Struggling with finding peace in the midst of Christmas chaos
It’s almost Christmas, and it’s snowing. I have a fire going with last night’s leftover wood, fresh coffee in my cup, and Annie Lennox is on the stereo, warbling on about nightingales, shepherds, and snowflakes. There are four grandchildren in the next room, being generally quiet, which is still twice as loud as anything else in this house on a normal basis. Jane is wandering around the kitchen, moving things about and doing Lord knows what. Sometimes, I think she’s simply doing laps around the house, just to get her steps in.
The thing about kids is, I don’t really care for them. They’re fine one-on-one, and I’m quite fond of all my grandchildren, but when you get several of them together, they lose their minds and become little more than feral banshees. I struggle with the sheer volume of noise they’re capable of in the most mundane of circumstances. It’s not even loud talking, but rather some sort of perverse need to fill the silence with whatever babble falls from their lips. A combination of singing, chanting, gibberish, and bits of words and phrases, unintelligible all. They like to repeat sounds and words, over and over, like psychotic Buddhist monks on a meth-infused bender. It’s exhausting and pushes my addled brain to the limits of human composure.
Once children reach a certain age, somewhere between childhood and adulting, they become even more annoying, reaching the pinnacle of arrogance and ignorance that only youth can produce — outside of professional politics, that is. It’s those middle to high school years. The teen ones. From 13 to 16 for girls, and 15–19 for boys. They know everything, of course. They’re confident yet terrified, the ultimate in blustery imposter syndrome. A real train wreck of social instability and hubristic scorn.
There is another aspect of childhood I abhor, which is less nature and more nurture, and that is the modern child’s sense of entitlement. This is entirely parent-driven and culture-centric, a byproduct of a hundred different factors, but it results in children who assume the world revolves around them. They should be forgiven for thinking so, since this has been their experience their entire lives. This is clearly acceptable behavior at home, and I find it disturbing on many levels.
Despite my horror in hearing the adage early in my youth, I’m fully on board with the age-old presumption that children should be seen and not heard. I think this may have been where we went wrong as a society. The moment we allowed children to sit at the adults’ table and join the conversation, we were screwed. What was once an inner sanctum has been disturbed by unnecessary noise and idle chatter. We’re dumbing down adult discourse in the name of infantile inclusion. I blame my children and everyone their age. Millennials, I think we call them.
We’re not supposed to feel this way, of course, as we’re all required to be delighted by everything kids do, no matter how inane or pedestrian. Children are tiny, capricious gods, worshipped and catered to as if they were little Dali Lamas reborn.
Let’s just say that the sound of children playing is not the music to my ears; I’ve been led to believe it should be. I suppose that makes me a bad person, or at least old, but either way, I’m at peace with this. Children might be the future, but they’re not my future. They belong to their own time, and I to mine. We’ll be lucky if they take care of us at all. I don’t have high hopes, to be honest.
I don’t know where else to put this, but another of my complaints is all the stomping and running everywhere they go. I don’t know how a fifty-pound child can walk with such force. When they aren’t running full speed, they’re stomping through the house, footsteps heavy with intention. I weigh 200lbs and manage to barely touch the ground compared to these rug rats. They walk like they’re angry at the floor.
Not so long ago, Christmas was a religious holiday, adult-oriented and sober, with tinges of cultural affectations aimed at indoctrinating children. The gifts were the carrot to the stick of being found unworthy of said gifts, due to challenges in behavior. Mind your parents and do your chores, or Krampus will shit in your soul, or whatever it is he does. Be good or end up on the Naughty List and end up with a sock full of coal rather than that doll or toy train you were angling for. Classic behavior manipulation. Even that’s been farmed out to a third-party elf and shelf association, which is more performance art than actual parenting.
The point is, Christmas wasn’t always entirely driven by the whims and delights of children. This is a fairly modern predicament, surely originated by Boomers and their endless desire to follow Peter Pan to Never Neverland. I suspect that most of our energies are not about actually pleasing the children themselves, but in trying to relive our own childhoods by attempting to live vicariously through them. We want to recapture the magic by indoctrinating the kids into our traditions. You can refer to me as Exhibit A.
