I’m having great fun these days. I’m reading my friends’ updates on Facebook and they are so filled with stress about last minute shopping sprees, what to get for that difficult-to-buy for loved one, and dealing with crowds and traffic while I sit quite contentedly and totally un-stressed out this holiday season. Why? No, not because I don’t celebrate Christmas, I do. In fact, I’m all about the festivities and would be hosting parties, going to parties and going crazy about the gifting thing. Well, I would have in the past, I should say. Not anymore though.
So what gives? Why am I so chill while the rest of the world goes crazy?
Ahhh, all I can say to this is that every storm cloud has its silver lining. Even the storm cloud of divorce and children sharing holidays in two separate homes. Sigh. Divorce and its reduced financial benefits means less money to spend thus fewer presents to buy. If Christmas is all about the "presents" then that’s a problem, isn’t it? If you don’t have your kids on Christmas and you are all about "The Big Day" then that poses a bit of a problem doesn’t it? The storm cloud of divorce requires that you rethink your personal paradigms about many things. The silver lining is there but it appears in small and unexpected ways sometimes.
Tomorrow will be Christmas Eve. I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet. I might do some tomorrow. I might not. It won’t matter, because my "Christmas" is not going to happen on December 25th. It will happen sometime in January, around New Year’s. This year, my children are, once again, spending Christmas at their dads.
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I won’t say that this is a good thing about divorce. In fact, my feelings are quite vehement and strong about relationship over dissolution, but life is not perfect. Life is not always white fluffy clouds scudding effortlessly across clear blue skies. Sometimes the thunder bumpers of relational demise develop and there’s no escaping them. You’re going to get soaked and it isn’t going to be fun. Drenched and distraught you end up finding that you are back at ground zero with nearly nothing but loads of debt showing for the last quarter century of your existence. It sucks. But after the storm passes…if you are careful and observant and hopeful enough…you can discover a silver lining on any cloud. You might have to wait and work and watch for a while, but eventually, small though it might be…it will appear.
Christmas, in what I’ve come to call the "off years", is that silver lining for me. The off years are those every other years that I don’t have my children on Christmas Day because they are with their other parent. Those are the Christmases that I don’t stress. I don’t shop. I don’t cook (that’s a big silver lining for all involved) and I don’t have anyone tugging at my bedside begging me to awaken so they can find out what is in the beautifully wrapped packages (yeah, I can’t cook but I can wrap…big deal) under the tree.
Divorce is never easy and the holidays don’t improve this situation any. Even so, I’ve found there is even a silver lining on this thunderhead of dashed familial bonds. It is called, The Day After Christmas. Because of this schedule of mine this year, the stress of having to have everything wrapped and ready and under the tree by December 25th is totally gone. I get to capitalize on sales the day after Christmas instead of hassling it before. I actually have a good three days after Christmas till any of the kids show up. I will have three days after the official day to do what I need to do before the kids come tumbling back in over my threshold. In that time, I will have spent my time doing whatever I wanted to do, something that is usually rare for a single parent. I will have been able to plan and prepare for the second half of the winter break when they will be with me and I will be able to stretch my limited Christmas funds all the more.
So, as I watch my friends update their Facebook status informing me of how they survived the mall (a good 45 minutes just to get out of the parking lot), or how they can’t find the one last minute gift they were looking for or how they have way too much to do in way too little time, I count my blessings. I sit back, pour myself another vodka tonic and think, glad I’m not out there in that ugly traffic right now. Because right now, I am in my own home, with my children before they head off to dad’s enjoying lazy days, watching movies, cleaning house, making cookies and eating the cookie dough before it is even baked. Oh, the fun we are having in spite of the fact that the dates are not working in our favor this year.
It’s a small silver lining….but it is a beautiful one.
Have you been able to discover any silver linings in your divorce clouds?
Around Halloween, I announced to my kids that the 2 Christmases (one in each of their two homes) that they’ve known the last three years wasn’t going to happen this year. I can’t afford it and they don’t need a massive haul or even a minor one at both houses. I told them I am rethinking how I do Christmas in the “off years”; those years where they are at their other parent’s house for the holiday and I get them for New Year’s. In the same breath I also mentioned I wasn’t even going to decorate this year for the holidays. “After all, I explained, you will all be at your dad’s and it is just going to be me.” 
