breaking the cycle

Once I read that breaking the cycle of abuse takes three generations. I don't know how they arrived at that number, but the idea that changing family dynamics is a gradual task that more than one generation must shoulder makes sense to me. Each person can probably only improve upon her upbringing but so much. And if the goal of completely breaking the cycle is to produce an intact, healthy family, that suggests a healthy extended family, and clearly a first-generation cycle-breaker cannot offer his or her children healthy grandparent relationships. It will take time.

Sometimes I wonder - which generation am I? How effective can I be? My mother's father was a pathological narcissist, and I know that she wanted to be a better parent than he was. She succeeded, but not by much; while she avoided some of the specific harmful behaviors that he committed, she kept the same controlling mindset, the same scornful view of children and their needs. Without a change in philosophy, how could she truly break the cycle?

When I started my parenting journey, I was still fairly enmeshed in my family. I accepted my mother's childrearing beliefs and most of her practices. I thought that my beef with her was limited to my adolescence and the occasional irritation in the present. Philosophies like Unconditional Parenting and gentle discipline seemed ridiculous to me, irresponsible, "lax". My son and some chance meetings with more open-minded people taught me differently.  With time, exposure to people who parented differently from my parents, and lots of reading, I came to have a different understanding of who and what children are, and how adults can relate to them.

Is that enough? I can tell you, I struggle with being a compassionate parent. My first instinct is often to feel angry and to criticize.  Author Naomi Aldort would call those "old scripts" - the way you've been conditioned to react, even though it's not consistent with who you want to be. With time, that's changing. I'm a much kinder, more thoughtful person today than I was ten years ago. But young children don't wait for you to heal yourself. They're here, soaking things up as they happen. I was not as kind a parent to my first child as I have been to my third child - and even with the third, I have trouble staying engaged and not sending them the "mommy's too busy doing her own thing, don't bug me" message. Did I change too late? Have I changed enough?

Will my kids' first reaction to their children be less irritated than my own? Will they have imprinted different reactions and behaviors than I did in my childhood? Will they have better emotional tools at their disposal? Are their children going to be the third generation, the one that grows up with parents who can access empathy easily?

mad

I'm pissed, and I'm not sleeping. 

My mother, my childhood, my extended family has been on my mind every day this month. I'm sure it's one part holiday-family-mindfuck, one part normal ACONness, and a bunch of other parts of other things all tossed in for good measure. 

Even while I feel happiness for making the choice to end contact with my mother and father, even while I revel in how good life is without the two of them and their shame parade, there has also been a bitterness brewing inside me. Something I learned tonight put a torch to the whole bitter pyre, and now I'm awake and seething about it.

The lovely message at the top of this post is the FUCK YOU that I never mailed to my mother. It festered in my head for many months, and finally I grabbed a sharpie and some paper and wrote them out. First they were simple line letters, then they became block letters, and then they grew curlicues. A fancy fuck you. Fuck you very nicely! Fuck you very much, y'all don't come back now, y'hear?

It made me smile, and I took the paper and stuck it in a journal. I later glued it in. When I'm feeling especially ticked off, I think of those embellished, bold, black letters and raise a middle finger to my FOO.  Tonight, in my ire, I scanned it and added a frame. It's a Formal Fuck You. I'm fantasizing about mailing it, or creating yard signs, or putting up a billboard, or hiring a skywriter. Yeah, a skywriter.

Tonight I'm feeling MAD. 

MAD that my mother won't leave my family alone.

MAD that my oldest brother said cruel things to me six months ago, things that were totally planted in his head by my fucking mother. MAD that he hasn't spoken to me since, even the one time we ended up in the same restaurant together. MAD about the way my mother played her children against each other, so that they have evil pictures in their heads of each other.

MAD that my mother cries her crocodile tears to whomever will listen, and MAD that they actually believe her. 

MAD about the times my sister-in-law has told me how sad she feels for my mom and my dad, who really do love me and miss me. MAD about how weakminded she must be to fall for this shit.

MAD that none of my siblings seem to remember the times when they were the black sheep.

MAD that in a huge extended family, I don't feel like I can trust anybody except maybe my sister. 

MAD that the habits I learned from my mother as a child make it so fucking difficult to be a patient, loving parent. MAD that I have to work so hard to do something that should come naturally.