I’m a bit of a curmudgeon and lightly misanthropic, to be sure, so it’s not as if I’m picking on children, per se. I’m just including them in the pantheon of things about the human race that regularly annoy the ever-loving shit out of me. I’ve become slightly intolerant of dogs and cats as well, so it’s not entirely restricted to Homo sapiens, but it’s mostly people, no matter their size or age. I’m a sensitive soul with a grudge. What are you gonna do?
I’ve been known to ask the birds in the trees outside to settle down.
Admittedly, kids have their moments.
Last night, we had four of our seven grandchildren over. Three from one family, and one from another. We took them to see a live nativity at a local church down the road, and the kids were not only well-behaved but fully engaged. The church skipped the animals this year, so it was just a bunch of adults standing around wearing a lot of scarves and head wraps, looking adoringly at the fake baby doll in the manger. Not a lot to maintain the attention of four young children. But there were snacks inside, so we entered the church for cookies and hot chocolate. Predictably, the hot chocolate was deemed “too watery” by the youngest and handed back. I tasted it, and it was fine, but not up to his high culinary standards.
We went into the sanctuary, where the pastor’s wife gave us a brief tour. This is a tiny, adorable church with wooden pews and a simple altar, but they had both a piano and an organ, both of which she played and accompanied herself by singing full songs. The kids paid attention the whole time, in silent rapture, which I found astonishing.
We went back outside and found the popcorn machine in full swing, manned by Pastor Bob himself. He asked the kids if they wanted popcorn, and they all demurred until he offered butter, and then everyone suddenly changed their minds and lined up. Before long, they found three playground attractions, two whales and a dolphin, on springs mounted to the ground. I haven’t seen these in what seems like forever, as they are no longer standard fare in today’s modern playgrounds. The kids played quietly, springing back and forth, laughing and carrying on, eventually drawing the attention of other children who wandered over to join them.
When we got home, they all had Raman noodles, ice cream, and watched Christmas movies till they fell asleep. They woke this morning to snow, of all things, and it’s been a madhouse ever since. It’s 11am, and they’ve already had French toast, played in the snow, stripped out of their wet clothes while Uppie tossed them in the dryer, wandered around in underwear and oversized tee shirts, had a hot chocolate tea party, and one ordered more soup.
Now they are all on the floor wearing freshly laundered clothes, doing puzzles on the carpet in front of the fire. They’ve all been good, but it’s nearing that time when someone is bound to melt down. It’s inevitable.
Michael, the oldest, got picked up at 7:30am to attend a wrestling tournament, followed hours later by the youngest getting picked up by another grandparent to participate in the same tournament. Just now, our other daughter picked up the two girls. Michael won his division, and they sent us a picture of him standing on the podium with what looks like a boxing title belt. It looked as if he won the season at the national level, not a single tourney in South Jersey.
Soon after, we received a video of the little one pinning his opponent in the first round. The minute the whistle blew, he tackled the other kid and quickly pinned him. I wondered aloud if the other kid even knew he was wrestling, because he never appeared ready, willing, or able to defend himself. Like he’d wandered in off the street and someone had convinced him to wear a singlet and “stand over there.”
The world is a crazy place.
Jane is getting ready to go for a walk in the snow with her sister. I will soon bundle up and take my own walk, and when I return, the house will be quiet, once again. That’s how I like it, but I’ve learned that there’s no way of enjoying your life if you don’t step outside your comfort zone now and again, if for no other reason than to appreciate what you already have. The grandchildren force me to be patient and kind, slow to anger and quick to praise. They remind me to be human and to appreciate small things, like hot chocolate, wooden puzzles, and endless imagination.
This doesn’t mean I like kids any more than I ever did, and certainly not your kids. There are times, I can barely tolerate my own. I have little patience for anyone else’s. But I am grateful to be reminded, from time to time, that Christmas doesn’t come from a store and possibly means a bit more. I’m not saying my old Grinch heart grew three sizes that day, but let’s just agree that it swelled some.
Probably high blood pressure.
Follow David Todd McCarty on Mastodon.