Christmas Overwhelm

Oh they were so excited. After we all woke up, stockings were attacked, breakfast was served (pancakes in Christmas shapes thanks to the generous gift of the Best Chiropractor Ever), and children were bathed and dressed. This was followed by an enormous meltdown by Oldest. Yay, we thought, Merry Fucking Christmas, is THIS what the rest of the day will look like?

It took us a while to figure out that she was very worried about how presents would be given. See, what often just appears as the manifestation of major control-freak genes in actuality goes much deeper. Oldest knew that she would get overwhelmed by the many presents, so she tried to get some control over the process to keep her from loosing her shit. Of course the outcome of this was her loosing her shit, but never mind that. It slays me that this little 6-year old is so aware of how just everyday living is a stressful event for her, and as a result she tries to gain control over seemingly minute aspects of her life. Being a bit slow on the uptake, her parents usually see a tantrum, give each other the Look that says "Holy shit, here comes another one, summon all the energy you can to deal with this without getting too impatient in the process, and GET ON WITH IT!!!" Yeah, we're really good in the empathy department over here...not...

But in the end we hit on a solution that would allow Oldest to feel some control without putting herself in charge of running the family. We had the kids pull all the presents out from under the tree. They made piles for everyone, and then we all got to open gifts in turn. Armageddon narrowly averted. After that the kids spent the rest of the day playing with newly acquired loot while Husband read the entire instruction manual for his heart rate monitor without yawning once, and I sat on the sofa reading books and drinking coffee infused with Bailey's Irish Cream. Beats dragging young children to fancy restaurants any day.

When I took Youngest to bed last night, I asked what she liked best about today. She thought for a moment, then gave me a sly grin and said "Nothing!!" Which I'm taking to mean that it was all equally good.

It is rare in our house that we can say that a good time was had by all. As a friend of mine said today, it wasn't the most memorable and exciting Christmas. But judging by the lack of fighting and the look of contentment on the faces of our little clan, I feel full of the goodness of simply being together for one full day.