My ex-husband and I still spend Christmas together with our kids. It's not for everyone, but it work
- After we divorced, my kids still wanted to spend holidays with my ex-husband and me.
- The first year my boyfriend and I hosted him, I was terrified.
- It ended up being a nice day, and we've had blended family holidays ever since.
The year following my divorce, my adult children asked to spend Christmas Eve with me, their dad, and my new boyfriend, Don. I was blissfully in love, and my ex-husband Ed was still single at that point. For the first time, we'd be together at the red-brick townhome I'd recently purchased on my own. My ex-husband hadn't seen the place his alimony had decorated with help from HomeGoods. I agreed.
The gathering required Instagram perfection, and more preparation than if I'd been hosting the birth of baby Jesus himself. I was obsessed with getting it right, and my fixation had me scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush and sniffing every room to be sure it didn't smell like a dog. I decked every available hall with boughs of farmers market holly. I had this idea that our first post-divorce holiday together needed to set a bar that other divorced couples could only hope to reach from the top of a 10-foot ladder.
I was full of anxiety when Christmas Day finally arrived
The day finally arrived, and my house smelled of Clorox, pumpkin pie, and potential — until about two hours before the gathering. Since dawn, a countdown clock had ticked the minutes down in my head. With too much time to perseverate in the shower, panic washed over me, along with pounding insecurity. At the sound of my wailing, Don ran up the stairs. He found me wrapped in damp terrycloth on the bedroom floor, clothes scattered like a Saturday at Walmart. I sat puffy-eyed and gasping for air, prattling with an auctioneer's speedy, blurred speech. "I can't do this. What do I wear? I don't know how to act. What if Ed hates the house? What if Ed hates you?" Even though our marriage had ended, I still craved Ed's approval. The obsession for acceptance bordered on childlike, a grown woman eager to prove she could manage alone but never afforded the chance.
My boyfriend reminded me I have nothing to prove
Don scraped me off the carpet, leading me to the edge of the bed. He dabbed the wet from my chin with the sleeve of his Christmas sweater; in doing so, his thumbs also wiped away some of my anxiety.
"You're beautiful," he said. "Your home looks like a Hallmark movie. You hung garland over every toilet. And I've never seen fairy lights on a dog before. You baked five pies for nine people. It's going to be fine." Then he took my face in his calloused hands and continued to reassure me; he reminded me that even though I had done a great job, it actually didn't matter.
"You have nothing to prove. You aren't married to Ed anymore," he reminded me gently. "The harder you try, the more likely the night will go wrong. Christmas will be perfect because you're giving your kids the gift of togetherness, not because of the embroidered Pottery Barn stockings or your homemade whipped cream. It's all enough. You're enough."
And I believed him.
There were some awkward moments
Still, hosting the man I'd been married to for 26 years bewildered me. No longer the spouse of the house, Ed was now a guest. When forced to ring my doorbell, I unlocked the door to let him in. Then I hung up his overcoat and offered him a beer. He looked perplexed and out of place in a home that wasn't ours together. It had been almost a year since we'd shared either a room or an occasion.
Don and Ed stumbled over each other to maintain an appropriate level of wine in my glass. (The proper level was full. Very full.) When I placed dinner on the table, they started a blessing in awkward unison. They paused, eyed each other, then stumbled over themselves again. The kids yelled, "Jinx!" and everyone laughed. We hadn't even carved the turkey yet.
After the meal, Don and Ed cleared the table and helped with the dishes, unsure of their roles in the new abnormal. When I said, "Thanks, honey," they responded in duet. It was like seeing double, but not.
We've continued to spend Christmas together
Maybe it was the pinot noir, the presents, or the Straight No Chaser Christmas album playing carols in the background. But by the time we reached dessert and gifts, I'd wrapped my worry in a box with plans to re-gift it to some other divorced soul. We were celebrating a new era. Besides, how can anyone fall apart while listening to a cappella?
That was nine years ago, and to this day, our blended holidays continue. We still share every special occasion — Ed now has a girlfriend, and I have a new fiancé after Don's passing. I recognize some exes can't merge their lives as successfully as we have, and, in fact, probably shouldn't try. But it's the right path for us, and we walk it together. And now our grandchildren know Ed and I as Papa and Gigi, not the grandparents who can't breathe the same air. They're aware we used to be married but are with other partners. But they also understand that we're one — especially during the holidays.
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