Lately, around the holidays I begin to ask myself the same question. Each year it's the same. Why do we do this? What is this all for? After all, we live and then we die. Things are nothing more than 'things'. And things in and of themselves are not important to me... which is possibly why I feel this way each year at this time.
Now, I'm not saying that I don't like making gifts. On the contrary. I absolutely love making gifts! I love crafting and creating special things for the special people in my life! And there are so many special people in my life that it is hard for myself to limit how many gifts I make! I had many gifts on the list of 'to do's' for the year that never were made. At all. I think I will attempt them for next year (and should start on them now already, no joke). However, I overwork myself, and begin to wonder what it is all for. It's my own fault, I guess. I also find myself wondering about whether what I am making is something the person is really going to like... or if it is good enough. It really doesn't help me much.
Where the kids are concerned, it is really hard for me. We do Christmas eve at my inlaws, and they buy so many toys for the kids that it makes me feel like a bad parent for not giving as much as they do. I know Christmas isn't about the gifts, but about the love, the time with family, and the time we spend together and on each other... showing love to each other because of the gift of love that was given that very first Christmas, so long ago. However, you can't help but feel a responsibility as a parent to make sure you are the one your kids are excited about getting gifts from the most... if you know what I mean? After all, we are the parents. Right? Or maybe I've got it all wrong? I mean, the amount of toys they get each year is one of the reasons I said that this year I was not buying anything, and I told the kids that. They understood that the items they were going to get from us this year were all going to be handmade or second hand (like clothes). And I have to say that it made my heart feel good when my daughter came up to me after they had been playing with their handmade items for awhile, gave me a hug and said 'thank you mommy, I love my presents'. It really did! So... after all was said and done, I feel it was worth it.
But getting there was such a battle!
The Christmas baking... I wanted to bake so many goodies for people! So very many! However, the time it takes... I just never got around to about half the things I wanted to make, and almost had to force myself to make some of the things I'd never made before as I was scared of screwing up. And I did screw up. I had to restart a recipe completely as I totally messed it up at first. I was lucky that the ingrediants were the same as that of the next recipe, so it worked out ok in the end. Didn't prevent me from having a complete and utter cry over it all.
I've been doing that a lot lately.
Just about every day this last week or week and a half I've been sobbing over something. I've found that I feel dejected. I feel depressed. I'm so happy to make things for people, and so glad to make others happy and make them feel loved... but... I feel so dejected myself. I feel empty. I feel drained.
I've been trying to figure out what my problem is. I never had this before. I've always been happy with anything, satisfied with life as it is, and thrilled to see what I can do to make it better for myself and those around me. But with how things have been the last few months, the stress has been taking it's toll...
I've been completely drained. Emotionally and physically... and perhaps even spiritually which is worst of all.
I'm not sure why, but lately I've been feeling lonely. Forgotten. As though the only thing that matters in my family to the people around us is my children. And I love my children! I'm so glad everyone wants to be around them, and that people love them so much! I would do anything for them, anything to protect them! But... I've been feeling forgotten. As though my children are the only reason I'm visited or noticed (not by everyone, thankfully... I just guess that with how busy things are that I don't get visitors often as is). I feel by one specific person as though I myself am only important for one thing... raising these children. And I'm glad that I get to raise them! Really, I am! I feel so blessed that God has placed them in our lives, and I wouldn't change that for the world! But I want to be 'me' as well. I want to be recognized as a person beyond the mom of my children.
And I'd like to know who I am again.
We've been dealing with some massive stress and family drama, and I've been learning about some scary things that are in my husband's family that are putting me into a fight or flight mode. I am having nightmares on a regular basis due to this. I am exhausted from it as I haven't been sleeping well at all. And being exhausted from stress and from an overload of work, not to mention the fact that we haven't been eating as healthy as we usually do, has been taking it's toll. I've been snapping so quickly lately, and it is making me so upset as I'm mad at myself for it. I just... I don't know how to fix it. I'm not sure how to help myself stop stressing. I'm afraid. Really... and it has been affecting my family. My kids are not their usual selves. I know that the holiday season has done this almost every year. However, there is more going on this year. My daughter has started up with lying, and the kids are copying some of my own outbursts in their own way, and it bothers me so much. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I feel terrible. And I don't know how to change it.