MAD that she has the audacity to come onto my property. A little MAD that I didn't know she was there at the time, because I totally would have called the cops on her ass.

MAD about all the time and energy this emotional crap takes - time that could and should be spent on other things.

MAD that my lasting legacy from her is anxiety and depression, for which I take medication. MAD that the medication feels necessary for me to be a kind and engaged wife and mother.

MAD that she didn't deal with her own family shit, and instead handed it down to her kids.

MAD that I'm alone, the only one of her five kids who GETS IT, while the rest still do their adoring mommy-we-love-you-so-much routine.
MAD that this is SO UNFAIR.

And tonight, I'm MAD for one more reason. I'm MAD that she had the audacity to send my in-laws a Christmas card containing a woe-is-me letter. MAD that she's crying her sob story, "apparently I'm forbidden from seeing my grandchildren", to these people who ARE NOT HER PEOPLE. MAD that she is such an inappropriate bitch. MAD that she treats my children like her possessions. MAD that she would tell my in-laws to give my children a hug and kiss from her and tell them that she loves them. MAD MAD MAD.

And MAD that what I really want to do, send her a scathing letter letting her know that I'm fully aware of her manipulative bullshit and that I WILL NOT TOLERATE IT, is exactly the kind of thing I should not do. Do not feed the trolls. DO NOT ENGAGE.

So tonight, because I'm so full of MAD, and unable to vent my spleen all over the person who most deserves it, I'm spewing it here, instead:

BACK OFF, BITCH. My children do not belong to you. *I* do not belong to you. We are not objects, we are not playthings at your disposal. If your grandchildren meant ANYTHING to you as people, as human beings in their own right, you would know that anybody who harms me has NO PLACE in their lives. And if they meant anything to you, you would be working your ass off, night and day, to try to figure out where you went wrong in our relationship and FIX IT. You would not be courting the sympathies of people who are much more important in my life and my children's lives than they are in yours.

My kids are amazing people. I'm an amazing person. And YOU SUCK for not knowing it.

Stay off my lawn, stay away from my family, and STAY OUT OF MY LIFE.

And because maybe you didn't hear me the first time:

FUCK YOU

on motherhood

During my grand file clean-out, I found a document containing quotations about motherhood. I wonder if my own preoccupation with all things related to children and motherhood is related to the failure of my mother to parent compassionately?  (I'm sure it is.)

Some choice quotations:


To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own - is happiness.
- JB Priestley

Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.
- Pope Paul VI


The art of living is to function in society without doing violence to one's own needs or to the needs of others. The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children.
- Elaine Heffner

free as a bird

I've been cleaning up my files in anticipation of switching over to a new computer. Today's project included transferring data from one old external hard drive to a new, bigger one. In the process, I dug around in the old files, deleting stuff that I no longer want/need and rediscovering plenty of great old stuff.

One of the things I found was a copy of my initial STOP THIS SHIT letter that I sent to my mother. When I had initially stood up to her regarding my plans for my youngest son's birth and then took a month off from contact with her, I had imagined that her anger would be short-lived and that we would eventally go back to business as usual. In the past, when one of her children had defied her, she would punish us via devaluing and/or discarding us, but that eventually she would get bored of that, we would pass from being in the doghouse to being ignored, and eventually back to normality. In my family, there's generally one child who is the black sheep, one who is the golden child, and three who are ignored, wishing they could be the golden child, but happy that they're not the black sheep. I anticipated a short time in the black sheep role, ended by the arrival of the new baby, and then either going back to a brief golden-child stint or to the flying-under-the-radar position.

Except that's not what happened. Instead, she acted as if my newborn son didn't exist. She acted puzzled by my attempts to include her in his infancy. She ignored me when I attended a birthday dinner for her, and at the end of the dinner, she handed me a letter. I dreaded reading it for the whole hour-long drive home, then couldn't touch it. My husband volunteered to look over it. After he did, he opted to read it to me in her voice. The result was that I still felt hurt by her, but that I was able to laugh as he did his comic impression of her as an imperious, melodramatic Queen of Hearts. 

It was five pages long and full of accusations and lists of my character flaws. It was not the work of a woman who honestly wanted to heal the rift between myself and herself. It was the work of a domineering parent who was issuing a condemnation and order to her wayward child: "you are a worthless turd, and if you ever want to get back into my good graces, you will get back in line where you belong." 

