More Holiday Angst

I decided on a New Year's, or rather Rest of My Life resolution. Never become as lonely as Cool Aunt and her house full of animals. I know that I am a terrible person, thanks. Convenience marriages and sperm banks are wonderful, beautiful things. 

I have a pact with one of my friends that if neither of us get married by the time we're ~35 (I don't remember the exact age), we will get a convenience marriage. He was probably joking, but when the time comes (I'll say 37), I will so take him up on that offer. I'm completely serious. 

If that plan falls through, I better have a lot of good friends and high-quality babies with my preferred hair color, eye color, and ethnicity.

You may laugh at me, but after a childhood with few to no friends, I consider a life of utter loneliness to be a very real possibility. 

Thus I write it here, immortalized on the internet, if on my 37th birthday I find myself alone, I will obtain My Future Kids and optionally Spouse by whatever means necessary. I kind of frighten myself sometimes. This is one of those times. But also, I really don't want to spend the rest of my life alone.

My Future Clones

I realized that I am just like my parents. Much of what I want for My Future Kids is essentially my childhood but better. I am terrified that My Future Kids will turn out like me. Most of those who know me will not see a problem with this (out load, at least). Most of those who know me are not my parents. I know that it would not totally unacceptable for My Future Kids to treat me in the way I treat my parents. Which is to say, with almost total disregard to their feelings and ignoring any desire they might have to see their only progeny.
The other day, a story happened that made me realize just how much like my parents I am, and it frightened me. How do I keep My Future Kids from becoming me? How do I keep My Future Kids from becoming too different from me? You laugh at my contradiction and uncertainty, but this is a real issue. It's very important to me that My Future Kids grow up to be polite and conscious of the needs of others. Of course, it's not enough to be polite. I can be polite to my parents, but that's all. In comparing myself to my friend, I realized that I am a terrible child. I would abandon Parents at the drop of a hat and feel nothing for them. I don't really know them and they don't really know me and that absolutely cannot happen with My Future Kids. I don't think I could bear it.

Blame it on Baby Jesus

Today Father put together the fake Christmas Tree and an hour or so later, I went around with the boxes of ornaments and things and stuck them on. In My Future Household, this will be wholly unacceptable. Holidays tend to serve as a reminder of the the kind of family dynamic I wish I had is not what I do have and I certainly don't help. Sure, traditions are just going through the same motions year after year, they don't have to mean anything, but at least you could pretend.
I remember that as a child that I would decorate the tree. I would spend hours, probably, making the perfect arrangement. We had a couple boxes of generic ornaments, and I hated them. I would dutifully distribute them on the tree, but I would always put them on the bottom or in the back. I just hated how they were all so plain and all the same and none of them meant anything in the least. Even the ornaments that were same sort of generic orb that just had my name and the date written in glitter were okay in my book; not great, but okay.
I've mentioned how important tradition is to me. I'm pretty sure it's because I'm a hopeless romantic. It makes up for how I don't have feelings under normal circumstances. I can already imagine My First Christmas with Spouse. A small apartment with a tiny, scrawny tree (think A Charlie Brown Christmas). I tend to imagine that as a young adult I will be poor, but frankly, given my career options, that probably isn't true. And this tiny tree will have two ornaments, the start of what will eventually become a large and eclectic collection. I know. I'm disgusting.
Anyway, about My Future Kids. Every year we will decorate the goddamn tree together like a goddamn family. And every single one of those ornaments are going to be unique and have a goddamn story.
My Christmases used to be much closer to my idyllic Christmas. Some were very idyllic. Going to Grandmother's house, eating homemade lefse and Swedish meatballs with 1-3 aunts and up to 2 cousins. Now that Grandmother and Childless Cool Aunt are gone (one moved to California and then died, the other just moved to California), remaining extended family has little reason to come up and have grandbabies of their own to eat Christmas dinner with, so it's just me and Parents. Now, holidays are just the occasions where we break out the nice dishes and the sparkling cider. Depressing.

UPDATE: Christmas saved by packages of lefse, cookies, and yulekaka sent by Cool Aunt and Talkative Aunt. OMNOMNOM. Mother gave me a book about how water reacts to saying nice things, ect. with the sincere belief that I might enjoy/ learn from it. This is why I asked for nothing for Christmas.

A Christmas Angle

Now, I'm all about the tradition, but I just gotta say. For some number between 1 and infinite number of years, I'm topping my Christmas tree with a protractor.
Hmm. What if Spouse is Jewish? Does that mean I'll have to stop celebrating Christmas? I'm not religious, but I do love Christmas. Would it be weird to celebrate both Christian holidays and Jewish holidays in a household that doesn't actually contain Christians? An interesting thought. You don't need to be religious to have tradition, but I know some of my traditions will almost definitely be lost. I celebrate my mother's holidays, but I don't know them well enough for them to be my own. All I know about them is money and delicious. Maybe that's what it would be like with My Future Kids. Sure there's Easter Egg decorating every spring and a large evergreen tree in the living room every winter, but who can remember Christmas when Hanukkah lasts for a whole week?
Whatever happens with the holidays, at least I can rest assured that the most important thing will not be lost, i.e. the food. I don't care who raises My Future Kids with me, we will be eating SO MUCH LEFSE. Oh my goodness. It will be wonderful. And the cookies. OM NOM NOM.