Three Christmases ago my mother, who had demanded that Christmas Eve be spent at her house for the last 20 years, got pissed off at my NSister-in-Law for what amounts to "taking her for granted". It was a touch more complicated than that, and involves the fact that my NSister-in-Law is also, well, a Narc, and thinks the world revolves around her family and her traditions and everyone else becomes second-class citizens in her view. But even with that, Christmas Eve was always at my mom's house. It was a given.
So my mom gets pissed off at my Sister-In-Law about some imagined slight too far involving yard work, and decides to cancel Christmas. Her excuse was "she was working on the trim and the house wasn't presentable". Ok, fine. I did not make the 6 hour drive because if she was too stressed out to host Christmas, she was too stressed out to host company, I spent it with my partner. At this point she still will accept visits from her two grandchildren (who, I might add, live less than 3 blocks from her).
Suddenly after this, she cuts out my brother's entire family, not just the NSister-in-Law. Even the kids. This is not the first time my mother has taken perceived intentional slights from children and taken them deeply personally, as if children should be held to some beyond-adult standards of decorum. She did, after all, very dramatically stab a refrigerator a few dozen times, and then went on cooking strike where we were only able to eat cereal for 2 weeks when my brother and I did not appreciate her meals enough one day. Because 8 and 9 year olds are always the most grateful of creatures.
It is, however, the first time that my mother decides that NSister-in-Law is coaching the then 6 year old to get my mother to hang out with NSister-in-Law's dad, include him as "part of the family", so that her family could trump one of our family's traditions. Ok, right, Mom. The 6 year old is part of a Machiavellian plot to get you to hang out with someone who's just mildly annoying who just lost his wife and needs to be distracted with good cheer and somehow any of this is planned and not the 6-year-old just thinking out loud like she does at all times. And somehow the thought of spending a few hours with someone who is just irritating is a massive betrayal on my brother's family part. But her paranoia aside, I digress.
The next Christmas flies by, same thing. "I'm working on the trim", etc excuses. So again, I don't come down, my brother comes to me with his wife and kids. We have a fine time. But still I am puzzled why my mom has cancelled Christmas for the 2nd year in a row. At this point I am fairly mad, and do not come down because she is now cold with me every time I talk to her. I ask her several times if she wants me to come down anyway, but she does not.
Turns out every time the kids go over to talk to her she is turned away. If they leave her presents, she sends them cold, impersonal letters back. At this point I am the only one who has talked to my mother in more than a year.
This year turns around, I don't even hold out hope that our tradition will carry on because now it's not the trim that is the excuse, it's that the dog is old and has separation anxiety and it's too stressful for him. I ask my mom about my ornaments that I have had since 1983 that I have never been allowed to take to my own home because of this family tradition, nor was there really a reason to. Several had been lost (most likely because Abusive NStepdad possibly threw them away to be an asshole and then denied it which has been the fate of many a sentimental thing in the house...it is then blamed on either me or my brother). I want to replace the lost ones. So she tells me "oh you can just take them with you when you visit". Ok cool.
I come up on Friday, stay with my brother for a few days and arrange to go over there on Sunday, because my mother has said "don't come over if you're only staying for a half hour, it stresses the dog out".
I get there. My mother has packed up all of the Christmas decorations. Including like 20 years of ornaments I had made her. "You're taking these with you" my stepdad chimes in with "it's you or the thrift store". "The next time you come you're taking your grandmother's Christmas village".
And you know what? The fucking trim that took 2+ years to redo that was the cause of the first two cancelled Christmases was NOT EVEN UP. It was sitting in a stack behind the dining room table.
The weirdest thing though: I also took a bunch of childhood stuff because they kept talking about how "everything must go", and in the top of the hutch while I was looking for something I found several years worth of holiday cards addressed to my niece and nephew. Easily 12-16 cards. All definitely had cash.
Submitted January 01, 2018 at 02:20PM by KilljoyMcCoy http://ift.tt/2qbStV0 raisedbynarcissists
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