This is normally something I would write about on my ‘other blog’ but since you all read hear and I don’t want to force you to click over to read it there… I post it here.

So, for the record here is… How I lost my Christmas Spirit.

For those of you who don’t already know my life story let me give you a little background.

I grew up with a ‘working’ mother. So early in my life she set a precedent. She was NOT going to spend her Christmas Day slaving in the kitchen cooking a huge dinner. One day a year was enough for her.

Fast forward a few years – I’m married. I find my mother’s ‘rule’ to be a good ‘rule of thumb’. No big dinner at Christmas. Richard (the ex-not his real name) had no problem with this so we went happily on our way.

Fast forward a few more years – my daughter is old enough to know some stuff about Christmas and it’s Christmas eve. Knowing that it was going to be really hard to get her to go to sleep I devise a plan. Step one – go out to eat for a ‘big’ ‘special’ Christmas dinner. Since we were young, poor and didn’t know any better that ended up being Red Lobster. Step two – drive around looking at Christmas lights until the little one fell asleep then go home, carry her to bed and start getting ready for Santa to come. That became our family tradition.

Fast forward many more years. Richard and I have divorced we’ve had a really UGLY custody battle. When the dust has settled we’ve got an arraignment where we’re supposed to trade holidays. Only my kids now suffer from Parental Alienation Syndrome (look it up, it sucks). So rather then force the issue I let them ‘cool’ off. Visits are sporadic and visits during the holidays, out of the question.

Fat forward to now:

Over the past few years the kids have slowly gotten over the PAS and they are on a pretty normal visitation schedule. Only, the holidays are still an issue.

Every year at Thanksgiving, Richard manages to have some relative visiting him. On Christmas – when every other year I’m supposed to have the children for Christmas Eve and be able to put them to bed, then wake them up and watch them open presents in the morning… we run into ‘The tradition’.

Sorry mom, we can’t come see you because we have to go to Red Lobster with Dad. It’s a tradition. First of all, it was MY FUCKING TRADITION! :P Secondly, do you think Richard would have the balls to say, “Hey, enough you need to go with your Mom and start some new traditions”? Well if you’ve learned anything about my ex by now you know the answer is.. No.

This year is no exception. Richard’s mother was visiting at Thanksgiving so the kids stayed there for dinner. As an incentive to get them to come over Christmas Eve I offered to break my ‘rule’ and cook a full on T-day dinner with ALL the fixings. But no… We can’t do that. So for the fifth year in a row I don’t get to see my children on Christmas morning.

Worse, my oldest has told me that she’s taken a job over the winter break and thus – I may not even get to see her Christmas day.

So, I’m sorry folks – I have run out of Christmas cheer. Which really sucks because it IS my FAVORITE holiday.

This year, I’m afraid I’m going to have to say Bah Humbug