Christmas Tears

Amy Rauch, PsyD

Ah, the irony. A time of year filled with so much expectation, anticipation, and unfortunately, whether or not, we realize it, expectation…

Several years ago, I remember telling my husband that I did not need anything for Christmas. I anticipated that I would be holding my new baby girl, and that a generous gift that he had recently given me to celebrate a milestone, would be more than my heart would need for contentment.

And as I sat there on Christmas morning, with an ache in the pit of my stomach, simultaneously, remembering the words I had spoken, and I was disappointed. I had no one to blame but myself. He had done exactly as I had asked—nothing.

I was crying and laughing at the same time. He was pretty devastated that he felt that he had disappointed me. I apologized. He apologized, it was all pretty ridiculous, and I had created it. The poor sucker couldn’t win, but we learned….oh, did we learn!! And yet this is really the design of relationship. Learning about ourselves and exposing the areas in which we need growth. We often work on repairing marriages with just one person. It just takes one person that is open to growth and change to create tidal wave of change within a family system. We learn in subtle ways and sometimes in big and explicit ways….like through the ridiculous tears of a girl who didn’t know what she really wanted. (Me!)

And I’m learning to give myself permission to have wants and needs. Learning that when someone asks me what I want for Christmas, they probably really want an answer. It is not selfish for me to have a preference and it can be loving for me to communicate that to someone who asks. Relying on others to read my mind or to know myself better than I do has only led to frustration and resentment—and Christmas tears. :)