10 reason why being single around the holidays is freakin’ awesome!
1. You get to pick out the tree. You don’t have to get the most ginormous tree if you don’t want to. Nor will you have to get the tall and skinny tree rather than the short and full one that you like.
2. You get to decorate the tree the way you want. No longer will you have to hang his Spuds McKenzie Bud Light ornament, or those ugly blinking lights. You want tinsel, he wanted garland? Boom! Tinsel.
3. You don’t have to run between two different family gatherings on Christmas day, usually one parent gets the kids so no longer do you have to have present openings and meals at your side and his side. (Which I found was a gigantic pain in the ass when I was married because his parents had very particular and odd demands on arrival time and food, don’t ask)
4. No arguing on what gifts to buy for the kids… or Grandma, or his brother, or your parents, or… anything! You can buy whatever the hell you want!
5. You don’t have to make that God-awful rhubarb pie that no one but him ate. Much to his dismay as he tried desperately to get the kids to come to the dark side and like it. They know better.
6. You don’t have to display the hideous purple wreath/candle/centerpiece thing his Mother gave you five Christmases ago. Who the hell makes a purple Christmas centerpiece when everything else is red and green?
7. You can do whatever the hell you want to do for New Year’s Eve! If you always wanted to go out and he didn’t… guess what? Yup, now you can go out! Go out with your girlfriends and whoop it up! If you always wanted to stay home instead of going to his annoying friend’s party every year… guess what? Yup, it’s stay at home in warm comfies and drink wine or eat cookies… whatever you want!
8. If Grandma gives the kids a toy that plays loud repetitive music reminiscent of the ice cream truck, you can send it with them over to keep at Dad’s house so you never ever have to hear it again. Amen.
9. Christmas or Hanukkah, you get to decide when you’re going to religious services and when you eat. If you can’t stay awake long enough to go to midnight mass of which he insisted on going, you don’t have to!
10. You don’t have to be embarrassed when you send the kids to Grandma’s and you wait under the Christmas tree wearing nothing but a bow and he laughs and turns on the football game. Oh wait, that was just me? Oh, ok never mind.
Consider all the above being liberated from all the things you had to compromise on over the years during the holidays. That can be really hard in some relationships where both insist on spending time with their own family or are hellbent on preserving their own particular traditions that they grew up with. Especially if you don’t um, “care” for the particular tradition. Case in point, I’m sure glad I don’t have to make a side of Polish sausage in addition to the main entree for every single holiday meal year round. BTW, so are the kids.
Sure there can be a few things that are a bummer about being single at the holidays but only if you let them. It can be nice to have someone’s hand to hold in church, but then again you don’t have to try to crawl under the pew after your husband has let one rip because he ate too much broccoli from the veggie tray beforehand. Look on the bright side and count your blessings, I say.
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