O Little Christmas Tree

Remember Charlie Brown's Christmas with the sad little tree? That was my real life painful memory two years ago. By the time I dragged that tree into position, half the needles fell off. And, nobody cared about that blasted tree. I decorated it and we forgot it in the rec room at back of the house. It was months after Christmas before I could work up the energy to take the blasted thing down and discard it.

Last year, I did not get a tree. I got a live Christmas wreath instead and hung it on the front door. (I can still hear my sister's cackle when I told her about my wreath!) While it assuaged the dread of the tree and was nice in it's own right, something still felt unsettled.

Ever since my divorce, Christmas trees have been a kind of trigger for me. It painfully reminds me that the family that used to go to the local fire station to get a tree, then get hot cocoa and donuts and go home to decorate the tree was no more. I hated the idea that I "had" to get a tree because their dad was getting one. And nobody wanted to help me decorate the tree. So, while I was able to Marie Kondo the joyless tree last year, something was still amiss and I couldn't put my finger on it.

I grew up with a fake tree, so getting a real tree when I got married was a kind of novelty. We started getting a real tree when we had kids, because otherwise, we traveled back home for Christmas and there was no point in having a tree sitting in an empty house on Christmas Day. Once we split up, that tradition, like many other things, could not be easily split up into neat parcels.

The first year, I got a gorgeous artificial tall tree with all the trimmings from Freecycle. It seemed like a great provision. It was a generic tree with garlands, trimmings and ornaments in a color scheme and such. I used it for three years (and only had to put it up twice because one year I just left it up *all year*). Since it already had everything needed, I didn't open my family ornaments for three years. I just did not have the bandwidth to deal with those memories.

Year 4, I went through my treasure of ornaments, and threw out the stupid golf ball ornaments and all the other things I just never really liked. I was left with the cute school projects and sentimental ornaments that meant something. My generic tree now became more personalized, but I dreaded putting the darn thing away in the 8 boxes it came in. And again, because of its size, the tree was relegated to the back room, where it was forgotten again.

So, while remnants of the fake tree hang around in my basement, I made up my mind to not use it anymore. It was a reminder of things cast off, just like my marriage. So, I circled back to the idea of a real tree and the Charlie Brown trigger effect.

This year, I thought about getting a ceramic tree but that was just meh. I glumly decided that there would be no tree. My kids have outgrown Santa and it was a joyless experience dealing with a tree. The whole saga was renting too much space in my brain and ruining Christmas. I was really starting to get depressed about the holidays. That is, until a dear friend told me about her tabletop tree. Two to three feet max. Fake, lit, and done. On a table.

That idea was inspiring! The clouds began to part. This was exactly what I needed to hear. Why did I need a big tree? I could have a small tree, with the lights and space for presents. It could do everything I needed with a regular tree with none of the fuss. And my friend did me one better. She GOT me a tree. She saw a prelit job on Amazon and just got it!

I kid you not, you literally get it out of the box, bend the branches downward, install the legs, plug it in and voila!

The tree was small enough that I decided to put it in the dining room, where we would see it and enjoy it every day. It's even near a window, so you can see the lights from outside. This was just the kick I needed to inspire the Christmas spirit. I put out a Christmas village that I keep for my Single Moms ministry (we use it once a year for a brunch and it otherwise stays in a bin all year long). And, drumroll please, I pulled out my Nativity set that I kept forgetting to put out each year! 

This is the same Nativity Set that I kept in the kitchen in my herb window and resulted in a huge fight because my ex hated it there.

This little tree is like a balm to my soul. It fits. It resolves all those doubts and fears in my head about my inadequacy. It's MY tree. MY tradition. Something that I started for my intact family of four. It's particularly poignant that the tree was given to me. It wasn't a hand me down or an attempt to keep an old tarnished tradition. It was its own gift, with the lights that give me so much joy and time to reflect on the holiday itself. Christmas is not about pasting a smile on your face and pretending everything is just sparkly and great. Christmas is a light that shines in a bleak, hopeless and hurting world. My little tree is a gift that reminds me that Christmas itself is indeed a gift of unspeakable joy, mystery and profound hope in the dark.

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In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. - John 1:4-5

The Magic of Coffee

As the only adult in the house for a while, I have opted for instant coffee because I only need 1-2 cups of coffee a day, which I drink in the afternoon. So why am I dusting off a coffee maker now? Well, because I have a 17 year old and after many years of not letting my kids have coffee, he has made the cut.

Coffee is my social drink of choice. Some people go to bars or drink liquor to relax. I drink coffee. To relax. You heard it right. My mother can't settle down and sleep without a cup of coffee before bed. For a Puerto Rican especially, café con leche is a celebration unto itself. If a Puerto Rican host does NOT offer you a café con leche (even at 9 o'clock at night), that is their polite way of telling you the party is over and you need to take the hint. Coffee enjoyment may be in our Puerto Rican blood, but for me, an important ingredient is ADHD.

I noticed the calming effects of coffee for me when I was home raising my little ones. Once they were down for naps, I'd settle in for a cup of coffee and just take a few minutes to ponder the day. If I didn't get that naptime in, I was on edge for the day. Anxiety skyrocketed and my patience was nowhere to be found. (I was also sleep deprived for the first 7 years of my parenting, so all these symptoms were exaggerated). 

However, looking back, I noticed something else. It wasn't the lack of naps that put me on edge. It was that I didn't have that pause with a cup of coffee to center me on those no-nap days. I noticed this because when they were older, even if the kids did not nap, if I had that cup of coffee (reheated a few times in the microwave probably), a feeling of general goodwill came over me. I really can't describe it to the neurotypical mind, but I literally would feel myself relax and it's like I could hear someone saying, "It's going to be OK. You got this." I was also able to focus a lot better and get things done.

That general feeling of goodwill and a sort of calming down of the brain is the EXACT effect that stimulants have on the ADHD brain. ADHD brains are constantly searching for a dopamine hit, which is why our brains wander and we move a lot. It's hard to focus if something is really boring, because we don't have as much dopamine as everyone else running around in our brains. THIS is why stimulants work for an ADHD brain. They have the opposite effect of what a stimulant does, which, for a neurotypical mind, is to boost your energy and make you excitable. For us, we get the dopamine hit we crave and our brains are content. We can stop the searching and now, we can relax and focus on just one or two things. Yes, it is counterintuitive, and seems like an excuse, but it's real. It's why I can drink a cup of coffee at 8pm and drift right off to bed an hour later! 

For me, the effect of coffee will eventually stack up. I can't just go around drinking 3-4 cups a day. But that first cup is like gold for my brain, which brings me back to my boy.

After spending a year and half not having to sit in a classroom and being able to go to school online, my boy was in his element. He was in control of his own schooling destiny, for the most part, and while socially, it was depressing since he missed his friends, school wise, he didn't need meds to get him through the day.

The structure of classes now that we are back to in-person learning has been grating on him. He has anxiety with coursework, boring classes, college applications, tests and a part time job. He naps during the day and sleeps fitfully at night. I proposed that he try the meds again to see if that would help. It helped him focus but he didn't feel like himself and it got depressing for him. The meds might be too strong and he has way better impulse control than when he was in fourth grade. Enter coffee! It's the magical over the counter elixir that continues to work for me. You don't need a script and while it can be addictive, is easier to stop. He's old enough now that I don't have concerns about the effects on his heart rate or growth due to the caffeine (which is why I don't let my young kids drink coffee).

So we'll see how this goes. In typical Millennial fashion, my boy prefers oatmilk in his coffee. (Atta boy, black coffee is like blasphemy!) And, I'm enjoying a cup of real brewed coffee again, at home.