Christmas Stress

Who else gets super stressed around the holidays? I know I do. I get really stressed. Like flip out and slap someone for no reason stressed. Growing up I never understood the stress of the holidays but now as an adult, a parent and a wife I totally understand it. 

You are expected to just pull all of this extra money out of nowhere and buy people things you normally wouldn't even buy yourself!! Add to that you have the few people that can afford it buying their kids iPads for Christmas and then people like me feel awful because they can't even afford to buy their kid a generic tablet :/ 

I guess what I am getting at is that this so called holiday season has changed. It's become a show of money and power. The more money you have the more power you have. I used to be such a grinch around the holidays and to be honest I still am I hate feeling like I am failing my child because I can't afford to buy him a fucking iPad. I hate that because everyone else in the world that is doing so well for themselves and can provide more than enough for their children on Christmas that I am left feelings worthless and like I am a bad parent. 

I am not a bad parent by all means. My child has everything he could ever think he needs to live. He just doesn't have the luxuries like an iPad and a new bike every year or name brand clothes. He does however have a mother who loves him more than anything. A Mother that is willing to do just about anything to make sure he has Christmas presents under the tree. 

After everything that has happened this winter we were faced with the worth thing ever. We were flat broke. Nothing in savings, no extra cash stashed anywhere and no payday in the near future (because although my husband works he does not get paid until the day after Christmas). So there I was panicking about making sure the kids had Christmas because hubs kiddos will be ere for Christmas too. You know what I did? I manned up and went to the pawn shop. I pawned my computer just to make sure the kids had Christmas and that we would have money to live on for the next few days. 

That is what this world has come to. It's a time for desperate measures. A time where you literally work your ass off so that you can barely scrape by. I just don't feel like that is living. It's barely surviving. 

So there you have it. The cold truth. Our family is considered middle class by our income but in reality we are in poverty. We are broke so broke that at times I will lock myself in the bathroom crying because I am just not sure how I am going to feed my family the next day. Can you imagine having that feeling. Just feeling totally worthless because no matter what you do it's not good enough? No matter how hard you try there is always something that comes up?  

I can I live with it everyday.