Bah Humbug, 2012 Edition

Another holiday season is over. Another year of sharing my kids at Christmas with HeeHaw.

I almost wish people wouldn't ask me how my Christmas was. I don't want to sugar coat it. So when I say "OK" or "It's over", everyone wants to know why. Then I have to go through the whole process of explaining why.... when I should have just lied in the first place and said how "GREAT" it was.

Every year, well since the divorce, its the same thing. Figure out how to make the most of "MY" time with the chitlins before they go back to HeeHaw's. Figure out to split up the holiday traditions. Figure out how to hide my disappointment when the kids tell me they already did the activity I had planned with their father.

Once I have shoved those feelings down, WAY DOWN, usually buried under a plate of some kind of baked goods (it IS the holidays after all) I then have to deal with how to answer the damn question "How was your Christmas"? Ugh. It's like being the only pregnant women in a room full of 20 somethings, or being seen by the bitties in the grocery store. For those mom's in the crowd, you KNOW what I'm talking about........... they will come at you, hands outstretched, rubbing your belly, offering unsolicited advice.

If you have EVER been that women, you know, the only thing you want to do is remove the strangers hand from your belly, tell Grandma to get a life, and march off in the other direction. Yep. That about sums it up.

So, how do I get through it? Alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. Its like camping: you wake up with a cocktail in your hand, and you go to bed with a cocktail in your hand. It stems the emotional flow, and makes all the hurt quite fuzzy around the edges.

Amongst the other issues of a divorced holidays, I forgot to take ONE, SINGLE picture of my kids and I together. EPIC. FAIL. Added to the FAIL list:

Missing the lights at Warm Beach............. again

Not making our traditional Christmas morning breakfast

Getting to the house up the road (that has lights to music) too late to enjoy the show

Forgot the Santa gift

Other than that, everything else went smoothly. Ha. Like I said, I am glad its over. Maybe when my kids are older, and out of the house, it wont hurt as much as it does now. Oh well, another 11 months before we have to start thinking about it again. I'll drink to that!