How I handle birthdays and holidays
The twins turned 11 last month. I bought them each a present anyway — a science kit for Maya because she was obsessed with experiments when she was little, and a football for Jake because he always talked about playing for the Socceroos. They’re sitting in my bedroom cupboard with all the other wrapped gifts from birthdays and Christmases past.
I know it sounds mental but I can’t stop doing it. What if they come home? What if one day they walk through that door and ask where their birthday present is? I need to have something ready.
On their actual birthday I took the day off work. Made their favourite chocolate cake — the one with hundreds and thousands on top that they used to help me make, getting more sprinkles on the floor than the cake. I lit two candles and sang happy birthday in my empty kitchen. Then I cried for about an hour.
Christmas is harder somehow. All those family ads on TV, kids ripping open presents. I volunteer at the shelter now on Christmas Day. Keeps my hands busy and my mind off what I’m missing. The staff there know my story — they don’t ask questions when I need a minute in the storeroom to collect myself.
I send cards to their address every year. Birthday cards, Christmas cards, Easter cards. Never get a response but their dad can’t stop me posting them. Sometimes I wonder if the twins even see them or if they go straight in the bin.
The cupboard is getting full now. Four years of unwrapped hope. My sister thinks I should donate the gifts but I can’t. Not yet. They’re proof that I never stopped being their mum, even when they stopped being my kids.
Some days I imagine them at 18, knocking on my door, asking about all those missed birthdays. And I’ll show them that cupboard full of love they never knew was waiting for them.
Maybe that’s foolish. But it’s how I survive the calendar.
God, the cupboard full of gifts. I do this too.
Seven years of letters here, but same thing — can’t stop hoping.
I’ve got a wardrobe full of unwrapped presents too. Different ages, different interests I can only guess at now. My therapist Sarah calls it ‘continuing the relationship’ even when they’re not physically here, and honestly that really helped me see it differently. It’s not mental at all — it’s love with nowhere to go except into those carefully chosen gifts.
The birthday ritual gets me every time. I do something similar — always take the day off, always make their favourite meal even though I’m the only one eating it. Last year I made Ben’s favourite fish fingers and chips and just sat there staring at the empty chair where he used to sit, kicking his legs and telling me about his day at school. Four years on and I still set two places at the table sometimes without thinking.
Christmas at the shelter is brilliant though, isn’t it? I started volunteering at a local hospice on the hard days and there’s something about being useful when you feel so completely useless in your own life. The staff always seem to understand without you having to explain the whole mess of it.
Your sister means well but she doesn’t get it. Those presents aren’t clutter — they’re evidence. Evidence that you never stopped believing, never stopped hoping, never stopped being their mum. When my lot are older and start asking questions, I want to show them that drawer full of birthday cards I wrote but never sent, all those little tokens of a love that never wavered. We’re not foolish. We’re just mothers doing what mothers do.
This hits so close to home. I do the same thing — bought my kids Christmas presents last year even though I haven’t seen them in 18 months. Mine are still wrapped under my bed like some kind of shrine to hope.
The birthday thing especially gets me. I made my daughter’s favorite cookies on her 9th birthday and ate them alone while looking at old photos on my phone.
Oh love, this hit me right in the chest. I’ve got a cupboard too — not as full as yours, but the same desperate hope tucked away behind winter coats and old shoes.
My youngest started replying to my birthday cards last year, just signed “thanks, Charlotte x” but it was everything. Four years of sending cards into what felt like a black hole, and then that little x appeared like a miracle. I kept that card on my kitchen table for weeks, just staring at her handwriting, proof she was still there somewhere underneath all the poison they’d fed her about me. The presents though — god, the presents are harder aren’t they? I’ve got a drawer full of things for birthdays she wasn’t allowed to celebrate with me. A charm bracelet I bought when she turned thirteen, still in its little velvet box. Hair clips shaped like butterflies because she used to love them. Silly things that probably wouldn’t even interest her now, but they felt so important at the time.
The Christmas volunteering is brilliant though. I started helping at a community center in Armley — serving dinner to families who needed it. Kept my hands busy like you said, and there’s something about being around other people’s children that’s both painful and healing at the same time. Those moments in the storeroom to collect yourself — I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes the kindness of strangers who understand hits harder than anything else. Your twins will see those cards eventually, even if they can’t respond now. Children remember more than we think they do, especially acts of love that never stop coming.