Christmas Grace

Christmas Grace

Two simple words I have always tried to remember during Christmastide. As a devout Catholic, Christmas holds a special place in my heart. Salvation came to earth. Hope was born. This year was a very bittersweet Christmas for me; the holidays were hard. Thanksgiving was a little easier as it doesn’t hold as much religious significance in my life. But I’ve been a hot mess all holiday season.

This will certainly go down as a Christmas to remember. Or a Christmas where grace afforded me was hard to come by. I used to have a homeschooling blog that I shut down because the contents upset some family members– but on there, I related some funny stories about my Catholic faith, homeschooling and being a stay at home mom. It was a family centered blog about faith and family — this blog has been mostly for my nature adventures and treks with a side of personal details and other topics.

Confession is a part of every devout Catholic’s life. At least it should be. It’s not an easy task to undertake, if I am being honest. You’ve got to bare your soul. In doing so, sometimes things go completely wrong. I now have a list of my three worst confession faux pas ever. Three. The list got updated this Christmas Eve.

Many, many years ago, after my youngest sons were diagnoses with a second rare disease, I was battling my brain to come to acceptance. That is not an easy task to accomplish, either. I’d also recently had one of the 19 miscarriages I’ve had in my life. I was a HOT mess. I confessed that I was angry. Did not go into detail. Just confessed anger. It goes against the 5th Commandment, thou shalt not kill. The priest asked me who I was angry with. My brain swirled. I was just angry at the situation mostly. Overwhelmed with another diagnosis. I muttered, “God, I suppose.” The man YELLED and I am sure anyone outside the confessional heard him. “You are angry with God!!!? WHY are you angry with GOD!!!?” I broke down. This priest was an old Irish priest and I loved him dearly, but I never went back to confession to him again.

In the last decade was my number two worst confession of my life. I entered the confessional at a time when life was a mess. I went into too much detail and the priest snapped, “Kind and number, just kind and number.” “Okie dokie, I thought.” When it came to make the Act of Contrition, I was SO upset and anxious. I already have anxiety to begin with. When people snap at me, I’m over the top panic attack mode instantly. I started saying my Act of Contrition and the priest snapped, “Slow down! You are saying it so fast you can’t possibly be focusing on the words.” My brain was toast in that moment. I slowed down. My heart pounding, I thought to myself, “You are already a fast speaker, you are faster when your anxiety kicks in. Just breathe.” I have never been back to confession with this priest before. The thought makes me want to vomit. I also love this priest dearly, but cannot handle this type of confrontation.

My son and I went to confession before midnight Mass Wednesday evening. Sometimes it can take 4-5 attempts of standing in line before one can actually make it to confession. The lines are often long. We got to Mass 45 minutes early, before confession opened up. I am an open book, as anyone who knows me knows! I have only been allowed to see my grands twice in the last 14 months and my oldest cut final ties with me this past summer. Thanksgiving was brutal. I sent a box of cookies to the grands and then sent Christmas gifts. I have continued to send postcards from my travels and birthday cards. I have no idea if they ever received anything. That’s okay…but all of this was weighing on my mind Christmas Eve.

It was the third worst confession of my life. It went wrong three ways to Sunday, y’all. I feel like a complete inconsiderate moron. I needed to feel worse about myself like I need another heartbreak. Anyone who knows me knows that I am in therapy. I wouldn’t be here without it, man. I confessed that I had missed Mass 3 times in the last 6 months- and asked if I was being over scrupulous because I had been doing long section hikes, and that I knew being stuck in the airport an entire weekend did not constitute a mortal sin. Father told me that his own father always made sure they made it to Mass–even when they were hiking and mentioned that there are other through hikers who make it every Sunday. I could also get a dispensation.

The last two months I have been okay and then 60 seconds later, I’m sobbing. Five minutes later, I am angry as a poked bear. You would think that having been abandoned by my ex 9 years ago and surviving might help me better able cope with estrangement again. Nope. Not one lick of help. You would think surviving my dad dying angry with me would offer some level of skill to cope with estrangement. Nope. So there I was with the next part of my confession. Effing ANGER again. And this is where I went woefully wrong. Note to self: some priests don’t want to know and are NOT going to ask or enquire so shut the fuck up and just list this shit out by kind and number. I can’t with myself.

