by Ashlyn Gerbaz

Who ever said having divorced parents isn’t that bad because you get twice the amounts of presents at Christmas was terribly mistaken. More presents will never make up for all the bulls**t these kids have to put up with during the holidays.

In fact, you can have my presents, I just want my parents to not go at each other’s throats during Christmas dinner.

Divorced parents Christmas, as it is now known to me, actually started before the papers were even signed. I was in the eighth grade when my parents decided to split, and they promised to make this change as easy on me and my siblings as possible.

Boy was that a lie and a half. Thirty minutes into opening gifts my mom freaked out and ran upstairs crying. Let me remind you that was also 30 minutes after I had woken up. I was not awake enough to be dealing with drama.

Fast forward four years when my mom’s last name was different and my dad’s hair stopped greying at such an alarming rate, Christmas 2015.

Can we just discuss how it took my parents four years to finally get a divorce and stop acting like “that couple,” that never move on because they might get back together. This isn’t high school, you’re both in your 50s!

My parents behaved themselves wonderfully over Thanksgiving 2015. We had friends over for dinner, my parents made some nice small talk and they even watched the football game together.

But Christmas 2015 was a s**t show! To start, tensions were already high because my sister didn’t come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Opening presents went really well. My mom bought me clothes that weren’t in my neutral color pallet, trying to change my ways. And my dad got me slippers and a crisp $50 bill. No one knows me quite like my father does.

Then my dad brought up going to a movie with him that night. Classic single dad holiday plan, right? But we’d already made plans to have dinner at our friend’s house with our mom.

Here’s something fun that no one told us: my parents’ custody agreement gave a certain parent certain holidays on a certain year. And it was my dad’s year.  

My dad just wanted to take his two kids to see a raunchy movie for Christmas, but my mother was having none of that.

They screamed at each other for about an hour, then my dad left, then my mom took my phone and looked through all my messages. Why did she do this? I don’t know, still really confused.

Probably a good five hours later they agreed. My brother and I would have dinner with my mom and then leave and see a movie with my dad. Was this really worth ruining Christmas for?

I was 18 at the time, so the custody agreement no longer applied to me. But my 15-year-old brother is the only sane person I seem to have in my family, so where he goes I go.

I told my parents that we’ll be having Thanksgiving with friends this year again, and they will behave themselves. But Christmas, well, we’ll see.

As a child of divorce, even if I was older when they split, holidays are not something I look forward to. I don’t watch Christmas movies starting Nov. 1 and I only look forward to the vast amounts of comfort food on Thanksgiving.

My parents have killed my holiday spirit, so don’t bother asking if I’m excited for next few weeks, because I’m really just dreading it.