Amy called to talk about the holidays and her children. She knows herself well as a mother with traditions. She doesn’t know who she is when holidays fall apart. This year, Thanksgiving, to her, is falling apart. The children cannot come home. One is going to the in laws. Her daughter is going to stay at a friend’s from college and bring her boyfriend there. Cost and time influenced her decision. Reality is, she wants to be with her boyfriend this year. He can’t afford a ticket nor can anyone pay for him. Ouch for mom and dad!.
When you get disappointed, you get to cry and grieve that traditions aren’t solid anymore. Children leave, which of course you hope for, and at the same time, you want to be with them on the holidays. You don’t like it but CHILDREN LEAD NOW. The more you give them the empowerment to make choices, the more they mature. The more you don’t demand, the more they long for you. Even those ideas aren’t solid.
So what is solid?
You make plans for yourself. You focus on your new self and role. Your motivation is to love and not limit or guilt. Be the role model you would want to see in life.
Here are some ideas to ease the pain. Pain is very real. You have to shift your role and perceptions, just when you hoped your children would be around the Thanksgiving Table. You hurt when others have their plans, their children at home, and you don’t.
1. Choose another time to share Thanksgiving meal and traditions of football or games or asking, “IS THE TURKEY DONE YET?”
2. Invite someone over for dinner and do a pot luck.
3. Serve at a community shelter.
4. Go out for Turkey dinner.
5. Tell the children it is not negotiable to not connect with them that day.
6. Lower your expectation that they will remember to call, so ask when would be a good time to call so you don’t interrupt their plans.
7. Cry when you need to cry. You don’t have to figure out the tears, just let them fall. Means you love when you cry.
8. Take a drive into nature for the day.
9. Remind yourself of all the wonderful memories you have .
10. Rent videos before Thursday.
11. Read the book you always wanted to read and shift your perception that you are “abandoned” and now, you are free to do what you want this year of Thanksgiving. Not easy for sure…baby steps
12. Light candles and bring in food.
13. Play uplifting music.
14. Ask yourself if you really love the holiday or the tradition of gathering? Do you think you did it for years for the children and have a part of you that is released from the TO DO LIST?
15. Volunteer, if you have the energy, reading to children, food pantry, soup kitchen, drop off food for FIREMAN.
16. Ask for photos of their day that they can email to you when they get a chance.
17. Share a recipe with them a week before. Send it by email It doesn’t matter if they use it, it matters that you did something you wanted to do.
18. Remember the humor from past holidays when you forgot to serve the rolls that you left in the refrigerator. You forgot to turn on the oven. No one picked up the pies. You had five apple pies from pot luck and no green beans.
19. Send a tin of cookies if you love baking.
20. Be gentle with yourself. Change happens even if you don’t choose it.
May the holidays open you to remembering the good of your life and the tears that heal.
Natalie
Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
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