Halloween!

Halloween


I believe that coming from a divorced family has made me a bit odd about the holidays. Which is strange because I hate the divorced-mom/single-mom syndrome that my mom has about Christmas … always trying to make up for the fact that there isn’t a dad around for me. This is probably intensified by the fact that I have two traumatic daddy abandonment issues around holidays. (1) My dad decided not to see me anymore at Christmas, and when he told this to my mom right before Christmas she had a heart attack and was hospitalized and I was at Grandmother’s house for Christmas without either of my parents at like age 4 or 5. (2) I was trick or treating in downtown Gatlinburg (I know, classy) at 5 or 6 and walked into my dad’s restaurant and saw him eating and walked up to say hello and he told me to leave and go to my mother … then I started crying and he didn’t even get up, he had the waitress escort me out and he told me I shouldn’t come back to the restaurant ever again.

As a result I am determined to make holidays wonderful for Raymond. The Easter Bunny came this year (sometimes he forgets babies before they can remember – but not Raymond!), we were all dressed up like Bees for Halloween last night and Christmas will be at home – always. My kid will wake up at home for Christmas … he just will. It is our family tradition.

I know I’m a little militant about my family holiday dreams – and I am a little conflicted. Halloween, for example, has been a holiday about live music and big parties for about 15 years. Last year I was here with my mom very pregnant and we greeted trick or treaters as we sat in camping chairs – the only seating we had – and watched movies. Morgan was in California for Phish’s Festival 8 … I had tickets too but gave them up at the last minute because I was just too preggers. So this year was the first year that we were all together in the family friendly Halloween and it was nice. We’ll have the memories of carving pumpkins and dressing up for our baby boy forever, even if he doesn’t. I do think it is important, at least to me if not our whole family, to be making the shift into creating holidays for Raymond rather than ourselves. I feel very blessed that it worked out that way!