Holiday Greetings from Your Grinchy Divorce Lawyer
At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I really don’t care for this time of year. Even in non-Covid “normal” years, my holidays these last 10 years never feel very normal. Usually at Thanksgiving my son is with his dad, and my step kids are with their mom. So, on that big-gathering-around-the-table holiday, my husband and I spend the day alone. Sometimes we roast a painfully large turkey for two, rationalizing that we will love having all those leftovers – which the dog really appreciates when we get sick of turkey by Friday afternoon. A couple years we escaped to Arizona for a distraction and burritos for Thanksgiving dinner.
We have all four of our kids for Christmas, but that’s not a Norman Rockwell scene either. Holiday traditions provide the perfect opportunity for a blended family to fight over who gets to pick the “traditions” that carry on after parents divorce. It’s confusing and, I’ll admit, a bit upsetting – for the kids and the parents. We have managed to continue one tradition that my husband and his kids, and my son and me, each had independently before we were together – cutting down a fresh Christmas tree, strapping it to the roof of the car, and decorating it together once we wrangle it into the house. Except… in our blended family version, someone always cries. The chosen tree isn’t the right shape, the ornaments are all from one side of the pre-blended family, one kid’s stocking is bigger than the others. If we could fast forward from Halloween to New Year’s, I think we might save ourselves a lot of disappointment and drama.
As a divorce lawyer, I also spend a good bit of time worrying about my clients around the holidays. Separating is hard no matter what, even if you chose it, even if kids aren’t involved, even if there’s someone else. Divorcing around the holidays is like totaling your car on the way to your birthday party: you can put on a happy face, knowing there are things to celebrate, but you’re still jarred by the whiplash and grieving over the smashed headlight bits left in the road. For many of my clients, this will be their first holiday season alone, or without their kids. If I allow myself to really think about it, the holiday season provides lots of opportunity for heartbreak.
I share this not to amplify anyone’s holiday- and/or covid-induced depression, but just to point out that this time of year – especially in 2020 – is hard for lots of us, maybe all of us. Don’t be misled by my fabulous wrapping paper, annual cards with a quote that’s meaningful to me, and at least one acceptable-enough photo of the four kids with the Christmas tree. It’s easier to construct some holiday beauty in two-dimensional paper products than in 3D real life. So, my message is this: if you’re at all like me and feel a little dread about these next six weeks of “merriment,” remember that even if you’re alone – because of divorce or covid or any other crummy reason – you are not really alone. We’re all linked like a tangle of Christmas lights, and maybe even when some bulbs go dim we can keep shining some collective light.
I feel best during the holidays when I’m focused on spreading a little joy outside my household: taking the kids to Target to buy gifts for a refugee family, and seeing the kids realize that some teenagers’ Christmas wish is simply for a sweatshirt that fits. Leaving flowers on the doorstep of a recently widowed friend, and remembering the six friends who showed up unannounced, with food and champagne, that very first overwhelming Christmas of our blended family. Paying for the car behind me in the Starbucks drive through, just because I was so touched by the anonymous gesture when a stranger did that once for me. No matter how low any of us might feel, there’s always a little spark or gesture we can pass along to someone who might need it more. Give a little, get a little. Take what you need and pass it on. That’s how we’ll get through this 2020 holiday season. Let’s stick together (from an appropriate social distance), and 2021 will be here before we know it. Now there’s something to be thankful for!