Christmas Pageant Update
Dec. 21st, 2004 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosHere's the email I just sent:
Mom,
I don't want to spoil your plan, but I really do not want to sing, except with the whole family. With a couple of exceptions when I was very young, I have never -- unlike you and [RS]-- been a soloist, and I have not done any singing at all (except occasional bursts along with the iPod while alone in the car) in many years. Perhaps [RS] would like to sing "Angels from the Realms of Glory" or "Angels We Have Heard on High" or "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"? I would feel much more comfortable if my participation was sharing/alternating the readings with Dad.
For those of you who don't go back and check up on comments, I realized -- thanks in large part to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queenofhalves and athenian_abroad (who actually *knows* my mother and the rest of my family)-- that a big part of what twitched me off about this was that Mom simply decided that she wanted to do this, and then handed out parts, followed by a comment that made disagreement very difficult. She did not ask how the rest of us felt about her idea, nor did she ask how we would like to participate.
I am not going to confront her about this four days before Christmas. This is not such a big issue to me that I would be seriously compromising myself or my integrity by going along with something that's important to her. There's a time and a place for asserting one's wishes and feelings, but there's also a time to accommodate someone you love and who has strong feelings about something. I'm trying to strike a happy medium here.
Maybe I'll talk with her about it after Christmas. I don't want to spoil it for her in retrospect, but I also don't want her to think that I was comfortable with the way she handled this.
If I'm lucky, my email will get the message across in a more subtle way.
Mom,
I don't want to spoil your plan, but I really do not want to sing, except with the whole family. With a couple of exceptions when I was very young, I have never -- unlike you and [RS]-- been a soloist, and I have not done any singing at all (except occasional bursts along with the iPod while alone in the car) in many years. Perhaps [RS] would like to sing "Angels from the Realms of Glory" or "Angels We Have Heard on High" or "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"? I would feel much more comfortable if my participation was sharing/alternating the readings with Dad.
For those of you who don't go back and check up on comments, I realized -- thanks in large part to
queenofhalves and athenian_abroad (who actually *knows* my mother and the rest of my family)-- that a big part of what twitched me off about this was that Mom simply decided that she wanted to do this, and then handed out parts, followed by a comment that made disagreement very difficult. She did not ask how the rest of us felt about her idea, nor did she ask how we would like to participate. I am not going to confront her about this four days before Christmas. This is not such a big issue to me that I would be seriously compromising myself or my integrity by going along with something that's important to her. There's a time and a place for asserting one's wishes and feelings, but there's also a time to accommodate someone you love and who has strong feelings about something. I'm trying to strike a happy medium here.
Maybe I'll talk with her about it after Christmas. I don't want to spoil it for her in retrospect, but I also don't want her to think that I was comfortable with the way she handled this.
If I'm lucky, my email will get the message across in a more subtle way.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 08:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 10:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-22 05:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-22 05:42 am (UTC)That's what I'm hoping for. :-)