I think my reaction was supposed to be "I'm sorry, Mommy! I love you so much! I'll never do that bad thing again!" Cue the crying and hugging. I had had that fight-and-makeup before. I wasn't doing it again. My initial reaction was to write FUCK YOU in big letters on a piece of 8.5" x 11" computer paper. Just that. Black marker. And mail it. No return address. 

I decided against that response, but it took me almost two months to come up with something. When I did, I had to draft it on the computer, because I simply couldn't get words to flow onto paper with a pen. After typing it, I realized that I didn't like sending things to her in my own handwriting. First, it seemed like too much of me on the paper. Second, she had often boasted of her perfect Palmer Method handwriting, and scorned my own (perfectly legible, perfectly serviceable, perfectly me) writing style. I decided to print the letter and mail it. She didn't deserve a handwritten response.

This is what I sent:

Mom –

I was not surprised to receive this letter from you, since I was aware that you have been feeling hurt and left out.  While you mention a recent estrangement, I would suggest instead that the recent state of our relationship is simply a more honest reflection of a dyad that has been emotionally unbalanced for years.  Your letter reflects a misperception of events and an eagerness to assign character faults and blame to others.  I am uncertain what you hope to accomplish by sending such a letter.  

I am no longer willing to tolerate the disrespect and abuse with which you treat your children.  I am neither the direct cause of your emotional distress, nor am I responsible for resolving it.  In fact, I believe that it would be unhealthy for me to assume that responsibility.  Enclosed is your letter; I am keeping a copy for myself but thought that you might find it useful in the future to re-read what you expressed to me.  You once suggested therapy to me; I encourage you to take your own advice, and would suggest that discussing the thoughts expressed in your letter would be an excellent starting point.

- Claire

I think it's the last time I called her "Mom". She later called my letter "nasty" and berated me for "speaking for your siblings." She cried to my aunts and my siblings, who tried to tell me that I needed to "just sit down and talk it out" or begged me to "bury the hatchet." The thing is, I had discovered my dignity, and I wasn't ever going back. I was free, and there was nothing the flying monkeys could do about it. 

all is calm, all is bright

I hope that you and your loved ones had a very Merry Christmas, free from drama and family strife. I'm happy to see that Jonsi and Mulderfan did, and I'm also happy to say that mine was the most drama-free yet. Was it completely free from the taint of my narcissistic mother? No. But as far as her intrusions and my reactions go, it was mild. 

The last Christmas we spent with my family of origin was five years ago, when my oldest son was turning four.  The following year was when all manner of hell broke loose. I confronted my in-laws about their long-term passive-aggressive treatment of me and of their son. Later that same year, I stood up to my mother, who was attempting to impose her choices upon me during my pregnancy and the birth of my third son. When I stood up to her, it was completely different from any other confrontation we had ever had. When I was much younger, she would do or say something unfair or cruel, and I would argue. Later, I learned (upon the advice of a therapist) not to take her bait. Instead, I ignored it. I avoided touchy subjects, changed the topic, or just didn't respond to her when she was trying to pick a fight. That was progress of a sort, but ultimately, it only served to allow me to detach from her while allowing her to think everything was fine and dandy, with her in the dominant position and me as her loyal serf. The result was that she was completely taken aback when I didn't back down to her demands regarding my birth plans. I was calm, let her know that I was aware that she didn't approve of my choices and that I accepted her disapproval and needed her to accept that I was still making these choices. She attacked me for not giving in to her demands - for "denying" her "requests." "I do NOT accept it," she snarled. "Yes, I know," I said. Lengthy pause. "Well, would you like to talk about anything else?" I asked? "No." she growled. "Ok, then I think this conversation is over. Goodbye." I said, and hung up. And then shook for two hours. It was the very first time that I had stood up to her in this kind of calm, rational, mature way. I was so, so proud. I followed it up with giving myself a full month of no contact with her. That month was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and not just because it ended with the fantastic birth of my wonderful youngest son. I had never in my life had a time when I knew that I would not see her or talk to her. I loved knowing that she wasn't going to pop up and be a bitch to me. 

