by Alice Diver
As an adoptee, this is the season to be careful – multiple triggers abound. various forms of ‘orphan’ or adoptee fiction seem popular this time of year (Elf, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, The Little Match Girl, much of Dickens’ work, and many Disney films). Often, key aspects of such stories emphasise the value of ancestral connections, knowable identity, accurate histories, newly discovered kinships, and the need to preserve those near-sacred, shared traditions which serve to mark familial acceptance and shelter us from an onslaught of seasonal loneliness.
The sanctity of the family hearth space – with or without a row of Christmas stockings or an abundance of candlelit embellishments – can itself be double-edged. It offers warmth and comfort but generally only to those who are in possession of a legitimate invite or an excuse to briefly intrude, armed with an appropriate gift. All others are in danger of remaining just that, an other, and somehow less than, trespassing upon close-guarded physical, emotional, and familial territories. –

By Liz DeBetta, Ph.D.

As an adoptee, one of the things I obsess about is the concept of home. I have spent many years trying to find “home.” I moved across the country, almost married the wrong person, moved back to my parents’ home with my two cats, moved into my own apartment, got engaged (again), married the wrong person, moved one state over, got divorced, moved back to my “hometown,” moved twice more in that same hometown, met the right person, moved across the country together, moved three times in the new state we lived in, moved across the country again, finally bought our own home. And now we are spending our second holiday season in the home we found together, after many years, and many miles of searching.

But what is home? And why does it feel so much more complicated this time of year? In my book, Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal I wrote, “The concept of “home” is fraught for adoptees. What, and where, is home when you have been separated from the only home you ever knew — your mother’s womb? When you have been taken from your country of origin? When you have been placed in temporary foster care or an orphanage before being placed in an adoptive family’s home? Each of these disruptions creates a sense of insecurity and impermanency.
Nothing is safe. Nothing is stable. Nowhere is home.”

By Janell Strube
Most December babies get called Christmas babies, but I was no Christmas gift– unless you consider regifting a baby to be a valid present.
Ah, adoption.
Years ago, I stumbled across the book, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their
Adoptive Parents Knew, by Sherrie Eldridge. A blurb on the back cover said something about birthdays being painful, and something twanged inside me. It was the first written material I’d seen on the subject of adoption outside of a newspaper article I’d read while living in Europe in my early 20s. That newspaper article had stated that adopted girls often had eating disorders and some adoptees described themselves as coming from another planet. At that time I thought, Do you mean to tell me someone else did that too?