A Holiday How-To

I've always loved this time of year.  Well, truthfully, these last few years I've loved all times of year - there's been so much freedom and growth in my life since I found my path away from the NFOO and, consequently, sobriety, that I've found myself more and more enraptured by the natural world around me.  I find joy in quiet moments in the sun and peace in the sound of rain these days; brief interactions with the world I'd been too busy escaping from to notice before just fascinate me.  But I particularly enjoy watching the world around me change - leaves turning colors and falling, days getting shorter, that crisp feel of a coming frost.  I just love it, and there's something about preparing for winter that just feels right and homey to me.  I like to nest and get ready for the cold, I guess, so I found myself this weekend on a rare trip to the store for new pillows and flannel sheets.

On my way to the housewares department, I couldn't help but notice; the holidays are upon us.  There are costumes aplenty and bins full of little multi-colored dried corn cobs block the aisles.  No matter that it's two and a half months to Christmas, the reds and greens are out in force.  Ah... the holidays.  When everyone gets sentimental for the days of yore and decides that - for at least a few days here and there - family is important.  I've a sneaking suspicion that ACoNs put family first every day of the year - in my former life family took a place of precedence (under duress, I had to take care of the NFOO, don'tcha know,) and since I escaped (for the benefit of my real family, my FOC,) my true family has become of utmost importance.  But the holidays, oh boy, they're a double-edged sword for me. 

I have a different definition of family than most people I know.  Most people define family through DNA and marriage or birth certificates.  That used to be my definition of family, sure, it's the explanation I was given.  And I broke my back and the bank for them, especially around holiday time.  I did it all - the organizing, the driving, the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking, the hosting, everthing to make the holiday season nice and fun and comfy for everyone else.  I received very little in return, one great example of this being the final Christmas pots and pans episode.  The lack of thanks or reciprocation didn't even cross my mind for a lot of years, and when it did, well... who was I to ask for anything?  I didn't want to be selfish, stubborn, greedy or any of the other bad things I believed I would be if I tried to break free of my indentured servitude to the NFOO and their holiday comfort. 

But then, I woke up.  I changed.  I stood up for myself and my real family, which originally only consisted of me, DH and the DD's.  It was in September 2007 that I issued my decree of NC with the Crazymakers.  Just in time for the holidays.  Grieving, shell shocked, traumatized beyond belief and having NO idea how to do the holidays right with just the four of us, I almost lost it just before the holidays that year.  I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest at times, and I wanted desperately for the pain to stop.  So I made a plan.  It helped.  A lot.  And here I am, going into holiday season number five without the NFOO around, and I have a plan.  It still helps. 

Staring at those greens and reds and little dried corn cobs and pumpkins and costumes last weekend, I couldn't help but think I need to put it out there for you.  Maybe the tips and tricks and plans and advice I've gathered over the last four years of holidays can help you during this holiday season.  I hope so.  So without further ado, I present you with Vanci's Guide to Non-Narc Holidays.

Get through the first year, it will be the hardest.
It's all so new.  I remember that it felt like everything I touched held a painful memory.  The box of Halloween costumes had dresses in it that NM had helped to sew.  Some of the little props - fairy wands and wings - had been made with Narc OS's help.  The princess tiaras were a gift from GCYB.  Every recipe I planned for Thanksgiving had a history, either of coming from NM years prior, or of my having prepared those dishes at the NP's house for everyone in the NFOO.  How on earth am I going to change these dishes that serve twenty people to serve only us, a measley four? I thought.  The ornaments on the tree had history and memories.  There were even some good memories, and those were ever so much harder to deal with.   We want to believe, you know, that things can get better, that maybe this isn't the end of the way that things have always been.  We try so desperately to hold onto that one memory in twenty that was good, or at least not too painful.  Making the best of things is one of the tactics that helped us to survive, after all.  So, in the face of that, knowing that I didn't want to ruin the holidays for my FOC, no matter how small, by allowing the hurt and pain of the 'break-up' to overshadow the family time that we had, I came up with a simple plan:

Don't do anything that you've done before.  
Screw it and screw them, I thought.  I'm not doing the holidays the way that I've been taught.  It didn't work - those holiday traditions that we had didn't make us a good family, a loving family, a kind group of mutually loving people.  Even when I pretended that was the case, it simply wasn't true: those holiday traditions that we had were just another example of the way that the NFOO's dysfunction worked.  NM preened over her potpourri'd house while dropping hints about which of her children would receive special gifts and which wouldn't.  EF bought himself gifts, which he then showed us, making it very difficult to come up with anything we could afford from his very specific and expensive list of desired items.  Narc OS went shopping with EF and pointed out all of the things that she wanted, thereby ensuring that she would receive all of them; some before the holidays and the rest during.  GCYB didn't contribute, but certainly showed up on time to eat and to open all his presents, his many, many presents.  Vanci shopped for gifts for everyone, bought all of the food that she would then prepare, packed up her entire kitchen, all the gifts and her family and drove out to the boontillies to bring the gift of a great holiday to her NFOO.  This went on for years.

So, in year one, I didn't know what to do.  I was at a loss.  So I looked for opposites.
For Halloween, we'd always been obliged to drive our DD's to far reaching family's houses so that everyone could see them all dressed up.  This had been difficult as we live in the North so Halloween is dark and cold.  It's also often on a weekday.  So, after work, we'd get the girls ready, feed them, trick or treat a couple of houses in the neighborhood then start the rounds out to the backwater compound of the Crazymakers.
What's the opposite of that?
Well, we did work, came home, had a snack and got ready and then we drove to a neighborhood where we knew not a soul and trick-or-treated for HOURS randomly.  No one knew us.  We didn't have to make nice with anybody.  The kids got to run wild through the streets till their little princessy legs gave out.  Then we came home and had hot apple cider and sorted candy and watched a movie together with all the lights out.  It was simple and fun and we all had a great time.  And it wasn't like anything we'd ever done with the NFOO.

For Thanksgiving, for the first time ever really, we had a simple meal with a simple day in our own home.  We played out in the yard.  We fried a turkey.  We played card games.  We went for a walk.  We took naps.  We ate mashed potatoes until we were about to explode.  Again, not like the chaos that had reighned over the NFOO Thanksgiving.  No one fought.  No one yelled.  It was awesome and peaceful.

On Christmas Eve, which was traditionally when our presence (and money... and labor...) had been required at the NP's, we stayed home.  We started a tradition of new recipes and we went ethnic, both the DD's helping to meal plan our sweet and sour pork and spicy orange beef that we made from scratch together.  We ate with chopsticks.  We've since done Thai, Indian and Mexican.  My DD's are already talking about what we'll try this year. 
We invited the in-laws over to play board games and they came, bearing a surprising amount of highly thoughtful gifts.  We discovered a new recipe to make - Oreo balls - for Santa, and we left those out instead of the cookies we'd always made before.  On Christmas day we did our regular wake-up, open presents and play with them, but we added a new item: a family gift.  It was a video game that year, and we played together, all four of us for a lot of the day.  This has become a tradition for us... what game will it be this year?
DH made his signature dish for us all, which is a real treat as he only has two dishes he knows how to make.  It was the best Christmas I'd ever had.

You have to leave the old traditions behind sometimes to make room for new ones.  And that is a good thing if you grew up with Narcs - those old traditions aren't friendly.  When the year one holidays were done, DH said, "I've been waiting for those kind of holidays with you for YEARS."

Keep an open mind and a sense of humor.
Letting go of established holiday traditons is hard, coming up with new ones is harder.  Change is hard and new is hard under the best of circumstances, throw a recently recognized lifetime of hurt into the emotional mix and the simple act of putting up the Christmas tree can become overwhelming.  Be patient with yourself.  You're building something from scratch, you know, and you'll make mistakes.  You'll try things that won't work.  It's okay, though, if you can keep it light.  Stretch your wings and take off: make a new recipe, watch a new movie, buy a funky gift for someone, volunteer for something that you didn't have time for before, invite that person that doesn't have anywhere else to go over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Maybe their kid will plug up your toilet with your hairbrush and you'll burn the pie while trying to get the plunger to work.  If it happens, hey, you've just learned who not to invite next year.  And if it happens and you can keep it light and not too serious, well, you'll have a brand spanking new memory and stories to tell in the future about the Thanksgiving That The Plumber Had to Come For Dinner. 

Remember, whether they're good or bad, these new memories and traditions that you're working on will be absolutely awesome if for no other reason than you will OWN them with your FOC.  The N's won't be able to spoil them, and if you're NC, the N's won't even know about them.  So keep laughing, whatever happens and whatever you do, because progress is progress.  If the Bumpous Hounds get the turkey, well, there's always the option of smiling duck at the Chinese food restaurant. 