My brain has been scattered for the entirety of the holiday season — From Thanksgiving to Christmas. To top it off, a coworker raised her voice at me on Christmas Eve Day because she just wanted what she wanted done and my DM is not able to do it. So by the time Father snapped at me in confession, I was already a hot mess. HOT. I don’t even know what he said, but I tried to speak again and I know it pissed him off. Twice. I have replayed this ad nauseam. He snapped, told me this wasn’t therapy and I said, “I know, I do go to therapy, I’m sorry. told me to say my act of contrition. And you had better believe that I said that S-L-O-W-L-Y. Because I will never be told to slow that cadence down again in my lifetime.

I grabbed my purse and apologized, “I’m sorry, I should have stuck to kind and number, I’m sorry.” This is where I felt a knife.. He said that he tried to counsel me and I spoke over him S-I-X times and that there are others waiting in line. Maybe I did 6 times? I have literally replayed it and I count two at most, but memory can be a weird thing. He did say, “Merry Christmas,” as I left, but I couldn’t say a word. It would have been a sob. A loud one.

I did not even go to ask for the Sacristan to get a low gluten host for me. I sat in the pew for the next minutes about to puke. I felt like I was going to pass out. Sean asked if I was going to go get the low gluten host after I sat for a while. I looked at my watch and it was 11:43 pm. I told him no. I felt like I had been sitting and saying my penance for at least 5 minutes. So I added in my head, “We left at 11:14. I know because I thought Sean wanted to get here at 11:15 and I asked him at 11:11 if he was ready, then looked again as we left. We got in line at 11:25 or so. We waited a few minutes for Father. I was second. So if he started at 11:30 as usual, maybe I did take too long.” This is what people with anxiety do when they get in trouble or someone gets angry with them.It’s horrible. An endless brain loop of, “How dd I fuck it up so badly.”

I looked back at the line and prayed everyone got through. I tried to remember what time confessions started. Then did the math in my head again. “If Sean came out at 11:32 and I went insight after and got started at 11:33, maybe I did not finish until 11:37 and that was 2 minutes too long. But I don’t know what time. I just know that I have been sitting here saying my penance, which probably took 3 minutes, only 30 seconds to walk to the pew, so maybe I was in there 5 minutes. I don’t know.”

I emailed an apology to Father. I couldn’t sleep. Somewhere around 3:30 am, I tried to sleep. I woke up at 5am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I cried over the loss of my son and grands. I cried over this horrible confession gone wrong. I felt awful because I had not thought about the others in line, I had no sense of time or urgency. I KNOW what it is like to stand in line for 20 minutes and not get in. WHY didn’t I think of others? Why did my brain go crazy and say ANYTHING explaining my anger? WHY?

So there I sat… headache and feeling emotionally raw and wondering about Christmas grace. I love this priest. He’s an amazing priest. Maybe he was exhausted and snappy because of the Vigil Mass he had earlier and all the Christmas activities. I don’t know. He isn’t usually like this. I don’t know if I will go back to him for confession again. Time will tell. I won’t go anytime soon, that is for sure.

Satan crept in, “See Pattie, you piss everyone off. EVERYONE, even a nice priest.” It is a horrible feeling. I don’t think there are words to describe what it feels like to have a spouse leave after being married for 24 years, telling you there was nothing good. My brain has different memories. I feel like I am reliving my dad and the ex all over again.

My dad was not a nice man, yet I moved him here after my mom died to help care for him. I never shut him completely out or kept him (or my mom) from my boys. I limited contact from time to time after a particularly bad phone call or visit where he yelled or laid hands on me. When Christmas came around, I tried to extend grace. I knew having him at my house meant there would be anger and potential yelling. There was always anger with him. When I asked him to forgive me before he died, he refused. I followed up with, “Are you going to die angry with me?” “Yes,” he said. And that was that. He died angry.

