CHRISTMAS AND THE SINGLE PARENT

Our own and our children’s expectations of happiness at Christmas time can be huge and consequently it can be tough enough getting through the festive period when you fit into a “normal” nuclear family unit, but when you are a single parent, it’s even tougher. How often do you see images of children rushing into their parents bedroom, only to be greeted by one smiling parent? It doesn’t feel quite right somehow. We just don’t quite fit into the mould and there is nothing more depressing than spending Christmas with lots of functional “happy” families. I therefore I find that it is far better to break out and do something entirely different – invite other “dysfunctional” (it’s the new functional remember) friends over and make sure one of them brings lots of alcohol or go away with the children on an exotic retreat (not that I’ve done that yet). The main aim is to avoid anything that reminds you of when you were a happy family unit, including all the specific traditions that make you feel miserable about no longer being part of that group.

I commented the other day that things don’t seem to get any easier, but that was because I had come up against a new problem. Christmas itself does slowly get easier as you get increasingly used to a new way of doing things. Having conducted my own recent survey on the matter, the general consensus (rather depressingly) suggests that it can take up to five years to really move on and be happy with all the changes.

This year will be my fourth Christmas post finding out about my husband’s affair – bloody hell though, that first Christmas was so spectacularly bad, the only way from there was up. I had only just found out about 2 weeks before and was clearly in shock. My father suggested that we take the children and go somewhere else but I wanted everything to be “normal”. So, I somehow managed to get through cooking a christmas meal for 11 and pretending everything was fine. I felt as if I was watching myself from above – a sort of empty shell that somehow managed to just about function. My family knew, but my husband and his mother didn’t know they knew…and my family were brilliantly supportive, but did what we always do when there is a family crisis…we all got completely pissed. My brother got so drunk that he actually vomited on to the table without really noticing. My father found it hilarious that at the end of the evening when it was only my parents and my two brothers to say “well, here we are again then, mummy, daddy and the three little fuck-ups”. Great. My mother couldn’t walk. She had to crawl up the stairs to bed with me pushing her from behind.

This year should be better. I am calmer and looking forward to Christmas with the children and my parents and my brothers and general chaos and laughter and love. I am beginning to feel quite Chrismassy – my daughter had a carol concert last night which went on far too long and was mostly in Latin for some bizarre reason.

It has recently occurred to me though that I won’t be going to anymore Nativity plays – which is quite sad really. Even though my 7 year old managed every year to do something wrong (like when he was one of the three kings and he climbed off the stage, asked me for some chewing gum, threw a wobbly when I said no and then proceeded to take all his clothes off). Or the year he sang “Away In A Manger” in the style of Johnny Rotten – completely loudly with the wrong lyrics… he sang “Away In A Manger, No Crisps In The Bed….”