It is not always the trips to Disneyland and the “perfect” family holidays that our children remember with fondness. Since I have been a single parent for such a long time (or so it seems to me), I can look back and when I’m reminiscing with my kids–some of their most pleasantly memorable holidays are the ones that are far from perfect…
The first “single mom year”–my kids were rather young–first grade, kindergarten and preschool. I was working full time after having been out of the full time work force for a few years and I was also going to school full time. We were living in a new, but small 3 bedroom apartment in student housing. Not much money and even less time to spare–my kids remember that Christmas fondly, however and recall that they got to be in charge of decorating our little tree (it took up half of the small living room) and they decorated the tree with toys–particularly those little toys that come with fast food meals and cereal boxes (I confess during that first year, they had more “kid’s meals” than I am proud of). We made colored paper chains and strung popcorn and I cut out white paper snowflakes for decorations too. That was also the Christmas that while I stayed up late studying and doing the housework, I also sewed dolls and stuffed animals for my kids as gifts. Now, to some it might sound sort of pathetic but for us it is memorable and part of our family lore.
Another “tradition” that has become part of our family is that instead of getting each child lots of gifts or a “big gift”–we pick out a big gift for the family and do it together. One year we got a new microwave oven and last Christmas we got a new DVD/VCR player. We decide on something as a family and that is our big “Santa” present. I am certain that as my kids move out into the world and start families of their own, they will come up with their own traditions–but I am content that instead of trying to pretend that we weren’t a single parent family over all these years–we embraced it and as we’ve aged and grown as a family–so have our very “real” memories.
Now that there are plenty of colored balls and beads and ribbons on the tree and our house has a tendency to look like “Christmas threw up on it” as my eldest daughter says, we have those decades of memories to cherish as we look back on how we got here!
Also: Let Kids Take on Some of the Holiday “Chores”
Single Parents and That Long Winter Break