I honored my father and mother to the best of my ability. I never cut them out. I limited contact when they began calling my children “stupid” or called them “idiots”, etc. When my mother died in 2014, Sean and I moved our planned trip up a week. When we got there, it was so toxic that we left two days early. Yet, when the time came, I still moved him out here to help care for him. Still invited him for Christmas and when he refused the invite, I brought gifts to him at his place.

There is an epidemic of parental estrangement right now with the millennial generation. Support groups have eight thousand members and up. They meet locally and online. There’s a trend on Instagram and TikTok about cutting off your parents because of perceived grievances. Yes, abuse does happen, I know firsthand. Most people who know me know I grew up in a drug addicted, alcoholic and abusive home. I was molested by my youngest brother at the age of ten. My other two brothers beat the crap out of me. My own mother was also physically abusive and both parents were verbally and emotionally abusive. My dad would ignore me for what seemed an eternity- this is one of the reasons people ignoring me or cutting off contact intensifies my anxiety. David committed suicide at the age of 20. Steve died if a drug overdose at the age of 33. Mike is a heroin addict in and out of the state pen 3 times, likely dead.

I’ve been so distraught the last several days. Something I have always done in my grief is to try to find the humor in any given situation. My childhood was rife with trauma. One night I awoke to a gun going off. I know I was under the age of ten because this was in our California house. I ran to the garage bedroom and my brother stood holding a gun. My mom had a hole torn through her nightgown. My brother had gotten one of my dad’s firearms and it discharged. Luckily it did not hit my mother.

I joked with Marty recently, “There was a short stop convenience store just around the corner from our house. I used to go there to buy candy every now and then. My brother robbed it and we didn’t shop there anymore.” I still remember the day the police came to arrest my brother for that crime.

I grew up in a house where physical violence was the norm. It’s not hard to imagine that boys who were arrested would be physically violent with their own father. This is trauma. I was told that I was hated, a horrible child, on and on. Yet when it came down to brass tax, I honored my father and mother to the best of my ability and I never cut them completely out. Yes, I set boundaries and limited contact at times.

I’m thankful for my many blessings this Christmas. I have a wonderful husband who loves me unconditionally. Can you believe that in the almost 6 years we have been together we have never had a fight? We’ve never even had words that I would consider an argument. We have disagreed on certain matters, but have never raised our voices when discussing them. I am thankful for Sean who sticks with me despite my failures as a mom and human being. I am far from perfect, but I did the best I could with what I had. I never called my children names, I never physically abused them. I sang instead of yelling a lot, and this apparently caused some trauma. I would have loved for my mom to sing instead of whopping me upside the head with her fist, just saying. Perspective.

No matter how contrite you are or how many times you ask for forgiveness, there are some people (like my dad) who will die angry with you. Some people will equate you to murderers and tell you that justice must and will be done. That’s just life. Many folks walking the planet do not afford anyone grace, much less Christmas grace.

I felt defeated on this Christmas Day — between my estranged son and being snapped at in confession, I came home feeling pretty small. Today, I am trying to focus on the hope that Jesus brings into the world. I am trying to extend Christmas grace to those who have hurt me – intentionally or unintentionally. I am hoping that 2026 brings peace and clarity.

Christmas has always been special. This was the first year in at least 30 years that we did not make homemade gingerbread houses. I had hoped it would be a tradition I could carry on with my grands. We did get some cute doggie gingerbread houses that we built for the dogs. It was fun and lightened the Christmas mood around here. Some of the highlights of our gingerbread creation: Lambeau Field, Biltmore using all gingerbread bricks, Portland Head Light, a skyscraper and an outhouse during covid. I am so glad that I have so many fond Christmas memories. Brett Favre gave us tickets and I drove the boys to see a Packers’ game- this inspired the Lambeau Field gingerbread that year.

This Christmas I learned to remember that we are all human. Everyone has trauma and you just don’t know what people have going on in their lives. May I always extend grace to everyone in my life and those I do not know, especially at Christmas.