24/12/2025
This Christmas feels truly unfamiliar.
The house is quieter than it has been in years. Fewer voices. Fewer expectations. Fewer sharp edges to brace for. Christmas arrives anyway, even though we’re not ready for it. This yeat, we let December halfway pass without touching the boxes of decorations in the garage. Not because we forgot, but because memory lives inside those boxes.
For more than a decade, Christmas was never just a holiday in our home. It was a season layered with history, anticipation, and fear. Decorations carried stories. Traditions carried weight. We worked hard to make the holidays special, to create warmth, magic, and normalcy. And still, if we are honest, we dreaded them.
Before explaining why, it matters to understand our family.
All three of our kids were adopted from foster care. Our two oldest entered our family after experiencing severe abuse and neglect in every way possible. That statement is literal, not rhetorical. We are not exaggerating. Those early experiences shaped how they learned to see the world, adults, and themselves.
Our youngest was adopted straight from the hospital and did not experience the same early trauma. They are relatively well adjusted, thriving academically, grounded, and kind. And still, they carry trauma from growing up in a home where chaos and fear were often present. Living alongside severe trauma impacts everyone in a family.
Both of our two oldest were later diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder.
Reactive Attachment Disorder develops when a child’s earliest caregivers are consistently unsafe, unavailable, or abusive. It is not about attachment being weak. It is about attachment being fundamentally broken. A child with RAD learns, at a neurological level, that adults cannot be trusted, that closeness is dangerous, and that survival depends on control.
In its most severe forms, Reactive Attachment Disorder can involve chronic lying, manipulation, lack of remorse, aggression toward caregivers, destruction of property, and violence toward people or animals. It often includes an inability to accept comfort, deep fear of vulnerability, and a constant need to dominate relationships. Love is not experienced as safety. It is experienced as threat.
This is not caused by parenting style. It is not cured by consistency, boundaries, or affection alone. It is the result of prolonged abuse and neglect during the years when the brain is wiring itself around survival.
Because of this, holidays can be profoundly destabilizing for kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Breaks in routine, heightened emotions, sensory overload, and the expectation of closeness can trigger intense survival responses. Forced togetherness and scripted joy can feel threatening rather than comforting.
Holidays magnify what already lives under the surface, and for our family, that surface was rarely calm. Christmas intensified what was already fragile rather than offering relief.
This year, for the first time, Christmas looks different because our family looks different. It is just the three of us now.
That reality did not come out of nowhere. One of our two oldest has been convicted of a violent crime. The other is in the process of facing very similar charges. Our oldest will turn eighteen in the coming months. Our middle is not far behind. These are not abstract possibilities or distant fears. They are the present reality we are living in, and they are the reason this Christmas looks the way it does.
This Christmas is the first without our two oldest. None of this is what we wanted. None of this is how we imagined our family story unfolding.
Early December was especially heavy. We were in the middle of trial proceedings for our oldest. Every day carried the weight of not knowing what the outcome would be. It was impossible to think about lights or ornaments or music when the future felt so uncertain. Christmas decorations stayed in boxes, not because we did not care, but because there were simply too many memories attached to them.
For the last thirteen years, Christmas was not a season of rest for us. It was a season of vigilance. Holidays intensified stress rather than relieving it, amplifying fear, dysregulation, and survival responses already present the rest of the year.
We did everything we could.
Therapy. Specialists. Parenting classes. Trauma informed approaches. Consistency. Structure. Advocacy. Endless meetings. Hospital visits. Safety plans. Love offered again and again, even when it was rejected or weaponized.
There is no roadmap for families living with severe Reactive Attachment Disorder. There is no manual for what to do when a child you love becomes dangerous to you and to others. There are very few systems equipped to handle it, especially as kids move toward adulthood.
Oregon, in particular, does not know how to deal with Reactive Attachment Disorder. The gaps are massive. Services are siloed. Support disappears as kids age. Families are left holding impossible responsibility with little meaningful help.
Our middle child carries not only Reactive Attachment Disorder but also Autism Spectrum Disorder. The intersection of those two diagnoses creates layers of complexity that most systems are not prepared to address. The result is a cycle of crisis, involvement with the legal system, and missed opportunities for real treatment.
This Christmas feels strange because the chaos is gone, but the grief remains.
We are just now pulling decorations out. Slowly. Carefully. Choosing what feels safe to display. There are ornaments that carry memories we are not ready to revisit. There are traditions that no longer fit the shape of our family.
Relief and sorrow coexist. Peace and heartbreak sit side by side. This quieter Christmas is not something we asked for, but it is the reality we are learning to inhabit.
We are entering a new chapter. One where Christmas may finally be calmer. One where safety is no longer in question inside our own home. One where we are allowed to breathe.
That does not mean we celebrate how we got here.
It means we are acknowledging the truth. That sometimes love does not lead to healing. That sometimes doing everything right is still not enough. That sometimes the systems meant to help families fail them entirely.
If this season feels complicated for you, you are not alone. If your holidays carry grief alongside gratitude, that is allowed. If your family does not look like the picture on the card, it does not mean it is broken.
This Christmas is not what we wanted. But we are here. We are present. And we are finding our way forward, one quiet moment at a time.
