Making concessions – a ramble and a story – a rambling story! LoL

It’s Christmas time and with that comes lots of stress and running for most. Errands, plans, gifts and get togethers …. it’s a never-ending ride. Not to mention the cleaning and decorating and getting ready for guests. Oh my!

When i was young i hated the Christmas season. To much ado about nothing if you asked me. The running and showing off for the sake of others made me shiver in distaste. You see, when my parents moved from their home to here they had money to spare, once they got here however language barriers and racism made things difficult.

We got to the point that there really wasn’t much to go around but for some reason they felt the need to ‘keep up appearances’. Neither of my parents are good with money or budgets, that didn’t help. I don’t think I need to explain where that ended up.

They had also decided that my youngest brother was ‘a good singer’, he was going to be ‘somebody’ some day. For some reason it’s around Christmas time that I remember the hours and days of them forcing him to sing and practice and show off to others, even though he was shy and hated every minute! You didn’t dare disappoint the parents though ….

Once I got my own home and family, and after a couple of years of watching the Bear’s family and distancing myself from mine, Christmas turned into a big deal for me. I would spend hours on the decorating of the tree alone. Weeks in preparation for new cookie and dessert recipes to make, everything was over the top and ‘just so’.

When the kids got big enough i had ‘my’ tree and they had theirs to decorate. Eventually when they got bigger still they would move things an ‘my’ tree to see how long it would take me to notice once i walked in the room. I always noticed instantly BTW! 😛

Eventually though I got to the point that i really wanted nothing to do with decorating, or gifts or baking. NOTHING to do with any of it. I’m sure peri-menopause had a lot to do with that, my mood would sometimes just be down in the dumps no matter how i tried to bounce out of it. It was no use, i was just not caring …. about anything really.

At that point i no longer wanted a tree, or anything to do with Christmas at all. The Bear insisted on having a tree and would bring one home every year. Every year i would do my best to put on a happy face and decorate, for Him. I no longer did the rest of the house, that was decorated for winter and He agreed, but the tree He wanted. *shrug* Okay ….

A couple of years ago He finally conceded, for me. I no longer spend weeks looking for recipes, i no longer decorate for Christmas at all. Most gifts are just money anyway, all the family kids are too big to want reasonable gifts and i’m not buying anyone a cell phone or Xbox one …

My mood bounced back after some time but my want to make Christmas a big deal never has. I’m not stopping anyone from doing it i just have no desire to do it myself. He gave it a couple of years but after seeing no change in me He decided to let it go.

He might have all the control in this dynamic but that doesn’t mean that my thoughts and feelings on a thing are irrelevant, and sometimes they even trump His.

I dare say that if we were in any other relationship this might have turned into a yearly fight instead. Here though it’s just Him taking care of me, even when the ‘thing’ is not His first choice.