Surviving Your First Holiday as a Single Parent

By Lisa Kroulik © November 13, 2011

Three years ago, my ex-husband moved out the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Needless to say, my first holiday as a single parent came up rather quickly – five days later, to be exact. Since we had gone to his family’s home every Thanksgiving for our entire 16 years together, I informed him that the kids and I would be seeing my family this year. He didn’t protest, and I didn’t have to deal with being alone on the holidays for the first time until the next month.

I knew that my daughters would be spending Christmas Eve with my ex-husband, so I made arrangements ahead of time to insure that I wouldn’t be alone. I invited myself to one of my sister’s homes for her celebration with her in-laws. I’m sure that I would have been invited anyway, but I took preemptive measures just to make sure. Only one month into living as a single parent, I knew I wasn’t ready to spend a “family” holiday alone.

If you are a new single parent, I will give you fair warning and say that getting through those first holidays can be challenging. With all the emphasis on family that the holidays bring, it can be a painful reminder that yours is no longer together. It’s hard to see your children want to be with both parents and have to tell them it just isn’t possible. It’s hard to put on a happy face as you send them off to spend the holiday without you, hoping you can make it until they get out the door before the tears come.

I am here to tell you that it does get better.

Divorce changes everything for a family, including how the holidays have always been “done.” If you and your ex-spouse can agree to keep the schedule as similar as possible for your children, that is ideal. In my case, a holiday schedule written by his lawyer was included in our divorce decree. The holidays we each get to spend with our children is determined by whether it is an odd or even year, and some years heavily favor one parent. This year it is their dad. It hurts, but the sting gets a little easier to take each year as the kids get older.

If you are facing your first divorced holiday without your children, I strongly suggest that you don’t do it alone. Find out what other family and friends are doing and see if you can join them. If there is no one in the area, look into volunteering that day. Many service organizations put on holiday meals for people who are homeless or who would have spent the day alone. You will not only enjoy the company of others, it will help you to put your own situation into perspective.

If you were in an abusive marriage like I was, spending a few hours alone at the holidays is really a small price to pay for the chance to build a new life. If it hurts not having your whole family together on days like these, think back to what it was really like when you were together. For me, it was scrambling from one home to the next in an effort to appease everyone and being embarrassed my ex-husband’s boorish behavior towards my family. Neither one of these issues are a problem anymore.

The fortunate thing about Christmas is that it does cover two days, so one parent doesn’t have to completely miss out on having the kids with them like Thanksgiving, Easter and other one-day holidays. You may not get the day with your children that you prefer to have, but it is better than not seeing them at all.

In my situation, I have always been with my family of origin and my children on Christmas Day until this year. For the first time since we have divorced, my ex-husband is exercising his right to take them on his scheduled day this year, so I get Christmas Eve. It’s more about him having control than anything else, but that’s a story for another Hub… or 10.

Flexibility is the key to surviving post-divorce holidays with children. Things aren’t going to be the way they always were. Time marches on and things change. You learn to adapt and make new traditions. I figure this is good training for when my daughters move out and eventually start families of their own. Since both my ex-husband and I are re-married, the girls will have two sets of parents to juggle in addition to in-laws. I will have to be happy with whatever time they have for me. With our oldest daughter being 15 years old, that time may be here sooner than I think.