Don’t you just want to smack them?  Their whole Christmas dinner is probably served on a bed of lettuce and followed by yoga.  You can be guaranteed that whatever is in that glass is diet and that man is not considering unbuttoning his pants.  They are having a ridiculously healthful Christmas.

That is what I’m going to have, and I will try to make the best of it.  I’m Celiac and allergic to milk and soy.  My son is just like me.  That leaves us very little traditional holiday fare.  No stuffing.  No pie.  No chocolates.  No egg nog.  No Butterball turkey…. The list goes on. I’ve never had figgy pudding, but I’m pretty confident it would kill me.   So what will we have?  Glad you asked!

This year, we are going to have a typically Nithemuka Christmas dinner.  I bought a chicken (because we just don’t have enough people to eat up a big turkey. )  I am going to make roast potatoes, yams, and veggies.  Desert was the hardest part.  What on earth could I serve that everyone could eat?  (And by everyone, I mean myself.  )  So I settled on a big fruit salad.  There will be mango, raspberries, peaches and orange slices.  Delicious!  And at the end of all the eating, I will not be ill and deeply regretting whatever passed my lips.  That night, I won’t be up all night with a sick child.  Merry Christmas to us!

While my Christmas dinner will be ridiculously healthful, I promise not to serve it on a bed of lettuce.  I furthermore guarantee that someone will have to undo a button!

Have you ever noticed that there tends to be a lot of stress around the idea of Christmas?  I don’t mean shopping, gifting and falling deeply into debt…. I mean, surrounding the whole idea of Christmas.  I can understand non-Christians declining to celebrate the birth of the Christian Messiah, but there is a whole other Christian school of thought that sees Christmas as a pagan holiday.

I’ve heard the horror stories…  Christmas is a part of Babylonian sun god worship, and little babies were sacrificed on that day… things like that.  Horrible stories that don’t seem to have ANY footnotes to back them up.  People just make these claims without giving any proof.  So if Christmas is indeed has some sort of horrible past, I could understand some qualms surrounding it… but does it?

These days it seems like a cursing to say “Merry Christmas.”  Again, I am not an insensitive person.  I wouldn’t push my holiday down the throat of someone who doesn’t believe in the celebrating of it.  But I sure wish we could all get on the same page.  Christians say it’s pagan.  Pagans (literal, card carrying Wiccans) say it’s Christian.  And it seems to have become taboo to enjoy a little egg nog and tinsel. 

I love Christmas.  I don’t think that Jesus was literally born on December 25, but I do think we could use a nice, festive holiday to look forward to in the winter cold.  And why not use it to thank God for the ultimate gift?  I love how people are kinder at Christmas and how even the most nominal believer looks up at the stars and thinks of God and a tiny baby born in the Middle East two thousand years ago. 

If December 25 was ever used for nasty things, I don’t think its very fair to hold it against the day.  If I hit someone in the head with a rock, would the rock be inherently evil?  Or would it still be a rock, a creation of God, that I chose to use to hurt someone? 

I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, I’m just a little dubious about Youtube in a bibliography.  And I haven’t come across a source that I completely trust yet on the subject.   Too many people claim completely false things in order to make a point… or to make money…  or to get attention… or to feel special…  Who knows why they do it?  But your average person, like myself, can easily get bamboozled by a whole pile of “information” being dumped onto their laps.  Who knows what is true and what is not?  Who knows what can actually be backed up and what cannot?  Who knows what claims are legit?   I feel rather nervous around these information dumps that come to extreme conclusions. 

So here we have a holiday being disowned by Pagans and Christians alike.  A very nice holiday.  A holiday with presents and candles, the story of a newborn who change the world and a great big, festive feast.  I like this holiday.  I look forward to it all year long.  And I’m sad when it’s over.  It’s the one time of year that people, Christians or otherwise, give a care about the homeless, single moms and kids who don’t get breakfast.

Every year I wonder, what will happen this year??  Last year, I remember thinking, “I’m going to be a mom!  I’ll give birth.  Hopefully I’ll have another book accepted…”

This year, there is nothing so obvious as a pregnancy to give me a hint as to what will go down.  I’m thinking my son will learn how to walk.  Considering that he’s already at the point of walking all over the place holding my hands, that’s a no brainer.  But what will this year hold?  What will happen this year that I’ll look back on and say, “Holy Moly, I didn’t see that one coming!”

