Your First Holiday After Separation

Plaster on the fake smiles!

A friend of mine was dating a woman he wasn’t really into. Being trapped at home as a single guy during a pandemic, he didn’t have opportunities to meet anyone new.

“Dude, you need to break it off with her now” I warned him. “Otherwise you’re getting into Christmas gift territory and then you’re really stuck.”

And then it dawned on me: crap. Double crap. I need to have “the talk” with my Separated Husband about Christmas gifts to each other.

The irony in breaking up with a spouse who never communicated with you is that there is so much more that needs communicating after separation. Even when you still live together in the same house.

I didn’t realize changing settings on the iPads our kid's use was off-limits. I didn’t realize how much I would dislike Joseph barging into the bedroom when the door is closed. I still don’t know if I should compliment his appearance if he’s wearing something new; is that off-limits because it might fuel his hope for reuniting?

We’ve had to work out financial “allowances” and agree on where the money is best spent, something that in the past was delegated to me and I got Joseph’s sign-off in the 11th hour.

In our Parenting Marriage contract (a document that lists out all the business-type details of handling our new lives), we formally agreed on who speaks with different vendors. My bucket has childcare and utilities while his bucket has pool repair companies and our gardeners.

I interrupted Joseph’s TV watching after the kids were asleep to discuss our bank account and joint credit card situation. In the past, he was hypersensitive to any comments about overspending on non-essential things. And by “non-essential”, I mean collectible toys.

This time, I didn’t tiptoe around the subject. I’m much bolder these days. It’s easier when you don’t give a crap about the other person’s opinion of you. I don’t need him to put me on a pedestal or be the apple in his eyes. Opening my laptop, I point out fourteen Paypal purchases from November that went through the joint “family essentials” account, not his personal credit card.

Truthfully, it’s very weird to discuss finances with whom you shared accounts for almost 20 years. His money and how he spends it isn’t my business. But dipping into joint accounts is very much my business. Joseph acknowledged the mistake in his default Paypal settings. I walked out of the room as our financial meeting was complete.

“Oh, speaking of buying stuff…” I turned back around into the room. “What’s the deal with buying each other Christmas gifts? Is that something we can just not do?”

Without looking up, Joseph replies “I assumed you weren’t going to buy me anything”. Phew. While that may be disappointing to him, at least it isn’t a surprise. I proposed getting something under $20 for each other’s stockings because otherwise, that’ll look weird to the kids.

The conversation turned awkward and I figured we’d reached our Max Awkwardness for the day. I left the room and Joseph resumed his usual TV watching.

There is a different feeling in this house when it comes to Christmas. I didn’t grow up experiencing Christmas family stuff (I spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas as the token guest at a childhood friend’s house) but I try to make the holidays fun for the kids.

Our tree ornaments are ghetto and either purchased on clearance after Christmas or handmade. However, I do take my kids to the store each year to buy one new ornament for the tree. I keep a log of what ornament they chose each year. That tradition went out the window with Coronavirus. Instead, the kids picked out their ornaments online without the excitement of running around the store comparing options.

Decorating the tree had a different vibe this year. The kids don’t know about our separation and yet, it still feels…different. The kids weren’t screaming in excitement and running to the tree to hang each ornament. We only remembered halfway through to turn on holiday music. Tired from lugging out two Christmas trees from the garage (don’t ask why we have two) and setting them up, Joseph spent the whole time in the kitchen on his phone. I was in a different room adding the string ties to the ornaments I bought the year before. After hanging up a few ornaments, the kids began complaining as if decorating a tree was akin to doing laundry.

We weren’t trying to be crappy parents this Christmas. We’re burned out from being at home 24/7 with our kids while working. I mustered as much holiday enthusiasm as I could then eventually let the kids bail out while I decorated the trees by myself.

There is no family togetherness anymore.

We don’t have an Elf on the Shelf. We have a Kindness Elf instead, which is an excuse for me to get a non-creepy toy elf who makes my kids into less self-absorbed a-holes for a month. Did he come out on December 1st? No…our elf showed up on December 4th. I slapped a tiny mask on the elf and in his first daily note to my kids, I blamed elf coronavirus testing for his tardiness. Better than saying, “Hi kids! I’m late because your mom has no concept of days or time anymore.”

This elf is now the one area that I’m focused on not effing up during this holiday season. Our house isn’t decorated and I didn’t even hang on the front door the super dope wreath I made two years ago. This elf is now my one job to not fuck up this month.

Thank God for the internet or else I wouldn’t have any ideas at 2 am when I remember that I need to move the elf.

By far the weirdest part of all is not having family pictures taken for our holiday cards. I don’t fuck around when it comes to holiday cards. I get those pics done in October with the cards mailed out even before Thanksgiving. Each annual card is kept in a photo album.

I also kept a copy of each kid’s birthday party invitation in that album. Thanks to COVID, there were no parties and no invitations for the album. And now, there is also a missing annual holiday card.

I considered doing a small photoshoot with just the kids and send out cards with just them. Sending them out with even just the kids on them seems inauthentic (as opposed to years of sending family photos with the smiles of a couple unhappy in their marriage). I told friends that I didn’t have the bandwidth right now to send cards. Coronavirus is not only a great excuse to not socialize with friends during a separation, but also to avoid the drama of family photos.

Speaking of family photos, this is the year where there will be next to no pictures of the parents with the kids. Neither of us feels compelled to keep photos of our soon-to-be-ex-spouse on our phones.

This all sounds very bleak and depressing, doesn’t it? I’d like to think that by doing a Parenting Marriage and living together while separated, we’ve lessened the blow of Christmas after a full-scale divorce. For now, at least the kids will have their parents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

And really, it’s not so bad.

Soon it will be Valentine’s Day where love will be all around us. Shortly after, it will be our wedding anniversary. So there’s plenty of time for awkward emotional moments ahead. Let’s not rush the weirdness and ruin Christmas.