They say Christmas is the season of generosity, but no one warns you that it can also be the moment when emotional truth slices through years of denial. I learned that lesson at seventy, sitting at a long dining table under soft holiday lights, in a house my son called his own but that still bore my name on every legal document. I had spent the day cooking, as mothers do, transforming muscle memory into service, measuring love in casseroles and pies. When the plates were cleared and the wine glasses refilled, my son’s wife stood and announced, with a polished smile, that it was time for gifts.
She handed wrapped boxes to her parents, then to friends from church, then to the piano teacher. Even the woman who cleaned their house on Fridays received a card and a speech about appreciation. I waited, hands folded—not for anything expensive, just for acknowledgment that I belonged. When the last gift was opened and my name never called, I felt the room shift. When I finally asked, gently, if perhaps something had been misplaced, she smiled in a way that didn’t reach her eyes and said my gift must have been lost in transit. My son smirked, raised his glass, and joked about patience. Laughter rippled just enough to sting.
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