There’s nothing like spending Christmas at the hospital to put things in perspective.
I can’t lie, this year I had a bad attitude in the twelve days before Christmas. There were no French hens, turtle doves or Lords-a-leaping. Stress and pressure overwhelmed me to the point that I didn’t find myself even looking forward to the Yuletide. I just wanted it to go away so that I could get back to my regular life.
In addition to all the regular holiday stressors, as my husband and I compared calendars, we saw that we would have his son Luke on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning, and my son Jake late morning and afternoon Christmas Day. Which is to say, there would be little or no overlap for us to celebrate together as a family. This made me sad.
When we have these scheduling glitches, my husband usually looks to me to negotiate a fix with my ex, because I have a good relationship with my ex, whereas DH and his former wife couldn’t calmly discuss changing a roll of toilet paper.
Nonetheless, it strikes me as unfair that I have to be the one to continually compromise with my ex, that I have to be the one to make all the changes, call in favors and disrupt my ex’s/stepmom’s lives simply because the two of us have done the very hard work necessary to build a civil, constructive relationship while my husband and his former wife haven’t successfully done that. But being a good soldier, I called up the ex and we talked. And it didn’t go well. Not that we were nasty to each other, but just that we each really wanted our kid at the same time and there were no easy solutions. Long story short, by the time we finished our negotiations, my situation was worse worse than when I started! Argghhh!
On top of that, my husband volunteered us to host his family on Christmas Day without talking to me first. You know what? I love, love, love his sisters, Occasionally, my husband gets on my ever-last nerve and I fantasize picking up the phone to call the divorce attorney. And then I remember Joan, Mary and Connie and I slowly replace the phone in the cradle while calling on deep, forgotten reserves of strength to make my marriage work. I love my in-laws, and at any other time I promise you, I would love to have them over.I just wouldn’t have chosen to invite them on a day as chaotic and unpredictable as Christmas. To make it worse, he and his family quickly settled on a 1:00 p.m kick-off without he and I having the chance to think that through or talk it over. At that point, my hubby and I still had no fricking idea when and if we would have the kids. Or whether I would need to suddenly abandon dinner preparations to drive up to Baltimore to retrieve my son, leaving my guests with half-cooked potatoes and no drinks.
Christmas Eve, I took the boys to a friends house for a holiday dessert party. Hubby stayed home because he hadn’t been feeling well; he had in fact visited Urgent Care earlier that day. Despite leaving him at home, I very much enjoyed being with my friend and her husband, another couple and our combined six boys.
The next morning, my husband woke me at 5:00 and asked me to take him to the emergency room for abdominal pain. And so we spent Christmas Day at the hospital. My son had been picked up by my ex after the party the night before, but SS was still sleeping, visions of sugar plums–or the teenage version of that–dancing in his head. In between tests and consults with doctors, I ran home a couple times to check on him and we arranged for his mom to pick him up early. After eight or ten hours in the ER, DH was admitted and transferred to a room.
It was a very strange Christmas. I could have said, “Christmas is ruined!” but the reality was, I had to make the most of the situation I was given. And so I tried really hard to have a good attitude. I was very patient, I used humor to lighten things, I brought holiday decorations from home for his room as well as gifts for us all to open the day after Christmas, and I just tried in whatever way possible not to add any more stress to a less-than-ideal situation.
And most of all, I was left with a sense of what truly matters, which is love and family and my husband’s health. Suddenly all the stress and worries of the previous weeks melted away. And in an instant, they all seemed so unnecessary and silly. What did it matter if my house wasn’t picture-perfect or if I had a few last-minute gifts to buy? So what if we didn’t have the boys on the same time on Christmas Day?
December 25th is just a day. But the spirit of Christmas can be celebrated all year long.
