The Useless Advice We Give Exhausted Mothers for Surviving the Holidays in Like No One Is Reading

This article right here. This is pretty much why I started kind of checking out around ‘the holidays’ (all of them, every last one, won’t even deny it) some years ago.

I’d spent over 25 years of my life with one partner or another who wasn’t a partner at all. I got sick of it. I got traumatized by it.

I remember the last big Christmas dinner I made. Gosh, maybe 2014 or 2016. The whole big deal, a turkey and all the things, homemade-from-scratch. I was so excited to serve this beautiful, delicious meal to my children and husband!

When it was all ready, everything laid out just so, the turkey perfectly carved (I mean, come on, I’m a CHEF), I walked into the bedroom, where husband had spent the entire day playing video games, to find him sleeping. Dead asleep. Snapped my head off when I tried to wake him. I don’t remember how long he slept, but I do remember that it was long past dinner, long past putting the entire meal away, long past bedtime.

Before that, I remember the abuses I suffered at every holiday gathering ever, either from my own family, a partner, or a partner and their family. For a stretch of 14 years or so, I was the butt of every joke. Partner and family, his or mine, loved to laugh at me, loved to see me get riled up. Loved to see me melt down.

Before that, I was my partner’s little doll, performing. There were expectations. I had to look just so and talk just so and definitely not talk too much and don’t laugh so loud and maybe don’t act so young even if I was only 18.

Before that, it was my family and I was the weird kid and I asked too many questions and talked too much and children are to be seen and not heard, you know. I had to sit at the kid table until I was… well, fuck, until I had a kid of my own, I guess, and then I chose to sit at the kid table because the adults were all fucking assholes.

Anyway, Happy Holidays, and don’t take any more shit from shitty men. Celebrate, or don’t, however the fuck you want. My remaining child has requested ham and bean soup (15 bean, ooooh!) for Christmas dinner, and also a breakfast skillet with a smoked pork chop, so we’re gonna make all that happen. There will be a few presents that I probably won’t even wrap (okay, I might wrap a couple, maybe, if I really, really feel like it) because “Christmas” doesn’t mean anything to us and neither does wrapping paper. Also, I got links via text instead of a list for Santa, so nothing is really a surprise. I’ve had a delightful THC peanut butter caramel chocolate candy nugget thingy and I’m feeling fine. I hope y’all are, too <3

Last updated December 23, 2022