MERRY CHRISTMAHANAKWANZIKAH !!!!!!!!!

Thanks to my friend Dawn, I can share these pictures. I can always count on her for high quality emails. And it would be wrong to keep these to myself on this blessed day of selfless giving.

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So about yesterday. Yeah. Chrismas Eve. I got up that morning and decided to go to church. I went to excommunicate myself, buy my ticket to hell - aka: have my name taken off the membership book. After everything that has happened, and then what had happened the night before, I had to do it. The night before, Dec. 23, my payday, was my day to shop. I still had so many things to buy for the kids, for everyone. So I got finished about 8:30 pm. I have a friend that I wanted to give a Christmas present to. So I drove to her house to give it to her. She wasn't there, but her mother and father were. I asked when she would be back, her father said soon, I asked if I could come by at about 10, he said that was fine. I didn't say why I was there, I simply asked if I could come back. The gift was a very personal one, and I didn't feel it was appropriate to tell her family anything. It was between her and I. Now her mother has always hated me, told her I was a bad influence because I have children by 3 different fathers ( I got 3 babie's daddies). But I really value my friendship with her and have always just ignored her mom's comments and behaviour. So, I come back at 10. She is there. It was very good to see her, we talked for about an hour and a half. During our conversation, she tells me her parents were curious as to why I came by. They said, "She probably came by to pick you up to go out with her, she probably has been drinking and needs someone to drive".

Yeah.

This was the absolute last straw. A few weeks I had to go to the church because Sydney and Lyndsey were having their Chrismas program there. I asked Les Long, who unofficially runs the church, that I wanted my name taken off the membership book. I got to that point because of everything that has happened with Tyler this year. After what happened that night with my friend, that was it. My sister has said so many things about me over there, to many church members, to many of the moms of kids at the school - she knows alot of the mom's because they also have younger children and she talks to them in Cradle Roll (I know, can you believe Peggy is in Cradle Roll, that she actually was pregnant ? Had a baby? Two babies? That she actually gave birth? That there are 2 little Peggys running around? I still can't get past the fact that she got a man - who wanted to have sex with her - but I guess there's a lid for every pot, right?) She has said so many things, that I'm an alcoholic (wait, maybe thats true, lol - IS THAT SO WRONG????????????), that I drive my kids to school drunk, that I basically don't take care of my kids. That I basically have an unsatisfactory homelife for my kids. Fine whatever. A very wise man once said to me, you can't keep people from talking about you, but you can keep it from being true. But you know, when I'm lieaving everyone else alone, minding my own business, and I can't even give my friend a present without her family assuming the only reason I am coming to her house is because I'm too drunk to drive, thats it. And thats really insulting to her too. Like I don't really want to see her, I'm just using her to drive me around to the bars. Whatever. Consider the source.

So I woke up yesterday. I was having fantasys of being in church and giving my "testimony", you know how people get up there and tell how Jesus has changed their life. And I got to thinking, I really want to make sure that my name is off - now, today. I don't want any more part of that church, ever again. Ever.

So I get there. Walk in. The pastor is in the entryway doing his before-church-pastor-bullshit, God knows what it is they do. I walk up to him, he says hello, very precariously; his eyes are saying "why is Barb in church?". I ask him if I could talk to him and I ask for Judy Long to be there too. While he's fetching her, I track myself down what looks to be a deacon. When you've spent alot of time at church, deacons are easy to pick out of the crowd. He comes back with Judy and we all go into that little room on the side and shut the door. The look now on the pastor's face is "Why me, why today, why Chrismas Eve?"

This is how the conversation went. Well, diaglogue - I was pretty much the only one talking.

"I need to say a few things. I few weeks ago I asked Les to take my name off the books. (I started crying here, even though I told them I wasn't going to get upset.) I've gone to this church for a long time. I was raised in this church, baptized in this church, and married in this church. I quit going to church 4 years ago. I found myself pregnant, with an illegitimate child, in a bad marriage, and alone. My ex-youth leader, someone I could have told anything to, that I grew up with, who I 've known since I was 2, came up to me during the service and told me what a disappointment I was. (And its funny how things work out, her daughter recently gave birth to a baby out of wedlock, whose father is in prison.) I cried all the way through the service and never came back, unless my kids were doing something for the school in a church service. My son, who is in 7th grade, has recently been asked to leave the school. This is the only school he has ever gone to, the only thing he knows is private, christian school. He was asked to leave, not for fighting, or cheating, or bringing a gun to school, but because he is not "spiritual" enough. His teacher sat down with my husband, and told him Tyler doesn't do his homework, and is not spiritual enough to go to that school. The teacher told my husband, who is an athiest, that Tyler should be taken out of the school, that Tyler would do much better in a public school, and that if we didn't voluntarily take him out, it would eventually go before the school board and Tyler would be expelled. I'm upset because you have forced me to put Tyler in an unsafe environment. The kids he goes to school with now are getting arrested for stabbing someone in their apartment complex, and are doing drugs. I don't live in a high income school district, it is a low income one. It is not a safe school. Now his friends are having sex and doing drugs. And hopefully I will be a good enough parent and he will make good decisions. My sister has spread so much crap around here about me that I can't even go to my friends house last night to give her a christmas present without her family assuming the only reason I came over was to get her to go out with me because I needed a designated driver. Thats it. I want nothing more to do with this church. I want my name taken off the membership and I want it done today."

