No Such Thing As The Perfect Christmas

If you can get through the day without receiving a death threat, you’ve had a good Christmas.

Can you tell that Christmas is not my favorite time of year? Just hearing the word "Christmas" stresses me out. If it wasn’t for my family, who insist on celebrating Christmas, I wouldn’t bother with any of it and have more money to give to animal charities. I have given up on the idea that somehow everyone who celebrates Christmas has the moral obligation to celebrate it perfectly. The gifts have to be perfect, the lighting has to be perfect, the music has to be perfect, your manners have to be perfect — who are we kidding? There is no such thing as the perfect Christmas, and never will be. Relax — this is good news for all of you knocking yourself out trying to make a perfect Christmas. You don’t HAVE to. If you want to, go for it. But you don’t HAVE to.

Abused At Christmas

I’m going to tell you this true story to make you see that your Christmas preperations are already good enough. Perfect?, no. Good enough — you betcha! Ok? Here we go:

I made the mistake of falling in love with a career alcoholic who (surprise, surprise) was abusive. One Christmas Eve, he snuck out while I and the dog were still inside and proceeded to start setting the home on fire. There’s a gift that I’ll never forget. And that was just the first gift. When I stopped the fire, he beat the living you-know-what out me. The only way I could stop him was to pick up a fallen branch and crack him in the face with it. He ran off, screaming that when he’d come back, he’d kill me.

I spent that Christmas in bed, unable to move or eat any solid food. I should have gone to hospital, but was too scared and, quite frankly, too tired. The only food I had for my dog was a block of cheddar cheese. Contrast this to parties where people frown at the icing on the cookies for not being "perfect".

He spent Christmas with friends who took him in because of the spectacular lump and blood on his face. Guess who got a lot of sympathy that Christmas holiday? And they let me know that they thought I was the abusive one in the relationship.

There is no such thing as the perfect Christmas, and there never will be, but your Christmas is almost guaranteed to be better than that.

So Relax, People!

I was highly stressed that Christmas and had good reason to be — I thought I was going to die.

You’re not facing that during this Christmas season. So, why get stressed over decorations, parking, the mall, paying for gifts you can’t afford and everything that means a perfect Christmas for us? There is no such thing as the perfect Christmas, and there never will be. But if you can get through the day without receiving a death threat, you’ve had a perfect Christmas to some. And now that I’ve left that creep far behind me, every day without him is Christmas.

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