Anyway, the last few years I've felt less and less like Christmas really means what it is meant to. The first number of years of marriage, Christmas was more fun. I loved doing the gifts for my husband's family, just as I did for mine. As the years have gone on, I've been disappointed by their lack of appreciation. It wasn't what they wanted, it didn't matter that it was homemade, I needed to change something, or they don't eat 'baked goods' (not by everyone, mind you). And one the worst was that one of the recipients never recieved his gifts. The baked goods I did one year ended up in my MIL's freezer and we saw them in the barn that summer. All the candy, the peanut brittle (which I made specifically because I'd heard it was his favorite), she didn't send them later on, she just popped them upstairs in the barn. The first few years of gifts I made, even though I put them in the box that they shipped to him, they were removed, and he didn't get them. Another of the siblings actually gave back a gift I had given because he 'didn't want it'. I gave up. I don't make gifts for my husband's family anymore. We tried ticket gifts, and one person never gave. Recieved, but didn't give. We tried collaborating on something for our parents, and that same person promised a sum and never gave. So, this year I only made something for my husband's parents. I was hoping that they would love it as I put so very much time, effort, and energy into it. It's a heritage album. I know they probably appreciate it, and more so when they actually look at it later on, but it was just glanced at and put aside at the gathering. I feel a bit hurt. I want to give up. And... in many ways, I already have.
I guess lately, for the last few years, I've just wished that someone would put the same effort into something for me that I love to put into the things I make others. My husband's family gives lots of 'stuff', not really thinking about the person they are gifting to. At least, that is how it feels. Shirts, or even something like a clock with a moose on it (we don't know why they gave us that... neither of us are into moose, and we have more than enough clocks in our house). The shirts never fit (I don't know why they always buy me a large or extra large or 1X when I fit a small to medium). I had to return the shirt they bought me this year because it will not fit. And I feel terrible for it... because it makes me wonder if I appreciate their gift. And it makes me wonder why I bother putting all the effort I do into theirs... even though I know it is because I want to, not because I expect the same in return.
This year, I've been feeling this more than ever, wanting almost to give up completely... but my family suprised me this year.
First, my sister and her husband dropped by unexpectedly to give us a card and dash. In the card was a gift certificate for tickets for two to go to a movie, and the promise that they would babysit for the evening. Something I have been craving more than anything is more time with my husband, and this gift just made me so happy that they thought of us, that we needed a date night, and that they wanted to help us have one.
My husband had Christmas sneak up on him this year, and so he didn't get me much... but he made me a coupon book with things that we are going to do together later in January... a weekend away from the kids, just the two of us, some time alone without the kids, things like that. And it is so special, knowing that he heard my cries for time together... and that we will get some of this before the baby is born.
Then there was the Christmas gathering with my family. My parents have been sick, but my mom and dad made us such a wonderful meal, and had all of us in their house for the night! There is never a doubt in my mind that my parents love us so much and would do anything to truly help us with whatever we need.
And then we got to open the presents.
My brother had my ticket this year. We decided in my family that the gifts we gave had to be at least 30% homemade. And he made me want to cry.
He made me a 'family tree'. The roots have the word 'GOD' 'written' in using the wire. The heart frame is where the branches start... and in it is me and my husband. Then there were three other frames... one with a pic of each of our kids, and a sketched one with 'baby' written underneath, haha. It really is me in so many ways. I love these pieces of art, but never bought one for myself because I find them expensive and I just cannot justify the money spent... so to recieve something like this...
I almost cried.
I feel a renewed sense of longing to make things again. I want to see what I can make for people... I want to start early so I have time to put my all into things again... for those I love the most.
My husband... my kids... my parents and siblings... and my friends.
And I want to try new things... I want to learn new ways to make things. I want to attempt all sorts of things.
And I want to make something for myself.
This is new. I never really want to make anything for myself. Maybe it's because I don't think I'm worth it? I'm not sure. But I have some things in mind that I want to make now, and I need to learn how in order to do it. I'm figuring out what I like... I like organic things... things that look homemade. Perhaps that is why I love making things so much? Things of wire, wood, stone, metal, cotton. Things that look artsy... not perfect...
Made with love...
My brother will probably never read this blog. And even if he started, I'm sure he wouldn't want to read the whole thing (after all, my thoughts are all over the place), but if he did, I'd want him to know that I am so thankful for the heart that he put into this gift for me. I'd want him to know that he has helped renew my love for Christmas again. That I am worth it, too. Because I've spent so much of my energy hoping to make others feel that way, that I've forgotten to feel that way myself.
Thank you, RJ. Your gift to me has touched my heart this Christmas in so many ways. And not just the gift itself, but the thought and the time that I can see that you put into it. I will see it as a reminder, not only of my family which is what you made it for, but of the fact that I am worth having something like this, of feeling worth something, and of being myself, a wife, and a mom.
And may God forever be the roots that hold this family up, just as He has been for the family my parents raised.
Thank you so much to my family. You have helped renew something in me that I was beginning to lose. I love you all so very much, and I am so happy to be your daughter and sister.