In the months that followed, I allowed her many opportunities to show love and acceptance. She chose instead to sulk, to lash out, to accuse, to abuse. Each time she did so, I remembered how lovely that month without contact had been, and allowed myself a little more time. Eventually this grew into longer and longer breaks from her. Each time I joined in a family gathering, she was colder and more disconnected from me and from my children. This was not a mother/grandmother who missed her daughter/grandsons and was hungering for connection. This was a jilted woman, a deposed dictator, a sulking brat. I was able to realize that I never really enjoyed family gatherings, and that she and my father hadn't ever tried to really get to know my kids. She reared her ugly controlling head a couple more times, and I was done. I finally made my non-contact official last April, with a brief email requesting that she not contact me in any way. 

She, of course, has not respected my request. You all know narcissists, so I'm sure you saw that one coming. The optimistic side of me always hopes that things will change, while the practical pessimist in me knows that her intrusions are inevitable. Even when she hasn't actually jabbed her finger into the actual day of a birthday or holiday, there's always a tension, a certainty that she's lurking on the periphery. Often she sends a card that arrives just before my birthday, or leaves packages at the door just after an event.

Last week, I mentioned to my husband that I was wondering what form her intrusion would take this year. Would she send a package? A scathing letter or email? Would my siblings be recruited to drop off her "gifts"?  Would she try to see my children at my in-laws' house, like she did last year? He said that he was sure she'd leave us alone after the sneak-gifts and the Christmas cheese. I told him that I was pretty sure those weren't Christmas gifts, and that I was expecting something to happen. My concern was that I couldn't predict exactly what and when. It could be anything from a small annoyance to a grand gesture. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was right. 

On Christmas morning, after opening presents and enjoying a lazy morning with the boys, we set out for my in-laws' house. They live in town and we had decided to brunch there and do the birthday celebrations at our house for dinner. My husband (he needs a name for this blog, doesn't he?) opened the door and said something quick and low to me about getting rid of something ASAP. I glanced toward the entrance, and there, between the storm door and the front door, were three shiny gift bags, all lined up in a row. Each bore the name of one of my sons in big block letters on stark white cards. I imagine this was supposed to be a GOTCHA!!! moment in which my kids opened the door to go outside and found the gifts waiting for them, and that I wouldn't be able to swipe them away fast enough to avoid the moment in which they recognized their own names on the cards. Fortunately, hubby did catch them, the kids weren't at the door, and he swooped them up and deposited them upstairs. We headed out and had a lovely brunch and gift exchange at my in-laws' house. When we got home, my husband went through the "gifts," recycled the packaging, and deposited the items in his closet, to be donated later. The rest of the day was without intrusion (including from my siblings, none of whom wished us a Merry Christmas - I contacted the one I care most about at the end of the day). Mostly drama-free.

I say "mostly" because as the child of a narcissist, I have a hard time ignoring these intrusions. So while we dealt swiftly and quietly to defuse the bombs Nmother left at the front door, I was still aware of them. It still bugged me a little. I still had that feeling in my chest of confrontation and panic, the trapped-little-girl sensation. 

Here's the "all is calm" part, though: it didn't wreck my day. I had the feeling, but was able to put it aside. She cannot hurt me. She does not control me. And her sneak-attack? Laughable. 

Here's her gift to me this Christmas:

• Her "I'm still here and you can't make me go away" doorstep leavings are a lovely reminder that I'm not imagining her disrespect for my boundaries. This isn't the action of a person who truly wants a loving relationship with me. This is the taunting of an immature, obnoxious person. 
• Her "I don't know anything about you" gifts for my children serve to reinforce what I already knew: that she has never even tried to think about who they are as people, or what their ages are and what they might enjoy. They were the kind of gifts that we used to have in a "present box" in the attic when I was a kid - a bunch of generic, inexpensive, impersonal items that you could grab if you had a last-minute birthday party situation. 
• The contrast of her impersonal gifts to my in-laws' very thoughtful ones, the brunch that considered my children's tastes, the planning of the day that took my kids' needs and my preferences into consideration, all reassured me once again that my kids have grandparents who love them, and that they aren't missing anything by not seeing my parents.
• The intrusion also showed me that I don't have a huge reaction to her any more. Yes, ok, I still feel a little icky in my chest. But I was ok. I had a fun day. It didn't dominate my thoughts. I didn't need to vent to my husband. I just acknowledged it and went on. 
• Her leavings also allowed me to see once again how completely on my side my husband is. He took charge of disposing of the gifts. He didn't want me to have to even see them. I was OK with seeing them but appreciated his understanding of the emotional impact she can have on me.

