Christmas 2025

 I just had a 3-day trip to the East Coast with the kids. We went to a lot of places, but we were free. I mean, sure when we dined and visited public spaces I’d still have to keep them in line and intervene repeatedly every two minutes, but at least most places we went to were almost empty except for at our hotel restaurant. We came back last night and I’d have to set up for Christmas—the kids had been waiting for a year for Santa’s arrival, and I want them to keep believing in Santa until they’re too old and rational to do so.

Angel and his parents also returned to the City of Rain from Tokyo, late afternoon. By the time the brought the gifts that I had ordered on Amazon, it was already the evening. The kids were too excited and went to bed at almost 10pm. I’d have to wrap all those presents after they had gone to bed. I finished wrapping until after midnight, and then I felt upset. I went to Angel’s room to return the suitcase to him and I asked him why they didn’t wrap the presents in Tokyo. The answers were simple: 1. It’s always been my job and he wouldn’t do a good job and 2. They (which means he and his parents) didn’t think that bringing the presents late on Christmas Eve meant I’d have to sacrifice my sleep to wrap them up.

This triggers the same wound in me again and again. Of course they didn’t think all the work was on me and of course they didn’t think whatever they did or didn’t do would mean me sacrificing my sleep. All their small minds can think of is: we do what we were told, which is to transport the gifts to the City of Rain and the rest of the work is Kendra’s, none of their business.

Whenever their actions show this kind of thought, it enrages me, because it simply meant that my feelings, my wellness, my time my energy my emotions never matter to them, even if they say so with their mouths but their actions indicate none. I asked Angel if he’d give an assignment due at 6am next day to his students at 9pm tonight, and he said no, so I asked him why he didn’t think that bringing me the presents at 9pm the night before Christmas would be a fair task for me to complete. He would never do such things to his students or coworkers, and yet he’s been doing shit like this to me for the past ten years. Even the day before I asked for a divorce, he claimed I was the most important person in his life but I made him see that what he’s done to me meant I am much less important than his coworkers and students. He used to say he’d die for me, as in, if there’s a hypothetical killer who had to kill one of us, then he’d offer his life and I told him to die for someone means your offering your energy to spare the other person’s. His understanding of love and care is completely wrong and shallow.

I ended up going to bed at 3am and the kids would wake up at 6am so I decided I’d give up seeing their excited faces in the morning and I’d just watch the surveillance camera footage afterwards. When I got up at almost 11am and checked the footage, I saw that Angel was blocking the gift area the whole time, telling the kids that they couldn’t open the presents until mommy got up. This totally enraged me again. What I wanted to see was their faces when they saw that there was magic in the house, not when they saw what the presents were. To this day Angel still doesn’t understand why I put in so much effort to decorate for Christmas, to set up for Santa secretly because the whole point to make the kids believe in life’s magic. Him blocking the presents from the kids totally ruined it.

Then his parents came to our house to hang out with the kids. The more I see them the more I feel triggered, because they don’t understand me, never understood me, and they won’t try. I took Little O out for lunch and after we came home, his dad asked me, “did you have a nice lunch?” I asked, “how do you define nice? Are you talking about quiet fine dining or me having to intervene with Little O’s stomping and noise making every 120 seconds?”

I am very fed up with their casual chats—like everything’s nice; everything is interesting but in fact, they just don’t see my suffering and they don’t try to understand it either. I’d stay married if Angel’s family could actually offer any compassion or the feeling of holding me when I went through all those abusive events with my kids all alone, but none of the could. All they think is that I love the kids and the kids make me happy and every mother has to go through that anyway. Therefore the more I see them, the angrier I get.

So yes, this Christmas, almost everything has gone wrong, although I do remember the moment when the kids opened my door and told me “mommy Santa came to our house!”