Christmas Dismisses.

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So this year has definitely been a little different around our usually festive home. I have always loved to decorate the house for Christmas and courageously bring on the holiday season with love and joy. This year has hit me like a total brick to the face. Now that we have transitioned into parents of teenagers, it seems as if EVERYTHING has changed. These young adults that I am living with aren’t the little cherubs that I once knew them to be. Excitement, enthusiasm, and participation have all packed their bags and left the building leaving me with a useless bunch of Bah Humbugs. Seriously, it’s like no one in this house cares this year, and unfortunately it has completely rubbed off on me and left me unusually quiet sitting in this seasonal slump…

It all began with the decorating… My hubs quite grumbly helped drag out all the garb and put the lights on the house. We bickered all weekend on the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to do everything. Laughter, Christmas spirit, and enthusiasm…not so much. My son’s tree was up for over a week before he even put any ornaments on his 2 foot tree. Meanwhile, I spent hours alone putting ornaments on our fantastic 12 foot tree by myself, because they told me it was ‘boring’. I’m sure the only way that I could’ve gotten any help from them at all would be if I paid them. My husband has only summarized this disappointing situation by shrugging and simply saying as if I should know ‘they’re teenagers, what did you expect?’ Well, I expected more I guess…

As I sit to review the extensive Christmas lists that of course have been submitted in a timely manner with teenage gifts so expensive it would take all year to pay off, I’m honestly thinking they don’t deserve anything. Not. A. Thing. A MacBook, IPhone 7, and of course a PlayStation – seriously? The money tree out back needs more fertilizer or something. I was thinking more along the lines of hairdryer, so my son who is now so into his hair-styling will quit taking mine or maybe an electric toothbrush to encourage better brushing habits. I’m kind of actually amused by the thought of giving these perfect gifts instead just for the mere payback for them being such jerks. They’re not really even nice lately – I mean they wouldn’t even help decorate did they? All they did was complain and dampen my Christmas spirit. They talk back and argue and are turning sections of my hair gray. This isn’t going to sound very loving (another Mom fail I know), but honestly they’ve really turned into a bunch of assholes.

I see the commercials on TV with sleighs and bells that usually make me tear up and touch my heart. I see the smiles and laughter as other people shop together with their families. I see the Facebook posts of happy kids and their beautiful gingerbread houses their cooperative children have created. I have a whole display with happy families on holiday cards with beautiful holiday smiles on their merry little faces. I remember having those happy times in years past as well. Where did I go wrong, who are these people, and where the hell did my Christmas spirit go? Maybe I have somehow misguided my family down the wrong path over the many years of what I perceived to be perfect holiday bliss.

So, Christmas is but a few days away now, and I have decided that today we will bake cookies. Yes, the 12-year-old tween boy and I are going to have some holly jolly cooking time together in the kitchen. I’m sure that I will probably end up disgruntled and grounding him from something for his sure-to-be-terrible attitude, but however exhausted I am I will continue to hope and to try. After all, I am forever grateful and counting the many blessings that I have been given with my family, so I guess I will also stay strong in my determination to find some freaking Christmas spirit somewhere within these teenage Grinches that I now live with!

Maybe you can relate and maybe not, but either way here’s to hoping you and your families are having much better success at enjoying a Holly Jolly season thus far! Cheers!