Dec. 24, 2020, 11:47 p.m. On my fourth listen of “Snowman” by Sia, I am finally able to scrawl out the phrase I never thought I would write on a tear-stained piece of paper: Please let them be divorced by next year. While my dramatics may have been augmented by general teenage angst, the root of my pain was clear: the holidays magnify family issues.
That Christmas was the last one my parents spent “socially” married. By 2021, they were separated, and by 2023, divorced. Growing up, I never imagined that I would be a “two-Christmases” kid. Even now, it is hard to call divorced-dad Christmas a real Christmas when I compare it to the well-decorated and delicious-food-filled holidays my mom put on. But the past few years have taught me how to redefine family and find joy in my surroundings.
Before the divorce, our Christmases were reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. On Christmas Eve, we hosted dozens of cousins, aunts, and uncles, sang carols, and snacked on meticulously decorated cookies in our decked-out living room. With a house brimming with holiday spirit and familial love, it was hard for Christmas to not be the most wonderful time of the year for me. So, how did a holiday symbolic of good tidings become an omen of family drama?
I’ve realized the answer lies in the weight of expectations. The first year of two separate Christmases, I assumed that my dad would still host his family on Christmas Eve, allowing me to see my cousins. After the evening at dad’s, I planned to drive six hours to spend Christmas Day with my mom’s side. I thought I could have it all, but that day I learned a fundamental lesson about having divorced parents: you can’t. There is always a tradeoff.
Off the bat, no one should spend six hours in the car on Christmas. But when I was devastated to learn that my cousins were not planning to come to my dad’s that year, I chose to leave my dad’s early and drive the six hours to my mom’s on Christmas Eve instead. Tears welled up in my eyes as I embarked on the journey, knowing I had let my dad down. He had made it clear how upset he was at me, and I had chosen my feelings over his when I decided to leave early.
Looking back, I give myself grace: who can blame my 18-year-old self for wanting to be with her mom, grandparents, and all of her siblings instead of just her dad? I had half-jokingly told my dad that I wanted to see my mom because she was a better cook, but truthfully, I knew the entire event would be more enjoyable because of the love and care my mom puts into creating a fun and festive holiday. I reasoned that it was not my responsibility to protect my dad’s feelings when it was his failed marriage that had led to this situation in the first place. I had to let go of the need to be a perfect daughter and instead choose my own happiness. I focused on finding joy in spending time with family, even if it was in an unconventional way.
Finding joy in the holidays now looks a little different given who I spend them with. There is no longer a debate about where I go for the holidays: I am always with my mom, siblings, and grandparents. Because of differences between my siblings and dad, I choose to be with my siblings and forgo the traditions of Christmas past. The thought of shrinking holiday celebrations from thirty people to fewer than ten seems intimidating, but in practice, this was never the case. My family has found that friends are just as important to spend time with during these special moments of the year.
My mom, siblings, and I now break bread with three other families on Thanksgiving, which has led to more raucous and fun holiday celebrations than I had ever experienced. The parents of these families know me better than some of my aunts and uncles from my dad’s side, and their kids were raised like cousins with me. For Christmas Eve, my mom, siblings, and I still have a bash, but again, we’ve swapped blood family for friends who feel like our kin. Our dinner menu has been elevated from the same chili my paternal uncle used to always bring, but I still make picture-perfect Christmas cookies.
Holidays are meant to be spent with the ones that you love. Sometimes that means your family—but not always. The saying “blood is thicker than water” is often misinterpreted to mean family should come before friends, but few know that the full idiom is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” meaning that the relationships we have chosen are more significant than those we have inherited through our family. Holidays spent with friends instead of family are not any less important or less right than a traditional holiday spent with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Without blood relations, we must actively choose our friends, so to choose to spend time together on the most important days of the year is to reaffirm that we have chosen them to be important in our lives.
If you had told me five years ago that my holidays would be spent with friends over family in a place far away from my childhood home, I would have been shocked. Yet even in this new format, my love for this time of the year does not waver. Although the holidays once symbolized familial divides for me, they now represent the strength of my friendships and family bonds. They remind me that we have the opportunity to create our own happiness through the people we choose to spend our time with, and these relationships make every time of the year wonderful.
Anonymous is excited to bake dozens of cookies for less than ten people this Christmas.