In short, I learned that I can handle her intrusions, and that they mean nothing to my family. To quote Shakespeare, her actions are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". I'm sure there will always be a next time for her, and it doesn't matter. She has no power over me. 

I'm really out. I'm an orphan, and I'm ok with it. My life is good - really good - without her. And she's just a pathetic crazy woman ding-dong ditching somebody on Christmas. 

2012 can come and get me. I'm ready! 

Merry Christmas, y'all!

christmas present

Assorted thoughts about the impending holiday:

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I'm finding this Christmas season lonely. The first couple of Christmasses that I decided not to spend time with my parents, I felt liberated. I loved not making the trip, not having to endure the visit, not feeling frustrated with all the things I wished for that didn't happen, not dealing with overtired kids who weren't acommodated at all, not having the post-visit recap/rehash with my husband as I sought validation for the things that bothered me about my mother. This year that freedom is something to which I've become accustomed, and in the absence of the newness of freeing myself from spending time with people I don't really love and who don't really love me, I'm feeling the void that's left. Friends are sharing images of extended family together. Nearly everyone I know is traveling. Friends here at home are wrapped up in their own holiday preparations. We're spending time with my in-laws, but it's not enough for me this year. I miss belonging to a tribe not of my own making, but of my birth. It was never what I wanted it to be, but for a long time I believed that it was, and today I'm missing the blind faith of the enmeshed.

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Last week brought a minor victory. While decorating the tree, I came to a little box that contains a blown glass ornament given to me by my mother to commemorate a vacation we took together. Last year, I felt bitter when I found the ornament, and I ended up hanging it on the back of the Christmas tree. This year I realized I didn't need to hide it. The trip was fun. My mother was herself, of course, but I was in her favor at the time and felt special to be included on the trip. The city itself was brilliant, and I felt adventurous and energized. When I picked up the ornament, I had a moment of remembering the good stuff, then hung the ornament in a place that's not extremely prominent, but not hidden, either. Then I moved on to thinking about other ornaments.

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I've been listening to the local "lite" radio station a lot lately while working in our basement. This is partly because I don't have other options in the basement, and partly because they play Christmas music at this time of year and even though most of it is really schmaltzy stuff, I'm still a sucker for it. "Lite" stations are often a tad on the excessively-cheesy, mom-and-apple-pie side of things to begin with, but they really amp it up at this time of year. Sometimes while I listen, I get really annoyed by the blind devotion our culture often has to a certain sense of family. While I understand that for many people, there really is "no place like home for the holidays," it bugs me that this is held up as the ideal, the standard. People who don't go home are to be pitied. Dysfunctional families are celebrated (seriously, if I hear Delilah laugh about the wonderfulness of family dysfunction one more time, I'm going to scream...or send a sympathy card to her 12 kids). I wish there were more diversity in the way people conceive of holidays. Not everybody goes over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. Some of us spend those days with friends. Some of those like to be alone with just our nuclear family. Some of us think family dysfunction is anything but laughable. Some of us think that the best gift you can give to yourself is freedom from this ridiculous idealization of blood kin.

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This is the first year that I'm not aware at all of what my parents and siblings are doing for Christmas. Not a single detail. It's weird.

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the ghosts of christmas past

Every holiday at my parents' house takes for-ev-er. My siblings and I would try to make plans so that we could work around all of our kids' naptimes and bedtimes. We considered the likelihood of kids falling asleep in the car on the way there and/or the way back. We thought about their happy and grumpy times of day. We figured out what time of day worked best for all of us and advocated for having family gatherings during that time. In short, we did our best as parents to set ourselves and our kids up for the smoothest, best-mood holiday gathering possible, and we did our best as siblings to accomodate each other. And really, it would have been fine, if it had been up to us. Problem is, my mom wants to host everything. And she is completely incapable of serving a meal less than two hours after the planned time. Inevitably, we ended up with hungry, tired, cranky kids and way-too-late bedtimes. And, of course, my mother commenting on the kids' bad behavior, which wasn't bad behavior at all, but hungry, tired, cranky behavior. I remember her thinking very poorly of older relatives who acted the way she does and who had no sympathy for the families with young kids. And now here she is, choosing to sneer at our parenting rather than choosing to help us plan a gathering that is actually fun for the people involved. 

