I've decided not to do Christmas cards this year.
I know some folks are doing great ones: whimsical, playful, humorous, or just an attempt to maintain tradition in a year that challenges most of them. I wondered if creating a Christmas card would bring me a sense of healthy normalcy, because I do enjoy making them each year (I'm always in the "find the candids that show us as we are" camp and I think that will always be my style, because to me that's the fun part about making the cards, and it's us), but this year, it feels like a box to check, and this year, it feels especially important to reevaluate the importance of checking boxes when it might be healthier to let go of the expectation.
I've spent a lot of time talking about self-care with my students and trying to practice it myself. I've spent the fall working longer hours than I have since my first year of teaching, with not a lot of return plus the added scorn of what feels like, oh, everyone who isn't a teacher. Everyone has an opinion about teaching in a normal year, but in a pandemic year, it's pretty obvious that the "respect" folks claim to hold for teachers is pretty hollow when they're personally inconvenienced. (I know it seems I'm generalizing here. But also, I'm really not.)
In a normal year, even a hard one, I don't spend this much time feeling so defeated, angry, exhausted, and just...sad.
There are good things. Of course there are. Even in a pandemic, even in this strange context, even though I'm still struggling because what I do can never really translate to a screen, there's still no other job I want. Even now, so much is possible. Especially now, I owe my students the best I have to give. And my students still make it all worth it, so I'm still here.
But I'm tired of checking boxes. I think any teacher could tell you that we're feeling pretty micro-managed in a lot of ways right now (can we be trusted to be professional if we're teaching from home? Some folks seem skeptical about this, and it's not a coincidence that these are the same folks who seem to think that teachers are greedy takers if they dare to expect a professional salary). So I check a lot of boxes these days, boxes of no authentic value, merely to prove that I'm earning my paycheck.
Christmas cards do have authentic value to me, depending on the spirit in which they are given and received, I suppose. But this year, I can't do it. I can't check a box for the illusion of normalcy. I tell everyone I love to let things go and extend grace, and I am choosing to do that for myself as well. This is a thing I am letting go.
I'm sorry, Friends and Family. I do love your Christmas cards and will gratefully receive them if you choose to send them. If Christmas cards are transactional for you, though, and you choose not to send one our way again because this year I can't respond in kind, well, it is what it is. I don't know how to weigh my well-being against someone else's expectations right now.
Sometimes, the scales don't always balance.
*
I spent the first few Thanksgivings after college away from my immediate family. That first year, Matt and I prepared our own Thanksgiving dinner in our little one-bedroom apartment above the roaring traffic of Pacific Highway. I made my mom's scalloped corn, and he cooked a turkey. We had mashed potatoes. He made the pecan pie that he still makes every year. And every year, I would marry him all over again for that pie.
The turkey was a little dry, but the memories of the day are still pretty sweet.
We thought about trying to recreate the coziness of that day, with a little more experience and a bigger kitchen. In the end, though, we opted for ordering our dinner from McMenamins in Tacoma. A big Thanksgiving dinner is only a little bit about the food; it's really about the togetherness and cooperation and warmth. I didn't want to stress about a giant turkey dinner and the kitchen cleanup for the four of us when my daughter is just as happy to eat chicken nuggets and there was no reason to put out a spread of pita crackers and brie or fresh veggies and olives, too. Instead, we ordered food to go. I made my mom's scalloped corn anyway because it's really easy and I love it, and Matt made his pecan pie, because. See above.
It was a good decision. Matt and I took turns heading out for long runs and walks in the cool sunshine. (Matt probably ran twelve miles, but I don't want to know. I dug out my Turkey Trot shirt and ran my own personal 5k, then walked another hour listening to a podcast.) We hung out together. We allowed time for us to enjoy ourselves apart: iPad games, quiet reading. Late in the afternoon, Matt drove down to pick up our dinner and dropped off a couple of slices of pie for my brother and sister-in-law; after all, I think we've enjoyed every Thanksgiving since Isaac was born at their house, just minutes from our own.
In a non-Pandemic year, my high school students make hand turkeys in English class the day before Thanksgiving. Since I couldn't do that with them this year, I brought the tradition home to my own family. I realized, too late, that I'd left the good supplies -- the feathers and googly eyes -- in my classroom. But we had plenty of construction paper and card stock. We had glue. We had markers. We had random bags of dried beans and lentils from the art bin I put together when Isaac was born and I spent nine months on maternity leave with a three-year-old, determined to try "home preschool."
A crafty Pinterest Mom I am not. But we had fun. Even my husband, who seemed resistant at first, got into the project.
"This is actually really calming," he said, as we cut feather from construction paper. He even held up dinner a bit because he wasn't "satisfied with the plumage." I told him he'd have to finish later.
*
Dinner was off-the-charts delicious. Not as good as our traditional family dinner where multiple households work together, but it was never going to be that. However, it exceeded my expectations for takeout turkey and all the sides, I didn't emotionally invest in the preparation while battling the grief over what was missing, and cleanup was a breeze. We had a Zoom call with my parents afterwards, and while it couldn't compare to our usual post-feast game of Clue, I'm still grateful we could see their faces.
*
As I made the choice not to do cards this year, as I said it out loud to my husband and cried just a little -- a strange but increasingly familiar mix of relief and grief -- I wondered if maybe we should just give ourselves permission to be a little quiet this year. Not to overcompensate with more lights, more spending, more stuff, more attempts to recreate the normalcy we cannot have right now. And maybe we should rethink what we consider normal anyway.
No: I didn't wonder. I wished it.
*
Every December, right around New Year's Eve, I write a huge Year-in-Review entry in my journal (my actual journal, not this public blog; it's really just for me). I've done this since before Suzannah was born, and it's interesting to see my answers to the same questions year after year. It goes without saying that I've been imagining my 2020 Year-in-Review entry for about seven months now.
One of the questions is Who did you miss?
Everyone. Just everyone.
It's a strange holiday season, for sure. We've spent every single Thanksgiving since our kids were born with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law. Over the years, we've added a few kids to the mix. It's always a cozy, lovely weekend -- one of my favorites. We've never spent Christmas on our own. But I think about the thousands upon thousands of place settings that will sit empty next year, and about the folks who have never been able to take holiday gatherings for granted in the first place. Togetherness looks different this year, but it means we can still hope for next year. And maybe it's not a bad thing, to focus on what matters, let go of what doesn't, and grapple with the sometimes heartbreaking in-between. To let ourselves celebrate and grieve, both, and let it shape us as it may.
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