feel a little flicker reminding me of the grief I felt 20 and 21 years ago at this time. And the years that it took to recover. Now, I remember, but I don’t really feel the grief. I’ve grieved, but I choose not to torture myself by remembering how that felt, by letting myself feel that again, or by focusing on what I lost.

Twelve years ago, in the first weeks of No Kidding in NZ, I wrote about Reclaiming Christmas. I still believe we can all do this if we want to. Everyone can enjoy Christmas or any other special holidays they choose to celebrate. These days are not just for children – if we’re lucky, we all have magical memories of past years that we want to honour, or perhaps we want to create new memories, and there’s no timeline on what age you need to be to do that. One of my favourite reclaiming traditions is very simple. It is insisting I don’t get out of bed too early (can you guess I’m not a morning person?), and enjoying a simple breakfast of croissants and orange juice with my husband. Maybe one year we’ll go to Paris for Christmas and do it properly!

I put my tree up yesterday – it is early for me, but I decided to do so while I have a visitor in the house, and because I remember taking it down last time (only two weeks ago, it feels like) with regret that it was up for such a short time. Enjoyment of my tree is one of the key parts of my celebration. Who cares that no children will see the tree this year? I’ll see it! Friends will see it. I remember each of the decorations, where I bought them (Florence, Talinn, Bergen, London, Manila, Bangkok, etc) or who gave them to me (my nephew, my fellow childless Christmas-tree-loving friend, my sister, a friend, etc). I have a couple that always make me think of my Christmas babies that didn’t make it too.

I need to do some Christmas shopping this week, and – as long as I am not under pressure – I usually enjoy this. We’re also going to take a few days out to personally deliver some gifts rather than post them. December is one of my favourite times of the year to travel in New Zealand, so that should be fun. We’re going to catch up with friends just before Christmas at a favourite restaurant, I always do a baking exchange with another friend, and we have plans to meet up with others afterwards.

The whole present-giving part of Christmas is not a big deal for me. I like giving gifts, but don’t go over-board. I receive one or two gifts, and I appreciate them, but they’re never the focus of the day for me. My husband and I rarely exchange gifts. If we do, they’re often little surprises. Expectations are low, and I’m happy about that. I can’t be disappointed! Besides, our presents to each other are the trips we take together, and we know how much they cost!

If there’s one thing I dislike about Christmas (or other big holidays), it is the huge fanfare and anticipation for what is really just one day, perhaps even just one meal! Such energy, expense, effort, and angst for such a short day! I’m going to enjoy each of the lead-up activities, whether it is baking, shopping for our meal, seeing friends, delivering gifts, or just rejoicing in the lack of pressure. That way, I can find the whole process enjoyable. And I can eliminate anticipation and stress that might otherwise be unpleasant.

As for the actual day, even though we are going to spend it alone this year, I’m looking forward to a relaxed day, making the food we like, choosing a special wine, eating some of those treats I've made in advance (the berry mince baclava my friend made last year will be high on that list), having a peaceful day, maybe watching some corny movies, or weather permitting, taking a walk along a beach. Enjoying a peaceful drink on the deck with the birds. Hopefully we’ll get to do it all.

And, as I always say, in a flash the day will be over! The next day, life will be back to normal, and we will be looking forward to and enjoying the summer, to the New Year, and to the adventures of 2023. With the added benefit of yummy leftovers!

I hope you are able to look forward to the season this year, rather than dread it. Breathe deeply. Focus on what you love. Don't torture yourself with what-ifs. It does get easier, I promise.

Christmases Future

As I wrote on A Separate Life recently, I’ve started thinking about future travel plans. I’m trying to minimise my carbon footprint in doing it, which means I’m looking at options like house swapping (open to proposals!) or staying in houses that are free or low-cost because they’re owned by a few friends and families, to make longer trips more viable, requiring only one international return flight. Of course, this is easier when I’m not taking any kids with me, and I don’t have any adult children who are travelling themselves, eg. a niece and nephew have recently been on two international flights each, and they’re still only at university.

Anyway, that’s not really the point of this post. In looking at possibilities for the next few years, and starting to think about this December, it struck me that it’s not just a decision for this year. In reality, my husband and I have Christmases for the rest of our lives in which we need to decide what to do. Since our parents died, we no longer have an obligation to evenly split our time (we used to do Christmas with my parents or his parents in turn). I’m lucky, of course. I have a younger sister who has hosted us for the last two years but will be otherwise engaged this year, and an older sister who often has a bigger Christmas with her daughter and family in the South Island. It’s further to travel, but we always get a nice pre-Christmas holiday on the way there. So we do have options. But this year, I don’t want to feel like the strays who need to be taken in.

My husband and I have sometimes travelled at Christmas, and we enjoy doing that. Somehow, being somewhere completely different takes the isolation out of being alone. We were thinking about that this year, and considered several options. Fiji was looking good, despite me saying only a week or so earlier that Fiji wasn’t high on our priority travel list! Someone, though, had posted about a lovely adults-only resort, and that sounded perfect. But frankly, we’re reluctant to go somewhere just because we want to escape. I’d rather save the money for a trip we really want to do.And peak season travel can be really expensive.

We have yet to have a quiet Christmas at home, just the two of us. In some ways, that is very appealing. The weather is nice at that time of year, we don’t have to get involved in the crazy chaos of Christmas/summer travel, and we could design a day that is totally focused on our preferences. It could be indulgent and relaxing. It sounds wonderful when I think about it, and is probably what we will do. We might have to lay low, so we don’t get any sympathy invitations from cousins in the city. A good restaurant is advertising an adults’ Christmas Dinner, and that could be fun to do too.

Yet I will admit that I’ve felt a bit melancholy about it. All of a sudden I’ve realised that for the rest of my life, we effectively have two possibilities – spend Christmas with one of my sisters, or on our own. I hate the feeling that I am dependent on my sisters to have a social Christmas, that I’m that superfluous extra. When my parents were alive, I never felt that way. My place in the family was legitimate. But now, it feels a bit as if I am imposing on their family units if we always end up with one or other of them. By the way, neither of my sisters make me feel that way – this is purely internally generated!

I'm sure I can figure this out. My husband is much less bothered by things like this. It's not an important religious holiday for us, and - as I often say here - it is only a day. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like the absolute freedom of the idea. It would be free of expectations, free of obligations, free of traditions we don't like. That sounds pretty good! I guess I'll have to live it before I will know. I'll report back at the end of the year.