Celebrating the holidays as a blended family can bring up a lot of surprises. As one mom recently shared on Reddit, some of those surprises can be … extreme.
She begins, "I’m a black mother of two 12 year old twins and I remarried my husband in the summer so it’s our first Christmas together. It is important that my husband and his son are Caucasian."
The family was decorating the Christmas tree.
"Anyway I was putting up our Christmas tree and decorations because it’s time and it’s the last Sunday before the kids get swamped with finals and we like to do it together," she explains. "I asked my husband and stepson if they’d like to join and they said yes."
Then her husband took issue with her decorations.
"Now as we’re putting stuff up my husband starts making commentary on how everything is black," the original poster (OP) continues. "I have little black nutcracker ornaments and statues and we have a little Christmas village full of black people. I shrugged it off and we kept going until it was time to bring out the angel tree topper. It was a black angel and my husband stopped me and pulled me to the kitchen. He said we couldn’t have all these 'black' decorations when we were now a mixed family and that we had to go and get some regular nutcrackers and people for the village as well as a regular tree topper."
She shut him down.
"This is where I might come off cold but I said no. No discussion, just no. I told him that if we ever left this house, him and his kids would get to see regular decorations and tree toppers and Santa and all that stuff outside but my kids wouldn’t get the same and the least they deserved was to walk into their house and see decorations that looked like them. Plus it took me a really long time to find all my decorations and I was going to give them to my kids when they moved out. So no."
Her husband says she's being selfish.
"He said I was being selfish and unwelcoming and that it wasn’t fair for his son to have to leave the house to feel like he belonged. I told him it wasn’t the same and he asked me to explain how but I wasn’t in the mood to have such a heavy discussion so I just shook my head and told him to read a book. I don’t know, was I too harsh? Should I go get some non black decorations? Will this really affect my stepson negatively? I don’t want him to feel like he doesn’t belong but I don’t think that’s even possible."
She added more info for context.
The woman then added, "My step son is 10. We spent Christmas together but never at my house because I usually spend it with my family. My kids and I did Christmas at my moms and then I would go be with him that night. I’m hosting Christmas this year because my mom says I’m finally married again and so it’s my turn."
And, yes: He said 'regular' when he meant 'white.'
"He didn’t have any decorations at his apartment and when I asked he said he just wasn’t a big decorations guy. Also yes he did say 'regular' that wasn’t inferred. That word is straight from his lips to this post. Also when he said 'we need to go out and get regular decorations' I don’t know if he meant as replacements or as a add on but I took it to mean 'as a replacement' to make his son more comfortable which is why I shut it down immediately. He went out with some friends tonight so I’ll see if we can have a conversation about it when he gets back."
One commenter suggested a compromise.
One person wrote, "First off, I think it's wonderful that OP worked hard to find ornaments that represent her family, and built a collection she can pass along to her children. But her family has changed and grown now, so is it unreasonable for the collection to grow as well, including a few white people in the village to represent the white members of her family? I agree that her husband went about it wrong asking her to get a 'regular' tree topper, but maybe there's a compromise to be had."
But that was quickly shut down.
But someone else swiftly stepped in and replied, "EVERYTHING is representative for OP's husband and stepson. Movies, books, magazines, computer games, guaranteed almost every single one will have white males. I get that this is now their home but if they can't handle not being represented in Christmas decorations for longer than an hour, that they had to go to the store RIGHT AWAY to rectify this injustice, they probably don't deserve to be living in a predominately Black household.
"That OP's husband felt so strongly about the lack of representation was an opportunity for him to sit with those feelings and realise how much he took that representation for granted or how much it means. And it could have been an excellent teaching moment for his son."
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