This year I certainly hope to have another book accepted for publication.  I hope to write more articles.  I hope to make a bit of money.  I hope to pay off the last of our student loan debt!  That would be nice to be completely and utterly debt free. 

But there is still a surprise coming… I can just feel it!  There is always a surprise.  There is always something around the bend that I didn’t expect.  The fun of New Years isn’t swearing off fattening foods or vowing to do sit ups every day, it’s trying to guess The Surprise!

Here are some options:

1.  Another pregnancy.  Since we’ve done our utmost to prevent that, i’d be shocked, indeed!

2.  My books sell enough to pay off the last of the student loan.  A long shot, but I always hope…

3.  We move.  How that would come about, I couldn’t imagine.

4.  We buy a house!  Can’t see it happening this year, but that’s the point of a surprise…

5.  We lose everything and move into our car.  Hmm.  Not such a good surprise, but it would be a vivid memory for when I’m old and living in my head too much. 

6.  One of us goes back to school…  Oh man, the last thing we need is more student loan!

7.  I am offered a weekly collumn that pays wonderfully!  (Yes, yes!  I like this one!)

Whatever The Surprise is, I’m sure I’ll be floored by it… as I am every year!

Happy New Year everyone!  I wish you a year filled with love, happiness, success and at least one whopping surprise you totally didn’t see coming!

Sometimes dealing with family can be exhausting.  Families are unique bunches of people.  Every family has a dynamic of its own, a way to deal with things, a way to interact.  Some confront.  Some avoid.  Some lie.  Some are brutally honest.  But nothing is set in stone!  People get married, have babies, pass away, get divorced…  It’s always changing.  Someone is always coming or going and affecting the subtle balance.  If there is one thing all families have in common, whether they put up a good front or not, it is that while they love babies, they LOATHE change!

“I don’t know why he chose her–such a weak woman…”

“Another baby?  They can’t afford the kids they have!”

“My father would roll in his grave to hear that!  We will do that over MY dead body!”

Families don’t want to flexibly adjust.  They want to remain the way they were in the good old days, before those pesky in-laws came along, the older folks passed on and new people had to be taken into the equation.  They fight it!  Some fight it more openly than others, but every family has the struggle.

I don’t imagine that my extended family is much different than anybody else’s.  Someone is always mad about something.  Someone is always needing something.  Gossip is flying around at the speed of telephone wires.  Someone is always trying to force something to happen.  Someone is always celebrating something.  There is always at least one person sick or hurt.  And every individual story is being discussed, disected, criticized and empathized with pretty much as soon as it happens. 

But why do you get worked up?  It may be family, but it doesn’t have to concern you!  Except it does.  At any given moment, someone thinks you are wonderful.  Someone else thinks you are the biggest idiot on the planet… someone else is criticizing every decision you’ve ever made in your life, and another person is predicting your doom.  How do you know?  Because people call you up and tell you about it!

It’s hard to maintain dignity in a large extended family.  You can pretty much kiss goodbye any fantasy you might cherish about making everybody happy at once.  While there are joys and tender moments you’d never trade for anything, there are also countless frustrations, squabbles and annoyances. 

Ah, family.  How do you deal with them all? 

I was reading an article by a friend of mine that inspired me.  She talked about Abigail, wife of  Nabal.  He was an idiot, but he was her husband and therefore her problem.  (Please note: my husband is a wonderful guy, and this does not reflect on him in any way!)  Abigail was intelligent and beautiful.  She was the catch he didn’t deserve.  How did she deal with her awkward family situation?  She maintained her own gracious dignity.  She took responsibility for her own actions.  She did what she had to do to protect her family.  She didn’t take negative opinions onto herself.  She had the strength to be the woman God created her to be in spite of her family situation.  And she stuck around till the bitter end because, after all, they WERE family! 

I guess that’s what it comes down to.  You can pick your friends, but God chooses your family!  They aren’t ever going to stop being your family, so you might as well figure out a way to deal with them.  My ideas for this holiday season?  Grow a thicker skin.  Take a step back.  Maintain my grace and dignity despite the mayhem around me. 

How do you survive family?  With the holidays approaching, I’d love to hear your strategies!