Pink Christmas In Bloggingham
Christmas and divorce do not fare well.
At least that has been my experience.
At least that has been my experience.
You lose traditions that once fused your life into a neat little holiday package. With the stroke of the magistrate's pen your life is rearranged in huge ways and a million small nuances suddenly have nowhere to live. Sorry, lady, you just lost the right to congregate with unwelcome relatives from both sides of failing marriage, fume, fuss over Christmas scheduling, pretend there is a Santa Claus even when your child is eighteen, attend company parties and do the couple thing, watch your husband crawl around the roof and hang lights on the dormers,and share a burnt Christmas turkey with a family who dares not notice the meal looks like blackened Cajun poultry. You just lost the aforementioned privilege to make memories with said missing family.
Bad memories, good memories, sad memories, wonderful memories.
Forever memories.
Two signatures on a single piece of paper doth not erase a lifetime of holiday imprints.
You do, in essence, sign away your tradition.
You do, in essence, sign away your tradition.
Christmas and New Year's is not an easy time to be single.
So, the first year I was faced with staring at the family-made Christmas tree holding over twenty years of memories and baby boy designed ornaments with tiny little hand prints in white plaster and his smiling baby face in a tiny little ornament frame, I decided to make my own holiday ambiance. To celebrate my independence. To express my personality.
To disengage from "we" and fully embrace "me."
Time to make new traditions.
Today I opened the box and took in a familiar aroma.
Pink Christmas.
Pink Christmas.
My Christmas.
A box full of a memorable shopping trip I took one cold December day five years ago - all by myself. My mission? Reinvent a lifetime of togetherness known as Christmas with the family..... into Christmas with me.
I needed a new tree, a new color, new bobbles, new adventure, unorthodox frivolity, joy, beauty, handpicked reflections of the soul I had become....... and for Heaven's sakes, no red and green.
Prissy things. Purses. Frilly lamp ornaments. Perfume bottles. Lace. Pearls.
Elegant ribbons. Gold-trimmed velvet balls. Beads.
Lots of crystal and fluff.
Pheromones and single girl memories.
Pheromones and single girl memories.
Sensual.
Silly.
Secret sacredness full of me.
To honor and preserve the ornamental scrapbook of my married life for my son and grandson, I hung the old ornaments on a "past" tree. I still have a blue-trimmed tree in my piano room with the family traditional ornaments from my once-married life, a totally crystal ornament tree in my boudoir with tiny white lights, a small multi-colored 3 foot tree in the corner of the kitchen (I changed it to simple red lights this year), Baby Boy #II's crazy green tree in front of the mirror in the hallway, a red and gold tree downstairs with the chimney stockings (near the dungeon) and then there's.........this.....
To honor and preserve the ornamental scrapbook of my married life for my son and grandson, I hung the old ornaments on a "past" tree. I still have a blue-trimmed tree in my piano room with the family traditional ornaments from my once-married life, a totally crystal ornament tree in my boudoir with tiny white lights, a small multi-colored 3 foot tree in the corner of the kitchen (I changed it to simple red lights this year), Baby Boy #II's crazy green tree in front of the mirror in the hallway, a red and gold tree downstairs with the chimney stockings (near the dungeon) and then there's.........this.....
Pink Christmas. In my living room.
With candles and twinkling clear lights in unlikely places.
Six years after divorce and I am experiencing yet another holiday without a significant other.
No silly stockings full of intimate secrets and no candlelit momentsmaking out errr.....opening gifts under the tree giggling on the floor politely sipping eggnog listening to Bon Jovi Bing Crosby in your specially shopped for Christmas nightie with white fluffy sleeves proper little black pencil skirt and matching knee-high leather and suede boots with 3-inch heels boring pumps.
Sipping white wine.
No silly stockings full of intimate secrets and no candlelit moments
Sipping white wine.
I'll be wearing my pencil skirt, mind you, but in all probability,
pouring a glass for one.
pouring a glass for one.
