Christmas feelings

I felt emotionally blackmailed on Christmas Eve:  You made clear there was only one thing you really wanted this Christmas, even though we'd pretty explicitly agreed (sorry if you don't remember it that way, but we had) that our main gift to each other this year would be our Hawaii trip, and even though you're going to insist on buying that sofa and chair from Sam's by New Year's Eve.  Instead we spent as much as ever on each other.  I had no idea you'd bought me three pair of pants from Lands' End already - even though you say they weren't originally intended to be for Christmas - nor the (very nice) tripod, in addition to the LOTR on Blu-ray on sale from Amazon.

So I suppose it's a good thing you made it so clear that you really had your heart set on a Kindle Fire and that nothing else would do.  And I'm also glad you indicated that you'd rather have the HD model.  If you'd gifted me and I hadn't done the same for you, I'd have felt even worse than I did earlier in the day.  I'm glad you have it, and I hope you enjoy it.

I also felt hurt on Christmas Eve, left over from the weekend:  If there are two things I've come to understand in the intersection of relationships, money, and priorities, it's these: our words reflect our true feelings, and we allot our resources to what's important to us.  So when a daughter says that she isn't willing to "waste gasoline" for her children to spend time with us, there are implications that go beyond the family of six that they're trying to keep fed, housed, clothed and educated.  When she then drove most of the way here anyway because they needed to go to her in-laws' place, and didn't save us the full round trip to her place by bringing the oldest two along with her, it really felt like a matter of adding insult to injury.  It's clear that nurturing her children's relationship with her parents is not important to her.  My bride and I were both deeply hurt, but we went and got the oldest two kids anyway even though we just wanted to curl up in a ball.

On the other hand, I'm glad that didn't completely cloud my judgment:  I was thinking on Christmas Eve about how my grandparents always came to our house on Christmas Day, after having spent Christmas Eve evening with my cousins.  That way, none of us had to "leave our new stuff" on Christmas, or at least, that was how it was explained to us.  I think that maybe it also reduced the stress on the then-current generation of moms and dads to not have to worry about getting everyone (and another round of gifts) rounded up on Christmas day; for my cousins, that would have been a round of gifts from the grandparents for 8 kids who were already squeezing into the VW bus with their parents. So when our oldest asked on Monday if we could come there on Christmas to exchange gifts because she wasn't feeling well, I was emotionally prepared to be open to that suggestion.  And when we were out finishing our shopping on Monday night, I was prepared to be generous with a gift for her and her husband even though history had made clear that they weren't going to reciprocate.  But I feel as if we may be pressuring them a little just by our generosity, and need to ask if they'd just rather not exchange gifts at all among the adults, even as much as I'd hate not giving to them.

Perhaps that openness helped with the resolution of my funk:  When I know I should be feeling thankful to God, and I'm just. not. because of all the aforementioned issues, my recognition of my bent perspective can become another obstacle to getting past it all and back in touch with God's love. The should gets in the way of itself.  But midnight Mass was so uplifting, and being part of the music ministry helped me enter into the worship.