You're going to be sad/mad/hurt/angry/upset at some point.  Plan for it.
Yes, it sucks to have a crappy family of origin.  It sucks, frankly, ass.  Big ass.  And breaking away for the sake of our sanity and souls is a GOOD thing.  But in the beginning, it can feel like abandoning a sinking ship for shark-infested water.  For awhile, it sucks just as bad to be away from them as it did to be with them, especially when the entire rest of the world is pasting on their happy family holiday faces and signing about heading over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house.   Everyone around you will be talking about their plans, which will invariably involve relatives coming to visit them or vice versa.  They'll be excited about it.  And while you listen to their stories of mirth and joy, you will have a tape running in your head that's playing some version of, "My family sucks, my family hurts me, we're going to be lonely, this is new and wrong, can I be wrong about this, etc, etc, etc..."  You're going to be upset.  Accept it.

I have sacred space in my home where I can go and shut the door and feel everything I need to feel without having to guard my face or my heart for any reason.  I can cry a little there.  I can talk to myself there.  I can pound on things there.  I can breathe there, always.  I can stay there until I am able to reconcile what I feel with what I know and that is this:  I'm mourning what should have been.  I'm mad and angry becuase they hurt me and I let them for far too long.  I'm hurt because they hurt me.  I deserve time and space to heal.  Allow yourself all the time and space you need to process the emotions when they become too much.  Remember that you deserve to be treated well and you deserve to not be hurt.  Don't leave your sacred space until you've said these things outloud.  Don't leave your sacred space until you remember that it's going to get better.  Allow me to repeat this, with emphasis:  Your life is going to get better without them in it.  It might take some time, but hey, if you're like me, you'll have a hell of a lot more time without having to serve the N's anyway. 

What's that?  You don't have sacred space, you say?  I beg to differ!  I've been locking the door, turning on the shower and sitting on the closed toilet lid to deal with my moments of emotional confusion or distress for years.  There's a lot of healing that's happened in my bathroom.  It's a great place for alone time, let's face it.  Nobody really wants to be in there with you anyway!

Initiate a lockdown system.
On our first NC holiday go-round, I carefully shut down my cell phone and placed it in the glove box of my car the night before each major holiday.  I didn't check email.  We didn't have a house phone, so there wasn't a worry there.  We talked to all the in-laws and close friends we had (painfully few on that front) the day before the event and let them know that I would be incommunicado on the holiday, and we told them why.  DH had his (carefully placed on vibrate and completely out of my site) cell phone with him for emergencies, but other than that we fell off the face of the planet on those first holidays. 

It wasn't really a question of whether they were going to contact us or not, we knew they'd try.  It wasn't even a question of what they would say or how they would try to hurt us, we knew that they would find a way.  What it really came down to was self-respect.  I and my FOC deserved to have a nice holiday, that's all.  I couldn't help that they knew where we lived or that they had my number, but I could contol my controllables - I didn't make it easy for them to weasel in and ruin the day. 

They day after Thanksgiving, when I returned to reality and turned on the cell phone, I had messages, sure.  But they hadn't ruined our family's special day; I hadn't had to react to their attempts to contact and was able to put myself in a position to choose when and how I would approach the ugly, if at all. 

I know that we live in a world of constant contact, but have some perspective.  What are holiday's really about?  Celebrating life, enjoying the people who are close to you.  Hopefully all of those people are already there with you, but if they're not and they truly care for you, I can guarantee that they'll be secretly cheering you on when they speak to you the day before or after the holiday.  Shut out the N's capability to reach you and you'll have a much more pleasant holiday.

I know this because I became a little complacent during the holidays of year two: I'd plugged my phone in to charge in the garage and had one of those heart-thumping, blood draining moments of horror when I walked by it to retrieve something and saw that I had a message from NM.  I immediately turned off my phone and moved on, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it had a damper on my day.  (BTW, the message, "Well Vanci, I hope you're having a good day with your family.  That's all I wanted to say.  I love you.  NM."  Emphasis was hers.  LOL.)  So, after that, I've been more precise about making sure my phone's turned off.  Holidays are for family after all, and it's just too bad for them that they don't get to be in mine anymore. 

Those are all of the major points that come to mind right now.  I'll certainly write more as they come to me. 

For now, though, I can hear my new flannel sheets calling...

Love,
Vanci