But that's OK. I am ready....and enjoying the experience of reflection and time alone. It's been a difficult year.
I need to sit and be still for awhile.
Good thing I made that solo shopping trip.
Note: I will be posting my peace globe on Christmas Day.
Please join me, if you will.
*This post reprinted from 2008**
I need to sit and be still for awhile.
Good thing I made that solo shopping trip.
My sister and I also took a wonderful Christmas trip to the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina the first holiday I spent alone after my divorce. We found these gorgeous crystal bell ornaments. They are large, intricately made, pure, simple, sparkling.....reflecting the lights inside and out like a prism.
They remind me of grace. Authenticity. And new beginnings.
These will go on Bloggingham's door.....lighted and ready for a new adventure
in a new year with a new person.
in a new year with a new person.
Me
Note: I will be posting my peace globe on Christmas Day.
Please join me, if you will.
*This post reprinted from 2008**
8 comments:
((hugs)) I am very glad that you decided to make christmas special for yourself. It takes a lot of strength to see past a sittuation and enjoy the things we were meant to enjoy despite obsticles.
Merry Pink Christmas Mimi :)
I know this Christmas will be even more difficult for you Mimi without your Dad. I'm thinking of you m'dear. xxxx
I wish you a very beautiful pink Christmas. Embrace and enjoy your new memories.
I wish I could send you a man in a suit, but here in east Texas most of the men work in the oilfield and wear starched blue jeans. ha
Peace on Earth,
Pam
I am all FOR a pretty pink Christmas! In fact, I have my pink holiday suit on today. Happy holidays to you.
That sure is a lot of pink. It seems that we eventually become completely memories.
Whatever gets you through the night I always say. Oh no, wait... That wasn't me, it was George Harrison. Or maybe it's me channeling George Harrison. I digress.
The holidays by any measurable standard are stress-riddled, angst-laden, soul-sucking, weeks of insanity. After my (first) divorce, I went in a completely different direction. Minimalistic. No trees, no baubles, no rum-pa-pum-pum. And would you believe? So MUCH of the stress went in the box with the unused ornaments. I thought it was a fluke at first, but the next year it worked again. The year after too, although by that time I'd made the concession of accepting the gift of a 12" tree with glued on ornamentation that could be set up in 90 seconds or less.
That worked for me. It probably doesn't work for most people. I'm just odd that way. So if a tree in every room is your stamp on Christmas, then viva les trees. Or however you say that. I've got some free time, I'll give you a hand with the branches you can't reach.
I fully relate. This year, it has been Christmas in MY house. My NEW house. I made new traditions, too, although I put up the old tree sans the "Our First Kissmas Together" ornaments. I displayed the ones the kids made over the years. I designed the menu, cooked the food. And although he has been included, he is banned from my kitchen. He may not step across the threshold into that room. And when he says things like, "I suggest you . . ." I just glare at him and when that still doesn't get the point across, I politely remind him that he is a guest in my new house and I am making the decisions. And I don't need his suggestions, thank you very much. And when he talks about getting another dog, I remind him that he has to clear that with his landlord (me) and it is highly unlikely that she will be granting permission for that, given the way he takes care of the property.
I'm ready for Christmas to end so that he can go home to his (my) house and I can again have my solitude, peace, contentment, and utter control over my surroundings. The ones I bought to get away from him. The ones I pay for every month, even though I already owned a house with no mortgage. The ones I never thought I would have to buy in order to save my sanity and physical health. The ones I love more and more every day.
Here's to all the single ladies! Not the ones waiting for somebody to "put a ring on it," but all those who, like me, know that ring means compromising, sacrificing, swallowing anger, hurt & resentment, and feeling more and more like a "sell-out" with each passing day. In other words, the single ladies like me who know that there is no going back because they no longer believe in that thing called "marriage."
JHS
Colloquium
This was an inspiring story about a solitary holiday. I love reading all the little visual details.
The holidays can definitely be a hard time to be single. This year on balance actually turned out to be good, though.
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