Christmas 2023: dreading dreading dreading

I have a Christmas birthday. This year is a ends-in-zero year, so it's a milestone of sorts. It'll be the first birthday and the first Christmas since Mom died. Dad doesn't celebrate Christmas, won't wish me a merry Christmas, and sneers when I wish him a merry Christmas. I get a "Happy birthday," though he hasn't done presents in ages, and Chinese food delivered.

Last Christmas, Dad and I went to church and then went to the rehab center where Mom was. Dad saw her unconscious and struggling to breathe and demanded a ride to 7-11 so he could get a lot of beer and get drunk. The next day, I got an earful of complaints about how awful it was for him to see her like that.

I got to see her like that at least once a week. Yes, Dad. It's awful.

When he was well enough to drive himself 250 miles each way to visit my brother in prison, Mom and I encouraged him to go and visit his son. Partly, it was to encourage him to do something he really wanted, but mostly, it was so we could enjoy Christmas without him griping and sneering. Instead, he said he would not abandon his daughter on her birthday, watched football very loudly, and then left us to go to my cousin's house for her Christmas afternoon/evening party. Mom and I never figured out how to handle it, even for those hours we were left by ourselves.

Now she's gone, I'm about to turn ends-in-zero, parties are my idea of hell (ANXIETY), Dad hates Christmas, and he's too infirm to visit his son unless I drive him. I thought about volunteering so I can give some sort of meaning to the day, but if I do, he'll fling himself into a vat of self pity about how I would rather spend my birthday with smelly homeless people than him. If I get an invitation to my sister-in-law's house, I know Dad won't get one, and he'd howl if I got to go and he didn't.

Anyhoo. I'm not asking for ideas. I don't need to worry about presents, because I won't see anyone who I give them to on the day. It's just that I spend eight months of every year looking forward to the -ber months with Christmas and my birthday as the dazzling climax of it all. The first 90% of them were all full of fun and love. I'm just struggling to find my footing as everything changes shape around me.

I have obviously flung myself into that vat of self pity I talked about. I am trying to think this through and see if I can eke some measure of contentment out of December without sabotaging myself, or Dad getting sneery because I'm happy in his presence. 

Or maybe I should just give up and wallow. Accept that all I'm gonna do this year is miss my mother and chow down on Chinese food. Dad does not approve of hiding his emotions, and he will be miserable no matter what, so I might as well sink into that, grieve in as healthy a way as I can, and let Christmas 2023 go in the hope that I can make future Christmases good in some way.

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