I am a child of a broken home.

My parents have been separated since I was four, divorced since I was six and my birth father wanted nothing to do with me until he had to pay child support. Because of which, he demanded that he has joint custody because he's paying for my sisters and I. This led to my life being a collection of not one, but two Christmases. It had been everything I had known up until I was 14-15 when I was promptly kicked out of my biological father's house for good. I would receive three final gifts from him: two from Christmas, and one for my sixteenth birthday. Nothing else, ever again.

To most kids, two Christmases would feel like a dream, especially if their parents were trying to outdo each other by trying to get their child to like one more than the other with who can give them the best presents and cook the best food. However, the sad reality of it is, typically only one parent is the one that genuinely loves their child enough to buy them the perfect present, while the other would settle on buying a generic candy bar and a gift card. Not that those aren't great, but as a child it was disappointing to find out one of your parents doesn't really care about you.

When I first realised this, I also came to my next conclusion. Since my birth father had only given me one small present just to say he did, it made me realise the dozens of presents that were typically under my tree were all from my mother. She bought them herself, and would get nothing in return.

That was what killed me.

But, I knew that it wasn't just me that had only one parent care about me. In my life, I had come to know many children of divorce, and they always talked about how one parent would treat them with love and respect, while the other wouldn't bat an eye to their child even if they were bleeding out. The same applied on Christmas even for them.

Every year, I would spend Christmas Day with my mother and the days leading up to it, and then my second Christmas with my birth father the day after Christmas and a few days following that.

Basically, my thought process involved excitement for Christmas, celebrating Christmas morning, and by Christmas night I was suffering from an anxiety attack because I knew what came next. The last place I wanted to go to was my father's, and I swore to myself right then one very important thing.

If I have kids, I promise I will never let them question whose house they're going to for the Holidays. I promise I will never let them feel the fear I feel.

I don't want to have children, but I made a promise to them for just in case one day I change my mind. I can't handle the thought of putting my children through the kind of distress I was feeling.

I can't do it. I won't do it. I refuse.

Growing up with two Christmases made me feel like I wasn't normal. In all the movies and in the shows I watched as a kid I have never seen a divorced family, and all my friends had parents that were happily married. My counselor in the first grade actually wanted to put me in a group with other kids because I was so distressed about it, but I wasn't able to do it because I moved shortly after second grade.

Growing up with two Christmases meant quantity over quality until I turned thirteen, when my mother noticed the contents of my list and focused on those instead of making sure I had plenty of materialistic things.

Growing up with two Christmases meant spending the night in one house filled with joy and holiday cheer, and in another house filled with an unsettling atmosphere where every man is out for themselves.

Growing up with two Christmases was nothing to me except a constant reminder that I was a child of divorce.

I always envied the kids with happily married parents. I always wished I was like the other kids with divorced parents where both sides of the family, stepparents and all, loved the child equally.

Every Christmas my sisters and I had to watch as we were given basic presents that had been bought last minute while our stepsister was showered with presents that had care behind the intentions. While, at my mother's house, we were treated with that same kind of love and respect my birth father would show a little girl that wasn't his blood. My stepfather treats me better than he ever could, and my stepdad doesn't even have to try all that hard.

Christmas made it clear to me where I was and wasn't welcome, and my sisters picked up on the same ideas once they were old enough to understand favouritism. Growing up, we would always dread Christmas because we knew what came next.

My sisters took the divorce and whole idea of two Christmases better than I did, because they never remembered my Mom and birth father when they were together. They, in fact, didn't know they had a father until they had to meet him for the first visit with joint custody.

Since being kicked out of his life, thankfully, I finally started to spend my time having only one Christmas, with one family. My real family.

And yet, every Christmas I still feel a small sense of dread for the next day, knowing that I don't have to see him again, but the fear was irrational. Every Christmas is still a learning experience, since I'm finally able to experience what I had been wishing for ever since my Christmas was split in two.

Every Christmas I still remember what it was like opening a present with a luggage packed upstairs in my room. I still remember the anxiety attacks the morning of the 26th, and a feeling of sickness whenever I would step into my birth father's car.

I don't think I'll ever forget it.

I had grown up practically my whole life with two Christmases and I always wished for one. Now that I have only one, it feels weird not having two. In a strange way, I miss it, but I don't. Two Christmases was a part of me since I was small, so it would make sense if it was hard knowing what will never be. Or at least, never again.

I will always remember what I felt, and what that did to me, and I will always remember one important thing:

I will never do this to my children; so help me, God. I promise this right now, and you heard it here first. My children will always sit around one tree, in one house, with one set of presents, for one Christmas.

They're going to live the life I always wanted. They're going to see what I could never have. If the day comes, my children will never see a divorce. They will never have Two Christmases.

I promise you, kids. I promise you that much.