The pastor, not really knowing what to say, tells me that the way they usually do that is for me to write a letter, it is presented to the church board at the next board meeting and "voted" after that.

I looked at him. And said, "If you don't do it today, I will walk up on the pulpit and ask for the vote myself."

He says, well in that case, I guess we'll do it your way. Him, Judy and the deacon, tell me they are very sorry, sorry that it has come to this. I say me too. Deacon asks me if I'll be going to any other chuch, I laugh and say no. Pastor asks if I want to be there when he makes the announcement, I say yes - don't worry, I'll sit in the back, I won't make a scene. I tell then I think Christmas Eve is kinda appropriate. Apparently I'm the only that thinks this is funny. They all tell me they are very sorry I was treated this way, and have a token "word of prayer", asking god to forgive them for not representing him. Yadda yadda yadda.

I sit in the back, a few people, old acquaintances of my parents say hi. In between Christmas carols he reluctantly makes the announcement, saying they've recieved a request for Barbara (and my last name) to be taken off the church books. It was voted and seconded (is that a word?). Finalized. As soon as he finished I walked out. He met me in the parking lot and apologized again. I thanked him for doing it for me and wished him a merry christmas.

And that was that.

Yeah. Merry Fuckin Christmas.

So Nikki, my dear, that is what happened yesterday. And after that I got my 8th tattoo, the Chinsese symbol, or kanji, for truth. Went to Club Tattoo. Now I have love and truth on my left inner arm. After that we went to the strip club - Skin. It was one of those days when I didn't want to leave. I wanted to get home to the kids for a Christmas Eve at home, and at the same time wanted to just emmerse myself in that atmosphere. The music (they have the best music and sound system there, besides the hottest girls.), the darkness, the whole atmosphere. We stayed for awhile. Came home, watch some of those old stop-animation Christmas specials, I think it was Kris Kringle, and then watched a Frosty movie. Just chillin with my kids and Royce, watchin Chrismas movies. Then before I put them to bed I read How the Grinch Stole Christmas to them. I love that book. Every Who down in Whoville loved Christmas alot. I think maybe my heart has grown a couple sizes to small over the recent past. I ended up staying up for awhile with Royce, then went to Walgreens at about 1 am to do some last minute shopping. Yeah, was there till about 2:30. At this point I was all Chrismased out. I think if I had heard one more Christmas song my head would have exploded. And I love Chrismas songs. I looked at my living room floor and all the wrapping I had to do and had a mini breakdown. I was so overwhelmed, knowing I had been going since about 7 am and wasn't going to get any sleep. Royce waited up for me the whole time I was shopping. We sat, as I, in my overwhelmed state, procrastinated wrapping, and sat and watched Roseanne on Nicklelodean. Not one episode, but two. Then I drank some wine, drank a little more, ended up doing things on the living room couch that I haven't done for a LONG time. It was awesome. Between the wine and the sex, I decided to take just an itty bitty little nappy nap - its currently about 4 am. I woke up on the couch, at 7:12 am according to the clock on my cable box, in shear panic, not unlike Kevin's mom in Home Alone when she is one the airplane to Paris, and just can't remember what she is forgetting to do, and suddenly screams "KEVIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Yeah, not unlike that. The entire livingroom floor is covered with unrapped presents. My kids will be waking up any minute (then again they are MY children, nocturnal in nature, crosses and garlic can usually immobilize them, but it is christmas morning) and here are all these presents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I started rushing around very quietly. I managed to get almost all of them wrapped in an hour. Watched people sing chrismas carols on channel 3, yes watch, for I didn't dare wake anyone. At about 8:12, exactly an hour later, I heard something move in the girl's room. They have a loft bed. I went in and told them to stay there (Ryan slept with them last night), I still had a few presents to wrap, and proceded to remove the ladder that goes 7 feet up to their mattress. Won't be coming down now will they? So I finally got everything done, let the kids down, Tyler woke up, got the baby up, got Royce up, (he was really tired, he worked HARD last night, wait, that was just 3 hours ago), and we proceded to have Christmas morning. It all went very well considering, and the kids loved everything and all is good. And when you hear Ryan and Cheyenne, the little ones, squeal with delight, and the older girls SO happy with their Bratz dolls, and Tyler satisfied (I'm learning that's about as positive an emotion that you get from a 13 year old boy, so satisfied works for me) with his video games and stuff, it is all so worth it all. All the hours of overtime, all the stress, all the money. You can't buy Christmas morning. It is one of the very, very precious things in life. And someday I will wish I had so many kids to buy for, I will wish for a reason to be stressed, I will sit in an empty house with my beautiful tree, that probably is much better dressed with beautiful ornaments and expensive decorations than the one I have now. I will wish that I had so many presents to give that I had to stay up all night. I will miss having to be so quiet as to not wake little ones up. I will exchange my gifts with my husband and we will eat Christmas dinner alone. And I will plan my day around the phone calls I hopefully will get. Someday my children will be gone.

I am rich. I am blessed. My life is beautiful and full.

Merry Christmas