Holiday Traditions in a Divorced Family

I come from a traditional family. My parents have been married for 41 years, but for the first 18 years of my life we did the same holiday traditions every year. Christmas Eve was spent at my parents' best friend's house for an amazing dinner with a large group of friends. After dinner all of us daughters (for some reason all of my parents' friends had daughters) playing Santa passing out the gifts and we would open them by the fire, laughing, and eating dessert. The night would end at midnight mass with me always falling asleep on my dad's shoulder. The following morning at home we opened our gifts while family came over throughout the day.

As I got older my parents tried to keep these traditions intact, but with us girls getting married new traditions were formed. Christmas Eve was spent at my in laws because they always threw a big party. The next morning we opened gifts with my parents at my home followed by Christmas brunch back at my in laws.

But divorce changed everything and we have been struggling in trying to find new traditions. We tried splitting holidays. At first we thought we could swap Christmas Eve and Christmas Day every year. One year Princess D would be with her dad for his parents Christmas Eve party, but because he would be drinking I would have to come pick her up. Having her spend the night at where ever he was sleeping was not optimal because I purchased all of the gifts that would be from Santa. It was hard pulling Princess D away from her new toys so that she could have Christmas breakfast at her other grandparents house. My X and I were fighting over our time with her.

What it comes down to is our daughter's happiness. Creating traditions she can count on. So, this year we repeated last year's schedule and improved it a bit.

Princess D was with me on Christmas Eve. We made cookies for Santa, we tracked Santa, she opened up her one gift from me, we had a nice quiet dinner with my parents and she went to bed on time.



In the morning she opened up her gifts and got to play with them for a few hours. At noon I dropped her off at her other grandparents' house to spend time with her Dad and his family while I went out to dim sum with my parents. Then around 5pm Princess D would be brought home.

It worked for all of us! Princess D was content and didn't feel like she was being dragged all over the place. There was no fighting or uncomfortable feelings between her dad and I. I can't say that this is the PERFECT tradition or that it isn't going to change again in the future. But at least I know that this is a basic tradition we can count.

30 Days of Truth - Day 13

A letter to Taylor Swift.

I find it amazing that a life situation can be written as a song, sung out loud for the world to hear, gossip about and criticize. When I first left my husband it was close to impossible to put into words how I felt. It was like something had died in me and I was the one who killed it. How does one write about that? I wrote unpublished post after unpublished post for fear of who would read it (or read INTO it). That is when I heard the song White Horse. The song described so much of how I felt. Someone else provided me with the words I needed to say whenever I was feeling confused or tongue tied. I could belt it out in my car while sitting in traffic or quietly sing it while crying in the shower. The song sank into my heart and became part of me until I was through the divorce.

Things are so much better now and I don't really want to revisit the song. I still love it, but it reminds me of so much that I have put behind me. You can read more about what this song means to me here.

I just want to say thank you for writing what I couldn't.

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30 Days of Truth - Day 8

If you have been reading my blog for a while or know me you know that my divorce got nasty with my X. I did not share the details out of respect to him and his family, but in all honestly, we probably both made each other's lives hell up until just a few months ago.

During our separation my X's cousin felt she had a right to attack me. In a way she contributed to me pulling away from the marriage even more. A relationship has two sides and both sides have very complicated issues. She only heard his side and assumed she knew mine.

I know very well about family bonds and how protective they can be, but there is something very wrong about how she went of her way to actively watch my Facebook profile page so that she could comment on every single thing posted. Or, to read and comment negatively on every blog post. Or, to follow my Twitter stream searching for anything she could misconstrue. These actions tiptoed on the edge of stalking.

I didn't let her behavior go on for long. I asked my X to have her to back off. I blocked her on Facebook. I locked down my Twitter account. My friend Terra explained in one of my post comments how IP address tracking works. Then all went quiet.

To this day I don't know what she was trying to accomplish with her tyrade. She hadn't make a positive impact on our marriage to begin with, but she certainly left a negative one. As horrible as she was I did learn from her:

• do not get involved when you aren't involved in the first place
• do not feed a negative situation with more negative energy
• do not throw stones
• that hatred is a very ugly quality
• that if you have a problem with someone take it OFFLINE

But everybody thinks that everybody knows
About everybody else but nobody knows
Anything about themselves,
Because they’re all worried about everybody else.
~ Wasting Time, Jack Johnson

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30 Days of Truth - Day 3

I know that it was the right decision, but no matter what the reason was or how things are now I still feel this heavy guilt about my decision to break up my family.

My marriage was not good for me and I knew I would never be happy in it. I hoped that my decision would helped my X in the long and that someday he would understand why I had to end it. If I had stayed things would have only gotten worse. I would never have been able to forgive myself if I had put my daughter through that.

Guilt is sneaky. It creeps up and surprises you when you least expect it to. When it comes to my daughter it feels like a punch to the gut.

If she is at her father's and gets sick I know she wants to be with me, but she feels bad ending her visit with him early. PUNCH.

One night when I was putting her to bed she asked me when her and her dad would get married again. I had to explain that her dad and I would not be getting married, but someday I hope to marry The Boyfriend. PUNCH.

I know that as she gets older the decisions and questions will probably get harder. The only way I can prevent getting KO'ed is if I forgive myself now for raising her in a broken home, for putting her in a position of making tough choices at such a young age, for being the one to show her that not every wedding ends with happily ever after.

Forgiveness is hard, but it is even harder when it is yourself you have to forgive. I have to forgive myself because I love my daughter and part of my decision was to ensure her security.

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30 Days of Truth
National Blog Posting Month

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