The entire family knew what to expect. The girl was the center, the focus, the core of the morning’s celebration. It’s hard to imagine what Christmas morning would be without her. The boy, already silent and stoic at his very young age, made the family so very proud that he was becoming a real man, even before he’d given up the training wheels. They all had their roles to play.
She woke up early every Christmas morning, rising before the adults and the boy.
The fear always rose on awakening. She began the day praying to the god hanging on the crucifix on the wall above her bed, the god that saw how bad she was, the god that held the key to fixing her, to becoming what she needed to be so that the pain would stop. He knew why she was how she was, why they hated her, why she was unworthy of love. If she could just figure out the right words, the right prayer, the right plea, he could fix her. She believed it. And she believed that the fact he hadn’t yet helped her, was just more proof of how rotten she really was.
So she prayed, “please god make me better, make me good enough, help me make her happy, don’t let me be bad, don’t let me make her angry, please make her love me.” She bargained on Christmas morning. “Please god, I’ll be good, I’ll do anything, just please, help me.”
As she got out of bed, she unclenched her hands and tried to loosen her jaw and all the muscles that turned hard as rock as she prayed for peace.
In the few steps to her bedroom door she was lost. Her body moved through the door and the real little girl stayed behind, locked away and replaced by the numb, empty vessel behind the mask. She locked away her true self because this place, this home, especially on this day, was not safe for her.
And it began. The vessel smiled, cheered, laughed, jumped up and down, waking the whole family with hugs and kindness and cries of, “get up, get up, Santa came. It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas!”
While she waited for them to rise, she looked at the tree, and the presents piled so very high and spilled out into the living room. She had to climb over a mound of gifts in festive paper and giant bows, and clear a space to put on the show. She stared at the glowing lights and the thousands of strands of sparkling tinsel hung so very carefully, exactly as instructed, one strand at a time. She felt nothing. That was good. It meant the fear was safely locked up with the rest of her true self. She knew if she let herself feel the fear that she’d cry or be struck mute by it, and she’d be punished. So she girded the empty vessel, and secured the mask to face the day.
On the outside she was all smiles and joy and, “woohoo, Christmas!”
On the inside she was cold and dark and hollow.
This wasn’t just a Christmas Day phenomenon. The girl frequently left her reality tied up in a place she closed off. Because she couldn’t face living in it. If she’d dare show up as her real self on most days, she’d be paralyzed with fear. She’d make herself as small and quiet and invisible as she could. She’d just do her best to make it through the day without awakening the anger or sadness, or any emotion from the adults really. Because any feelings the parents did not want to be having, or did not know how to deal with, could mean really bad news for her. But today was different. She learned that on this day, the day the mother delivered an obscene number of gifts, gifts that she believed proved her own worth, gifts that erased the horror of every other day of the year, she expected to be shown the appropriate level of gratitude and praise. And what was expected today was exponentially more than on other days. She demanded that the girl fill her up today with all the appreciation and love and validation she craved. She must be seen on this day, she must be told what a very good mother she is, she must be acknowledged over and over again. She needed it. Because really, she was the same kind of hollowed out shell that the girl was becoming. If she didn’t get what she needed, the girl knew, there would be hell to pay.
Positioned under the tree, the girl began handing out presents, one at a time, clapping and cheering and doing her best to express what she imagined looked like joy. Always, she was mindful that the mother got extra praise for the gifts she chose and that extra gratitude and happiness were expressed whenever the girl sensed that the mother was beginning to fade, to lean toward the dark places. The girl was highly tuned to any change in the mothers body, shift in her gaze, stiffening of her mouth. It’s likely that she sometimes felt the mother’s mood begin to sharpen before the mother did. This was her greatest skill. She knew that if she missed one of these signs and failed to deliver whatever emotional bolster the mother required, she’d be met with immediate punishment. Because it was Christmas, and if the mother wasn’t happy on Christmas it can only be because the girl was extra bad and being intentionally hurtful. That was the family’s mythology, well understood by all.
The girl knew what was expected. Just as she knew that if she failed to make the mother feel good enough, if she failed to make her happy enough, on this day especially, she would incur the wrath of the monster just below the surface. And she knew, that when it happened, the boy and the father, only wishing to protect themselves, would line up behind the mother and pile on, making sure the girl understood just how bad she was and that she alone was responsible for the mother’s anger, for ruining the family’s day, again, like she always did. The mother, they would tell her, was simply and innocently the little girl’s victim.
When in reality all the girl had done was fail to hide her true self well and thoroughly enough, the father would say to her, “Why do you treat your mother like this? Why do you make her do these things? What is wrong with you? Just look at what you’ve done.”
He never failed to drive home the message. It was delivered via sarcasm or belittlement or the silent treatment to make sure she knew the mother’s behavior was all her fault.
“Why can’t you just learn to get along? Go apologize to your mother. Go to your room or I’ll give you something to cry about. Why are you like this?”
The family’s focus on the girl was a team sport.
No matter how hard she tried, the chances seemed always high that the day would find her, at some point, with the mother in tears, proclaiming loudly, often inches from the girl’s little face, “I guess I’m just the world’s worst mother. I might as well just go kill mysef.” And the girl would spend the rest of the day, maybe the rest of the week, giving all of the emotional energy she could muster directly to the mother, to feed her need.
The girl was afraid and exhausted all the time. And this, she learned, is what it means to be part of a family. This is what love feels like. When someone treats you this way, makes you feel this way, it means they love you. This is what you deserve. This is your lot in life.
This was the gift of Christmas in the girl’s home.
And so it went.
