Being divorced or in your "not-so-typical" family situation seems to leave some of us
anything but thankful for the holidays.
Remember when you were younger and would fight over who got the chance to pull the wishbone from the turkey? It was sheer agony having to watch it dry out, high above out of reach on the window sill over the kitchen sink, just begging us to pull it, alllllll day longgggg. Because I grew up in a large family we would draw names who the lucky two would be that could pull {or let the other person pull - that was a pretty good strategy} for glory and bragging rights that you were in fact the "lucky one" for the next 364 glorious calendar days.
Well now image that same tugging, but this time the winner gets their lucky in the form of time with their children or other family members. The "unlucky" other person is left with being alone or scrambling faster than the turkey probably about to sit on your plate to find an invite somewhere so they're not spending it alone.
Personally, I typically fall in the second category. The scrambling turkey.
During my divorce, my Ex and I were careful to carve out a plan for our young son to spend every other holiday alternating between Mommy and Daddy. The first few years were gut-wrenching and took quite a bit of getting used to. If I was lucky enough to have my son with me, family seemed to now have the impression because I was no longer a "couple", holidays could be redefined to travel or spend them with their in-laws families. Minus the Thanksgiving spent by some of my family at my house fresh off my tumor removing surgery where I was truly thankful but in a different kind of way, my young son and I were pretty much on our own. On the other hand, if my young son was with my Ex, well then there I was, a scrambling sobbing on the inside turkey, trying to find a friends Thanksgiving to crash.
Whether holding the fat or skinny side of the wishbone,
I was losing my thankful for the holidays.
Then about three years into my carved up Thanksgiving came the invite.
The invite to a close friends condo in Florida. Their family had just suffered the loss of two of their patriarchs and was pretty much on their own as well. Even though they were a "typical" family of mother, father, young daughter and son - suddenly and sadly their traditional Thanksgiving spent with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins was gone.
So they decided to have a thanksgiving full of "adopted" family members to share in their blessings at their little slice of beach heaven.
There we were... all of us. Middle aged having lived most of lives having traditions as our pillars, standing in the rubble of divorces and loss of family. With the choice to wallow in it or move on and re-build what a thankful and happy holiday meant to us.
And as I scramble this year like a turkey again, my scramble has changed. It's a three years in a row scramble to pack my suitcase so I can drive as fast as I can {or the speed limit allows me} to our re-defined tradition. This year will be an even luckier and thankful year as my son is with me, yes it's a "Mommy" year.
Will this new tradition last of spending it with friends and new friends who all have found themselves on their own? I hope so. Because this new tradition has all of us regaining our thankful.
But if it doesn't... well then I will once again remember the holiday season is about being hopeful and counting our blessings not based on what one "normally" does one day out of the year,
rather devoted to everybody and everything that keeps you breathing the other 364 days of the year.
I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the double leafed table overflowing onto a well dressed folding table set up for little ones, at my old traditional Thanksgiving. The drunk Uncle. The screaming sibling {oh wait - was that me?}. Grandparents playing poker into the wee hours as the grandkids all sneek back into Grandmas small kitchen full of large plates of leftovers and half eaten pies for a fourth trip. But my new tradition, although filled with not as many people {or pies} is filled with just as much love. And maybe just a quarter of the drama.
After the dust of the rubble of whatever crumbled clears, having the desire and the willingness to re-define what you are most thankful for in the end is the true blessing. Happy Thanksgiving!
xo, Valerie {of Valerie and Holiday - "The Ex-Wives"}
