Christmas is arguably my least favorite holiday. My parents are divorced, and they’ve been divorced since I was nine years old, which is essentially the explanation for my hatred of Christmas. This always perplexes people; I always hear “Why do you hate Christmas? You get twice the number of gifts!” Having divorced parents is unfortunately more complicated than just getting extra gifts. There are many reasons as to why I honestly dread Christmas, so I’ll explain why.
First, it’s the difficulty with the timing of how Christmas Day actually works. I recently learned the other day that some divorced families alternate between celebrating Christmas and Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, my parents are too stubborn to agree to not spend the day with my brother and me on actual Christmas Day, so I have to manage a schedule where I go to both of their houses on Christmas.
A typical Christmas Day begins where I wake up at my mom’s house and open presents, and we eat lunch around 1 or 2pm; but I need to make sure to not eat too much because I have a whole other meal prepared for me to eat in just a few hours. I am definitely not a super social person, and I often need time to myself after being in an overwhelming and energetic social situation for an extended period of time, but this is unfortunately not how it works on Christmas. As soon as I’m done eating lunch at my mom’s, my brother and I drive to my dad’s house, open presents there, then we (my dad, his fiancĂ©e, my brother, and me) all go to my grandparent’s house. This time it’ll be a little different since my dad recently moved from being 5 minutes away from my mom’s house to being 30 minutes away (which will likely be an hour drive with traffic given the fact that it’ll be Christmas Day), so figuring out timing will be a bit more tedious. While a thirty-minute drive definitely isn’t far at all compared to other families, it’s still different from what I’ve been used to for my entire life.
Gift-giving is also a really frustrating experience. My parents refuse to communicate with each other, so there’s the occasional experience where they’ll get me the same gift and it turns into a huge competition. A few Christmases ago, my parents both got me a beautiful pearl necklace. While the two necklaces were both incredibly similar, each had its own unique differences. I had to endure the stress of my mom telling me to wear the one that she got me because it’s more expensive, and my dad telling me to wear the one that he got me because it’s prettier. I ended up just placing both necklaces in my jewelry box and refusing to wear either, because I didn’t want to show any sort of preference for one parent over another.
I can’t even count how many times my parents ask me what my favorite gift was, and I feel the pressure of not knowing whether to say one of the gifts they got me or a gift the other parent got me. Anytime I come home to my mom’s house from being at my grandparents’ house, I always find myself being questioned over and over again by my mom. “What did your dad get you?” “What did Mimi and Pop Pop get you?” “What was your favorite gift?” “What’s your favorite gift that dad got you?” “What’s your favorite gift that I got you?” The second I get to my dad’s house he practically interviews me about what my mom got me, and after I finish opening presents, he’s asking me about my ‘favorites’. It’s just frustrating that Christmas always seems to be a competition between my parents and that I’m always pressured to answer the dreadful questions about who got me better gifts.
I remember years ago when my grandparents got me a stocking full of gift cards for Christmas as my only gift, and I went back to my mom’s later in the night crying. While I definitely should have been grateful and I would be now had I gotten the gift cards, I was a firm gift-card hater at the time due to the fact that I always lost them or forgot to ever use them. I also felt under-appreciated since my grandparents got my dad and brother plenty of huge, expensive and personalized gifts while I got gift cards that I knew I wouldn’t ever use. I can still vividly picture the smug look on my mother’s face as I was crying explaining to her what had happened, and she realized that she had “beat” my dad’s side of the family when it came to gift-giving. “It’s okay sweetie, I’m sorry,” she said to me with a huge smile on her face. I found it odd at the time, but it just led to Christmas being even more of a competition for my parents.
I also get really envious of other people whose parents aren’t separated. Every Christmas I go to my grandparents’ house later in the day, and I always find myself reminiscing on my childhood, where I spent every Christmas opening presents with my mom and dad together at my grandparent’s house. I get jealous of people who are able to spend the holidays with their parents that are happy and in love; while I love my family and the siblings that I now have due to my parents separating, I miss having one simple happy family. I also find myself being envious of my cousins, whose parents are divorced but they have an incredibly healthy friendship. They still celebrate holidays together as a family, and it’s something that I so desperately wish my parents did. I feel as though it’s important to model a healthy parental relationship, even if you don’t love each other anymore, but my parents unfortunately have too much grudge against each other to bother doing that.
Thanksgiving this year was a challenge as well. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I informed my mom that Thanksgiving dinner at my dad’s house would be at 5pm, and that my brother and I would have to leave her house by 4pm, and she said she’d accommodate and figure out timing. The Sunday before Thanksgiving I asked her what time we were going to be eating, assuming she’d say 12pm or 1pm, only for her to say we were eating at 3pm. I immediately realized that she did this to mess with my dad’s schedule. I expressed my frustration with her about the timing, knowing I’d have to eat and then drive straight to my dad’s and eat more, and her response was sort of an “Oh well, I already invited everyone,”. My dad was really frustrated with this too and wanted me to do something about it. He was expecting me to try to convince my mom to change the time that she was serving lunch, when I felt like it was something that my parents should be communicating about. I didn’t feel like changing the schedule of Thanksgiving Day was something that was relevant to me, and I didn’t think I needed to be involved in this argument with my parents. I often find myself having to deal with passive aggressive comments from my dad about my mom, and it’s just excessive around the holiday season.
On Thanksgiving, my mom made the mistake of serving spinach and artichoke dip, which I simply couldn’t resist from snacking on. By the time I had eaten tons of chips and dip, along with lunch, I became stuffed, but had to drive to my dad’s immediately after we finished eating. This resulted in me sitting at the dinner table at my dad’s house incredibly full, forcing myself to eat more food because I knew my dad would be mad at me if I didn’t, which also meant that he’d be mad at my mom for her timing of lunch, which would just cause more unnecessary drama. I was also so socially drained after spending a few hours with my extended family at my mom’s house, so I ended up hiding upstairs at my dad’s house for an extended period of time because I was feeling so introverted due to my social battery running out.
While I love being able to spend time with my family around the holiday season, I’m simply just reminded of the negatives of having divorced parents. The arguments, the competition, the passive aggressiveness, the frustrating and inconvenient schedule. All of it just makes me dread the holiday season and leaves me wishing I could go to sleep on December 24th and wake up on December 26th.