I won’t be eating sandwiches on Christmas Day. I’ll be hosting 12 for turkey dinner after a month of birthdays, anniversaries, shopping, decorating, baking and cleaning. I’ll feel like the filling stuffed between two big pieces of heavy bread, because I am ‘the sandwich generation.'
Combined, my partner and I have five children between the ages of 23 and 30, five parents between 75 and 83, two dogs, siblings, cousins, and in-laws! While the Shnauzer and the Labrador get along famously, the humans don’t always see eye to eye. That means it’s the sandwich generation’s job to do the juggling, and the stakes are never higher than at Christmas time.
My calendar is my constant companion as we approach December, this may be also due to the fact that six people in the family have December birthdays, including myself. Juggling family members who can’t be at the same table as another, lumping some parts of the family with others, I juggle and switch and maneuver to please those we love the dearest. I am the conductor, designer of the Christmas schedule.
Every year I plan to rise above Christmas expectations that bombard us from November to January. From television commercials, to the cooking channel, to store flyers, images of the ‘perfect’ Christmas surround us. I struggle with wanting to create a idyllic Norman Rockwell Christmas and at the same time understanding that it’s an illusion created to keep us consuming and digesting ‘stuff.’ Despite my practical side I fall back on old sentimental customs and repeat the patterns of tradition while vowing to do something different ‘next year.’
Getting that Christmas feeling is harder these days as my children grow into adulthood and my parents grow more fragile. The magic of Christmas is constantly being redefined as the years passed. From the childhood Christmas’s I remember with bulging packages arriving from overseas and the families that welcomed us into their homes since our family was so far away. To romantic Christmas’s newly married, decorating our first tree and learning to cook a turkey. Then the arrival of two babies and the joy of seeing the wonder of Christmas morning through my children’s eyes. Sadly after my husband passed away Christmas became a burden for my children and I. The presence of his absence was like the bright Northern star on top of the tree, yet I couldn’t ignore the celebration that surrounded us. So like other families who have great loss we did the best we could.
Christmas 2014 and I am living the next chapter of my life, a new love and an aging family brings renewed responsibilities. I am embracing and adapting to a different family dynamic with it’s own Christmas traditions and needs. My new and old family is like the Christmas sugar cookie dough I blend, kneed and try to shape into something healthy and beautiful.
I may feel like a sandwich between the ends of two different generations but I’ll do my best to bring them together in the best way I can, and it’s a responsibility I cherish despite it’s challenges. Before I know it I’ll be on the bottom half of that sandwich wishing I was still in the middle where the juicy filling lies.
I’ll look for that magical feeling early Christmas Day like I do every year surrounded by the stillness of the morning. I’ll think of the people I love who are missing but never far away. See the loved ones beside me and feel blessed with the promise of a wonderful day ahead and hope my sandwich’s turn out just the way I planned.
