As this pregnancy develops I am constantly reminded about how many days there are till Christmas. Everyone reminds me almost daily " OH a Christmas baby how fun!" or "How long till your due?" Don't get me wrong I am excited about this baby coming and yesterday I realized I only have 10 weeks left, I'm almost there! At first I was so excited and the more I thought about it the more I got depressed. I do have alot to do before our next bundle of joy arrives and I will be doing the majority of my shopping as big as a whale (well maybe if my belly starts to grow) but that's still not what i get upset about when I think about my due date. I am a CHRISTMAS SCROOGE!!!! Some that are reading this are probably questioning why?? and others are probably saying to themselves "Brandy no your not your always happy at Christmas!" I'll reply to the second statement first. Everything I am at Christmas is a lie. I wear a mask at Christmas. I am a Christian and when I think about the real meaning of Christmas, I feel joy and I am filled with happiness, That our God created such a wonderful event on that day in Bethlehem. But as everyone else in today's society I am reminded that Christmas is also a busy time full of gift shopping, preparing to have the feast of the year and at last the dreaded FAMILY TIME. Don't get me wrong I love my family with all my heart, I really do. Growing up I knew the meaning of Christmas and I believed in god and the bible but I was raised in a non christian home. I was 9 years old when my parents were saved and even after that I lived in a non christian home. They were Christians but the never shared their beliefs with my brother and I. Now looking back I'm not sure I would consider them Christians, they wernt and are not like any of the Christians I am around now including myself. Anyways, back to the dreaded family time. As the end of November rolled around each year I would find my parents arguing about money and my mom was always very very short with us at this time of year. The mood in our house was not a joyous one that it should have been. We would always set our FAKE tree the 2nd weekend in December and this was not as a family, well I guess in a sense it was but also in a sense it wasn't. I would put Christmas music on and try to set the mood but it never killed the sadness and stress that was in the air. My dad would head downstairs and pack up the tree and all the decorations. Once upstairs he would sit at the kitchen table smoking and drinking egg nogg and reading the paper, completely ignoring us. My mom would start trying to unravel the lights from the mess they were left in from the year before. Once she got them apart she would put them on the tree followed by the garland and then she would retire to the kitchen table and join my father in doing her own thing. The decorations were left for my brother and I to fight over. We would argue and argue over who was going to put up which decoration and after a few hours the tree was decorated and my dad would come back into the room and put the angel on. We would all stand there and watch her twinkle for a moment and then my mom would say "bedtime" and we would all go to bed. So is this normal, to me it was. Pretty much the whole month of December my mom would be on the brink of tears and my dad had a constant scowl. When we went out to do our shopping they would constantly argue and bicker on how much they should spend and they had a strict budget that they had to follow. They were miserable. Then the 24th would roll around and they would pack almost all of the wrapped presents up in the car along with us and we would star our trek. We had an in law, out law rule in our family, meaning one year we would spend Christmas day with my moms family and the next Christmas day was spent with my dads mom or dad. So Christmas eve we would travel to one families house. We would get there unload the car, eat , open presents, and visit for a moment all the while being told by whoever was hosting (either my grandma (dads mom),my mama(moms mom), or grandma Ethel (dads step mom)) That this situation sucks because they couldn't have CHRISTMAS DAY with us. So we would finally hop back into the car drive who knows how long and get home at extremely ridiculous hour and go to bed. We would then wake up, open our presents, eat a quick bowl of cereal, pack up yet another box of presents and go to the next family members house. We would get there and unload the car, visit, eat, open presents, visit all the while being told by whoever was hosting (either my grandma (dads mom),my mama(moms mom), or grandma Ethel (dads step mom)) That this situation sucks because they couldn't have CHRISTMAS DAY with us last year or next year. Then we would pack up all of the stuff we were given and travel home again at a ridiculous hour and go to bed. Then we would get up, have a few hours to play with all our new toys and we would get ready to go again and do it all over. Finally on the 27th we were able to sleep in and get up and rediscover all the things we had got over the past 3 days. This day was not always free time though, some years we had to go to families houses that had stayed home instead of coming to the crazy family gatherings. During all of those years there was one that we got to stay home on Christmas day but that Christmas was no fun because my mom was hosting so we had all the family come over and we spent the 2 weeks before that in a cleaning frenzy. So since I have been with Nathanael this has been how our Christmas' have been. Well they have been worse because now we have 2 more families to add in. This last year we didn't even spend Christmas Day together. He stayed at his parents with Joey, while I travelled 4 hours with Carver to be with my family then I travelled back the next day and spent boxing day with more of my family without Nathanael and Joey. When I finally got back late boxing day I was in tears. I missed Christmas with MY FAMILY and we vowed to each other that this year would be different. It will that's for sure. We are going to Nathanaels family Christmas dinner and then we are staying home. We ,might not even make it there if I'm in labour.