Merry and Bright
I love Christmas. I love twinkly lights and cold weather and Christmas music. I love going back home and seeing all our friends from all over the country getting together to drink beer and catch up. In fact, I pretty much love everything about Christmas, except for the day itself.
In 1995 (holy crap, was it really twelve years ago?) my parents split up at Christmas. They waited until the first night I got home for Christmas break from my first year of college (the first in a series of poorly made decisions relating to their divorce). They waited until I had sat down in the living room with my chili dog (fucking chili dogs still remind me of this crappy night) to break the news that they were separating.
It was a total surprise. I had no idea they weren’t getting along, let alone that they would consider divorcing.
Clearly, there is a whole lot of stuff that happened in between then and now including (but not limited to) screaming, crying, moving, drinking, therapy, crying more, holding grudges, severe anxiety, more therapy, and finally getting over it. So, that’s where I am currently. Pretty much over it.
The one thing that hasn’t really gotten back to normal is Christmas itself. Not all of it has to do with the divorce. My grandparents always played a big part at Christmas, and now, only my mom’s mom is still alive, and she’s in a nursing home suffering from severe dementia. It’s really sad and totally depressing and made even more difficult because my mom and I are both only children. My grandma’s extended family have all passed away and now our family on that side is just me and my mom (my grandfather died in 1999.)
My dad’s mother passed away in 2001. His father died when I was in grade school, and because my grandparents were divorced, I never knew him. My dad has three sisters who are all great people, but we are all not really a very close family.
Both my parents have significant others. They are both good people (the others). They both have families’ of their own, and that is what my parents’ Christmases have become, celebrating with them. I get to celebrate with Ryan’s (very close) family, which is awesome. I do consider them my family. We are always welcome to celebrate with the significant others’ families. I have great friends that have great families that we always see and celebrate with. I am outrageously blessed with loving people everywhere during Christmas.
But I can’t lie. I miss Christmas with my immediate family. It seems to pain both my parents to celebrate Christmas with me, in our little small ways. We just always seem to wordlessly remind each other that things are not the way they used to be. We give gifts and squeeze in a meal here and there, but it’s always brief, and clearly it’s still hard. I try not to take it personally. And I don’t know how to fix it.
But I want to try.
Not in a Hallmark-movie-of-the-week way where I reunite them and recreate their first date and them they get back together and I get to live with my twin sister again (wait… that’s not my life, it’s the plot for “The Parent Trap.” Oops!) But in the way that I can make the time I spend with each of them separately at Christmas more meaningful. Oh, make no mistake, they will resist, they have resisted in the past. But I am willing to give it another try.
In my mind, they key is starting new traditions. Things that have nothing to do with the way we used to do things. It won’t be easy (trust me, no one hates change more than I do) but I feel like it’s necessary. When life changes in ways you don’t expect and initially dislike, things DO eventually get better again. Somehow. It may take years, but life does improve, if we allow it to.
I am ready to allow life to improve, every day in every way. I hope my parents are, too.
