We are children of divorce; we love different, we take things way too seriously and our lives are way more complex than we ever planned. Let’s get one thing-- straight we aren’t bitter or mad at the hand we have been dealt, we just want everyone to know what our holidays are like. With the holiday season upon us, we just want to remind everyone to be thankful for what they have because not everyone has the luxury of having both parents in one room together on any day, much less a holiday.
As you are just waking up and heading downstairs to get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, chances are we are too... we are just going to do it a little differently. You see, we have multiple Thanksgivings to fit in just one day. Most of the time they don’t fit in just one day, so we have to coordinate our Thanksgiving plans months ahead of time.
We’ve got both of our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles and then we cannot forget about our step-families' houses. We only have so much time at each so we have to plan our day accordingly. Two hours here and an hour on the road to the next place; three and a half hours there, another hour home and then time to go to bed. If we’re lucky, the next day of our Thanksgiving festivities won’t begin until the next weekend so we’ve got some time to recuperate. The one thing we are most thankful for is that we have four weeks to get ready for the next crazy holiday: Christmas.
Christmas is even worse than Thanksgiving. How are you supposed to enjoy the company of family and, of course, the gifts if you are constantly on the go? We still have to endure the traveling and visiting everyone but Christmas is just so much more draining.
I’m sure you’re thinking but you get twice the amounts of presents, what’s wrong with that? Yes, that is an added benefit of having separated parents, but what you don’t think about is that we can’t bring presents from one house to another. What mom got us strictly stays at mom’s house and what dad got us strictly stays at dad’s house.
Once our Christmas escapades are finally over and we get a few days to relax, we have New Years. This is much less draining, but still time consuming. Some want to do New Year’s Eve and some want to do New Year’s Day, but either way we still always have somewhere to be.
Let us say it again: we aren’t bitter or mad at the hand we have been dealt,but we want people to understand our situation. Don’t let our complex lives consume yours-- love your family and love all the time you get with them. We are not trying to take away from your families and the time you get with them. After all, we do love our family, just as much as you do yours, maybe even more. It’s just we have more family to spend time with.
