My ex-husband didn't like the way I wrapped Christmas presents. I wasted paper, he said, and the edges of the gifts were always lumpy.
"Measure twice, then cut," he scolded, as I ran my scissors in a random, jagged edge up the middle of a sheet of wrapping paper. "Oh, no," he'd say. "You should just let me do it."
![Starting afresh in a relationship means starting afresh at Christmas.](/web/20161226200648im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/1/z/w/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtgov0.png/1482699239966.jpg)
That became our holiday tradition. Him, sitting amid the reindeer wrapping paper and rolls of Scotch tape, tying up perfect red bows on neat little packages. And I, cradling a glass of red wine, and slow dancing by myself to Bing Crosby's White Christmas.
When we divorced, I began my own tradition: no wrapping paper, only gift bags.
Many of my holiday traditions changed after my 13-year marriage ended. Some felt too painful or strange to continue in the wake of our relationship's death. The once-treasured ornaments that my ex-husband and I had collected over the years remained in the closet.
Other changes were inevitable. No longer would we go to his father's house on Christmas Eve together and sit in the living room by the fire, cringing over the CRASH BANG from the next room, where our children played amid my in-laws' breakable treasures.
The first holiday after my divorce, my mother made me promise not to spend the holiday alone. So I spent the night at my mother's house for the first time in 15 years, sleeping in my childhood bed. I don't know why she wanted my company: I was a Grinch of a divorcee. My kids were at their dad's house for Christmas morning, and Santa Claus skipped over my world completely. This was not a tradition I hoped would continue.
As my post-divorce life took shape, new rituals gradually took hold. And unlike the old ones, which I had either blindly carried on from my childhood or adopted under the influence of my ex-husband, these new ones were purposeful. I was 35 years old and too tired to continue with obligatory ceremonies that I had never enjoyed.
When I got remarried, my husband and I got to create new traditions for our joined families. On our first Christmas Eve together, our six children gathered in the family room, perched on the sofa and chairs that had come from the homes of our previous lives.
"Let's go around and each say something we like about each other," I requested, cheerfully.
Everyone groaned. That first year, as we were all still learning how to share a life and a house together, it was a challenge to drum up kind words. Four years later, this is a revered tradition in our blended family. Even the teenager in the house joins in with limited coercion.
While I've cast aside some of the archaic traditions that seemed to no longer apply to my life -- the huge homemade meal on Christmas Eve has been replaced by a deli tray -- I've also introduced my stepchildren to the cherished rituals from my own childhood. We gobble down cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, the kind that come encased in a metal tube and end up deliciously gooey and undercooked. The children wait excitedly at the top of the stairs for the signal to come down, after Mom and Dad check to see whether Santa really came (cue the teenage eye-rolling). Then we open our presents slowly and one at a time, admiring one another's haul until everyone has finished.
"I like it better your way," my 10-year-old stepdaughter confessed to me in the car one night, before our second holiday together. "It makes the fun of Christmas morning last so much longer."
I couldn't agree with her more.
Divorce is an ending, a time of letting go. It's a breaking of tradition. After years of drifting off to sleep with the firm belief that love is for always, you wake up the next morning, alone in your bed. Everything is different.
But in the hollow space that comes afterward, there's time for reflection. You take stock of what really moved you and lose the baggage that was weighing you down.
My new husband and I wrapped presents together last year, and he never even looked twice at my edges. They were still lumpy. But after we finished, we clinked glasses of wine, congratulating ourselves on a job well-done. Then we turned on the record player and slow danced our way into Christmas. I hope that's a new tradition that lasts for years to come.
The Washington Post