After my divorce, my kids asked if my ex-husband and I would spend Christmas together. I hosted; we’ve spent holidays as a blended family ever since.
The year following my divorce, my adult children asked to spend Christmas Eve with me, their dad, and my new boyfriend, Don. I was blissfully in love, and my ex-husband Ed was still single at that point. For the first time, we’d be together at the red-brick townhome I’d recently purchased on my own. My ex-husband hadn’t seen the place his alimony had decorated with help from HomeGoods. I agreed.
The gathering required Instagram perfection, and more preparation than if I’d been hosting the birth of baby Jesus himself. I was obsessed with getting it right, and my fixation had me scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush and sniffing every room to be sure it didn’t smell like a dog. I decked every available hall with boughs of farmers market holly. I had this idea that our first post-divorce holiday together needed to set a bar that other divorced couples could only hope to reach from the top of a 10-foot ladder.I was full of anxiety when Christmas Day finally arrived
The day finally arrived, and my house smelled of Clorox, pumpkin pie, and potential — until about two hours before the gathering. Since dawn, a countdown clock had ticked the minutes down in my head. With too much time to perseverate in the shower, panic washed over me, along with pounding insecurity. At the sound of my wailing, Don ran up the stairs. He found me wrapped in damp terrycloth on the bedroom floor, clothes scattered like a Saturday at Walmart. I sat puffy-eyed and gasping for air, prattling with an auctioneer’s speedy, blurred speech. “I can’t do this.
