I have 3 children with two different fathers that means right off the bat we have 4 parents, my ex and his wife and me and my hubby that equals 4. Now each of us has a set of parents, we are lucky that none of them are divorced so there are only 8 of them. At the moment 2 of the 3 of them have significant others. Air Force Girl just got engaged and Army Girl and the boy will someday get married seeing as we will be soon having grandbabygirl1. Well it is my theory that has been confirmed by Army
Girls’ boy. I guess we will have to come up with a name for him won’t we? And Air Force Girls boy too, I guess right now we will call him THE FIANCÉ. So now we have THE FIANCÉ and the boy and their respective parental units. The math is just getting overwhelming.
I am with the girls for the second year in a row. Now this year I do not get them exclusively but the fact that I get them at all is so amazing . . . sometimes people don’t understand the math of Christmas. Think about it if we really did the math I would be lucky to get the girls all together ever 6 or 8 years depending on how many of the significant others have divorced parents. I am lucky, I enjoy Christmas as much as anyone, but I believe Christmas happens when you want it to. It doesn’t have to be pinned to a date. Anytime I can get together with all of my girls and their soon to be growing families’ works for me.
As a family we were lucky in 2011, we didn’t have anyone deployed. I am thinking we will not be so lucky in 2012. Now I do not know this for a fact and if I did you wouldn’t find out unless it was announced by someone official, not me. But I also don’t expect to be able to spend ‘Christmas’ with my kids every year either. It would be amazingly lovely if I could but I do not expect it. As your kids get to be adults and as they start to pair up with others you add in so many others, the math gets huge very quickly. And the thought that you get to have a command performance by them every year is just plain naivety at its worst.
Christmas is nice because it is a time of year when everyone is forced to be nice to everyone. We all want Santa to come see us after all. But the rest of the year is just as amazing if you let it be. The spring when everything is renewing itself, the summer when the heat makes everything grow, the fall when the bounty of the year is harvested and the winter when we learn to appreciate it all again. The days don’t matter the being with the people you love does.
So we will continue to “sneak” in as many visits with as many people as we can. It is what we do, is it the preferred way of doing things? Oh heck no!!! But is it what we will do as long as we can, YES we will. If you don’t like it, I am sorry about that. But . . .
Merry Christmas!
