This past summer, my parents announced their divorce. While it was a bit shocking to my siblings and I, it definitely wasn’t unexpected. They had been separated for two years so, naturally, we knew it was coming. But now that I’m a college student and took the time in therapy to cope, I honestly haven’t thought much about their divorce since I knew I wouldn’t be home all year like my siblings were. However, when the holiday season started approaching, I began thinking about what my life would be like now that my parents were divorced.
I knew that holidays were obviously not going to be the same. Since my parents are still friendly even though they’re divorced, my family is going to spend the holidays together. Initially, I thought it was the weirdest thing ever that we’d still be doing Thanksgiving and Christmas together. It took awhile for me to warm up to the idea of spending holidays with both of my parents together in the same house. It took even longer for me to warm up to the fact that we’d be going on a family vacation to New York City for a few days before Christmas. To say I was shocked is an understatement. After all, a lot of my friends had mentioned how they’d have to travel back and forth for the holidays, and I thought it’d be the same for me.
For Thanksgiving, my family (my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, and I) just stayed at my mom’s house and cooked there. We watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, as usual, and then we went to visit my grandparents as well as a family the next day, which was be nice; we haven’t done that in almost three years. However, for Christmas, we’re all going to New York. If I’m being honest, it’s going to be a little weird, and I’m a bit nervous about it. My family hasn’t done a family vacation since we moved back to the United States from Germany in June 2022, when we went to Bethany Beach in Delaware. Usually, my parents just each have us separately for breaks and take us on vacation by themselves. That had become the new normal. Now, I have no idea how to feel about this sudden family trip to New York City. My parents are even going to do Christmas Eve and Christmas together. It all just seems so strange, if that makes sense. Most people talk about how their parents hate each other and don’t get along, or how their parents can’t even be in the same room as each other. So, to see my parents get along, and even consider doing things as a normal family would, kind of freaks me out a little bit.
While I’m still getting used to the fact that my parents are still friends, I am extremely grateful that my parents decided to remain friends. I know that for most people with divorced parents, the holiday season can be extremely hard to cope with and that it’s not always fun going home for breaks. Even with the weirdness around celebrating holidays together, I’ll be forever grateful that my parents made it easy for me to say “yes” to coming home for the holidays.