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Stepping in Today

                      With Laura Vomvos

Sharing our love during Christmas……..

For stepfamilies, the word sharing takes on a whole new meaning as the holidays approach.  While others share gifts, food and sentiments, we share our greatest gift of all, we share our children.

 During the holiday season I feel the need to toughen up my spirit and know that this year I may have a turkey alone, or for three, or six, or nine.  I’m never completely sure how many of our children will dine with us Thanksgiving day.   Your average stepfamily has to alter their holidays knowing that some days are shared with their children, while other days we are without.  This doesn’t get easier with time, most especially during this blessed season.  While we are used to the flexible schedules and the joint custodial ways of every day life, the holidays always seem to shine a spotlight right on that empty feeling if it happens to be our turn to celebrate without our full family.    As a child of divorced parents, my schedule was Christmas Eve with moms family and a visit to Dads for Christmas Day.  As I got older things changed, I had family of my own, and magically at the same time my parents matured enough to foster a friendship that allowed for all of us to dine at the same table and share the spirit of Christmas together.  While I am so grateful for that, it is certainly the exception and not the rule.

Our family has managed to create a system that works for us.  On Christmas Eve all of our children are with their other biological parent and loved ones. My husband and I spend the night wrapping presents, last minute shopping and visiting friends.  I suppose we should be grateful for little time we have apart from them… but somehow when the lights are shining and the Christmas Carols playing, we just can’t grasp that feeling of gratitude. 

My girls come home either very late that evening or early the next morning and share all their gifts and excitement.  If they come home in the evening, I try to get them to go to bed as late as possible so that they don’t wake up too early the next morning.  That is because we await the arrival of my stepchildren. I am always hopeful that they will arrive bright and early before the others awake, so that it seems like we all wake up together.  How they hate it when I make them all, one at a time, take turns opening gifts. I don’t think they realize that we’ve been waiting for all of them patiently for the past 24 hours.  I’m savoring this family time together and thankful that our Christmas can now begin. We all have breakfast together and I feel joy. At 3:00 my big dysfunctional family of approximately 50 arrive to celebrate Christmas, My Mom and stepfather, My dad and stepmother, my brothers, brother in law, and stepbrothers, my stepsisters, half sister and sisters in law, along with my precious nieces and nephews in droves…all under one roof, but all together, for it is our time to have Christmas, as we truly have learned how to “share” our love at Christmastime.

So, in the spirit of the holiday season, I would like to send special hugs out to all of those parents who have to spend some or all of their holidays without their children, so that they can share their childs love with their other parent.  It isn’t an emptiness that can easily be filled, but one that can be softened just knowing that there are thousands of others out there, just like you.

 Love and Gods Blessings for a very Merry Christmas.