I’ve worked hard the last three years and I’ve plowed through a mountain of debt, that by all rights wasn’t mine, in order to avoid bankruptcy and have a more financially secure and debt-free life. The journey in many ways completely sucks, but the lessons, are valuable. I’ve come a long way. I’ve learned how much of my former existence was based on appearances and image instead of what really matters. While living my former existence, I knew this was true and I hated it at the time. What I didn’t realize was how deeply ingrained the obsession with image for image’s sake was in my life and how deeply stuck I was in it all. From my views on money to what’s important in parenting and in relationships, I’ve had to scrutinize my thinking and real beliefs about it all. I’ve experienced so many occasions where I’ve been knocked flat on my figurative seat in the last three years: emotionally, financially, relationally. I’ve found myself in places I NEVER thought I’d ever be. Places where in my former life I looked down my nose at people in the very situations I now found myself. It was more than humbling. At each of these times, I’ve had to do some serious soul searching and remind myself of what was really important. I’ve been shocked and horrified on many occasions to learn how really shallow my thinking has been. This recent episode with my daughter was another such moment of truth. 
For a number of years now, it has bothered me that my children can spend Christmas Day at one parent’s house and get a big haul of presents then go to the other parent’s house after Christmas for a second Christmas Day that year. I’ve hated the temptation to give in to that desire to “compete” with the other parent in the gift giving arena, even though I’ve been completely unable to. This inability, instead of creating angst for me, ended up providing freedom and relief. Because I don’t have it to spend and everyone knows it (meaning the kids), the expectation for my participation in these areas is lowered. That’s okay by me. I have debt to pay off and I am doing it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and so far it hasn’t been an oncoming train. I need to maintain my resolve and stay focused. I just can’t continue doing what I’ve always done at The Holidays where gifts are concerned. If can’t pay cash, it can’t be purchased. Simple as that.
This weekend, two days after Thanksgiving and a good three weeks before I usually can muster the energy or the spirit, we decorated our entire house for Christmas. In fact, I was in the back room typing a blog post while Number 2, was out in the garage, climbing ladders and pulling down the infamous plastic red Rubbermaid boxes. She pulled out the Christmas tree with the help of her brother (Number 3) and together she and Number 3 and Number 4 began putting the tree together. I came in just in time to help shape the fake tree. I really didn’t do much except instruct and that, only occasionally. They got out the decorations and put them on the tree, set up the stocking hangers with stockings, and arranged all our other decorations. They had a blast doing it and by dinnertime we had a house that in spite of it’s diminutive size looked festive and cheerful. Number 1 even had a couple of her friends over and the lot of us listened to Christmas music, played board games and ate pizza by the fire. It was a cozy, warm and happy time and it cost me nothing but a few minutes of my time and a few dollars for pizza delivery (something I never ever do). It created a wonderful happy and positive memory for my children and I. I could be wrong, but I think it kind of says something when a college child chooses to bring her boyfriend to our little home instead of going out somewhere for the evening. I couldn’t have done that at her age. I’m pleased that this is the kind of home we’ve built. I’m pleased that my daughter got on my case and called me out this time. I’m glad the decorations are up and we have over a month to enjoy them. 
So in an effort to reinvent a more sane lifestyle, where competition with the ex’s and buckling to human greed isn’t the driving force and resisting the feeling that I am what I can purchase, I am rethinking things. I want to work on creating more memories like this Thanksgiving weekend. I wonder if it wouldn’t be a better idea on the years that the kids are with me for Christmas to have the traditional (though modest) celebration with gifts and on the off years, get one gift for all the kids to share…like a computer or a Wii, or whatever we come up with together? During the off times, those times when the children aren’t residing with me, I’m playing with an idea, a dream really of hosting a party for single parents who are without their children for the holidays. Maybe we could meet together at my place, go caroling, donate money or canned goods to a local charity and then afterward come back to my place for eggnog, wassail and games. I don’t know. It’s a dream. But I’m wondering about it. This just might be the year to make that happen since I will, after all, be alone for The Holidays. 
The Wild Mind 