The last several times I spent Christmas with my extended family, the gift exchange was hard. Since my brothers have gotten married, my mother, despite badmouthing the women behind their backs, gives them beautiful presents. The strange thing is that the presents don't suit the recipients...and they do suit me. They are, in fact, pretty much exactly the sorts of things somebody who knows me and loves me might give to me at Christmas. I ached when one SIL unwrapped a pair of beautiful, beautiful dresses from a label I had coveted in my early teens. The symbolism of giving a dress like that to me would have been wonderful. Instead, they were given to SIL, who doesn't wear dresses, and even if she did, she wouldn't wear these dresses. They were my style, not hers. She also received jewelry that was so totally *me*.  The same SIL once received gift certificates for pampering, and she hates that kind of spa service. I love it. Another SIL received home decor items that looked like they would fit perfectly in my home, not hers. Both SILs received mother-in-law/daugher-in-law weekends in gorgeous Bed & Breakfast inns with tours of museums. I have never once had a mother/daughter weekend. Not once. (At some point I let her know that it would be meaningful to me, and she begrudgingly promised one to me, then later asked me to plan it myself and insisted that I choose a specific weekend even though I was in my third trimester, hugely pregnant and uncomfortable, and not really disposed to travel at that time. The weekend never happened.) Meanwhile, my husband and I would receive strange, useless gifts, the kinds of things you give to somebody whom you don't know at all but feel obligated to buy for.  Gifts for my kids are generally completely out of sync with their age and interests, and more often than not, they break immediately, at which point she might mention replacing them, but never does.

Then there is the matter of my son's birthday. Kiddo had the good fortune to be born on Christmas Day. This means that on the 25th we have not one, but two occasions to celebrate. We have found ways that work for us, generally switching over to "birthday mode" in the second half of the day. Dinner is his choice rather than the turkey dinner I grew up with. We have birthday cake for dessert rather than other Christmassy desserts. Thanksgiving is when we have turkey and pumpkin pie; Christmas is when we have his birthday dinner...except when we go to my parents' house. Because apparently my parents and siblings are more attached to their traditional Christmas meal than to their grandson/nephew. Even though growing up, the birthday kid always got to choose dinner, when it interferes with the turkey, we can't have that! And can we all share cake? No! I would bring a cake, but they would still prepare the usual pies. Nobody except my husband and I would share cake with my son. My siblings and parents didn't even sit down at the table while singing their unenthusiastic birthday song; they were too busy trying to get their pie. The whole day would be CHRISTMAS!!!!! and no thought about the birthday kid. This is why so many people think Christmas birthdays suck. They don't have to suck if everybody else gets over themselves and gives some attention to the birthday boy. (I'm not asking for a parade, just geez, actually sit down and sing happy birthday and watch him blow out his candles and share some cake together. Be his tribe for a second, will ya?) This whole dinnertime dismissal of the birthday would also be hours later than planned, as indicated in the first holiday memory above. The whole thing felt awful. It felt like my son's birthday was an inconvenience to everybody, like oh, geez, yeah, we hafta squeeze in the birthday song somewhere here, ugh. I don't expect anybody to love my son like I do, but I do expect people to be gracious hosts, grandparents, aunts and uncles. I do expect that a child celebrating his birthday should get to pick the meal, eat it before his bedtime, and have everybody make him the center of attention for just fifteen minutes. I tried discussing my concerns with my siblings and parents, and they acted like I wanted excessive attention. They said they would *try* to compromise. It didn't happen. He was four. After that, I decided that if honoring his birth is such an inconvenience to them, we wouldn't subject them to it. We haven't been back for Christmas since.

Our first Christmas completely on our own was WONDERFUL. No agenda but ours. Nowhere to rush to, no dinner too late for the kids, and the birthday boy would be celebrated and appreciated just as he deserves.  My in-laws usually come to see us, or we might visit them on the other side of town. They make plans with us, asking about what works best for the kids, and they honor those plans. They are genuinely excited about my son's birthday. We enjoy each other's company. Isn't that how Christmas is meant to be?