Mourning Christmas Past

I know that I am overly tired.

I didn't get to bed until 3 am.

I had another big fight with my 16 year old daughter yesterday.

In fact, there has been a lot of contention in the house for a while, now.  It seems that Helena and Will cannot be in the same room with each other without doing or saying something rude and/or spiteful.  It also didn't help that the kids are both struggling to maintain a few of their grades.  That puts me on the offensive and leaves my relationship with them strained.

Whenever I turn on Christmas music, Helena turns it off.

She gets offended easily and tries to 'punish' me by being as rude as possible... until she wants something, that is.  Then she is all love and smiles and I am the most wonderful Mom in the world.

I wish she could see that, even though it does hurt me some to be treated badly, she is hurting herself even more by damaging her character.  Manipulation is an ugly thing.

The thing is, I don't like who I become when I deal with her bad behavior.  I try to be patient and firm.  I try to have a thick skin.  I try to remember that everyone tells me what a wonderful girl she is.  I know that she is worst behaved for me because I am the safest one to let her guard down with.  I will love her no matter how she behaves, so she can treat me badly without worrying that I'll stop loving her.  That doesn't help much when I am being treated so badly that I wonder why I even bothered being a mother in the first place.  Then, when I snap - when I lose my perspective and stop being a mom and become just a person who is sick of being dumped on - I behave badly, too.  Then I feel horrible because I know I should have been better.  I am older, I am wiser - I am the Mom.  I am supposed to be the example.

I have not felt the Christmas spirit in our house at all.

This morning at school, we had the 'Christmas Sing'.  Each grade performed a Holiday song for the rest of the school, then everyone sang a few together.  Santa was there, too.  The children were SO EXCITED!  They were just about leaping out of their skins!  The joy and magic of Christmas reflecting through 1100 children was just overpowering!  Even the song 'Rudolph' had me reduced to tears!  At the end, as classes were leaving, we discovered that it had started SNOWING while we had been singing.  The cheers and excitement nearly raised the roof!

I realized; that is what I am missing.  The childhood magic of Christmas.  There are no more children at our house.  We have teenagers and adults.  There is no magic.  There is no anticipation.  There is no joy in it for me.

Like I said, I am tired and overwrought.  Sorry for venting.  It helps to get it out of my head.  I hope tomorrow will be a better day.