The Ghost of Christmas Past

Mom's tone is different now.

She's abandoned the Joy Behar-hating, decorum-demanding, table-pounding tone she'd had earlier. She's trying to cajole. She's buttery and smooth and even bargaining by offering me antiques from her house.

Really? Has it come to that?

We've tread this path before. About two years ago. The first time I was facing Christmas morning without my kids. And to make matters worse, without J. because his custody agreement stipulates the opposite of mine. Nice.

I forget what the last subplot was, but I do remember that Joe and Charlotte were Hatfield and McCoying it through another holiday season and my mother was trying to shoehorn in a visit with my brother, again, at my house.

I told her I would welcome him (making a mental note to invite my friend Kate who will roll her eyes and drink chardonnay with me so that I do not shrivel up and die) but that I intended to go to Charlotte's exactly at 1 pm, as that is when her Open House began, and I wanted the kids and I to spend time celebrating with her family and her wonderful eclectic collection of friends.

Joe could come, but on my terms. He could come at 11. And even if he is late, and he always is, he has to be actively leaving my house no later than 1 pm. Coat on, car started.

Joe, I may have mentioned, is a crappy guest. Eats and drinks everything that isn't nailed down, lets his kids whirl through your house leaving chaos and destruction and goo in their wakes, and then never takes a hint to leave, even as you are buttoning your coat to leave yourself.

Mom suggested that, "as a help to me" she'd stay behind with Joe and his kids when I went off to Charlotte's and she'd straighten up a bit, visit a little more. It would be a shame to give Joe "the bum's rush."

A shame? Excuse me?

And when I went flying into a diatribe of my own about Joe always being accommodated at someone else's expense, and his taking liberties with my home, and for God's sake, often taking my things, and no, he could not park his fat ass on my sofa all day while I am trying to salvage some semblance of a holiday with my children, she told me I was selfish. Told me that she'd skip the visit to my house, didn't need to see the kids. Could return the gifts. Thanks for nothing.

That situation eventually worked itself out. But only because I held my ground in spite of her tearful phone call campaign to all manner of people. I insisted that I get to celebrate with my kids in a way that preserves all that is good about our holiday traditions as a family, and if it was so important for her to spend quality time with Joe and his kids, she could be a grown up and go visit him at his house, and her husband could too. It was simply not my job and not my priority to choreograph the dance she had to do to keep the peace. I had much more important priorities, and just because I was putting on a brave face did not mean I was not dying inside.

And this holiday season is shaping up to be just as fraught with the potential for disaster. It was coming like the dawn, looking like a blizzard.