I separated when my son was little. He was three years old and suddenly I was a single dad with a life to build for him.
That first Christmas, I made big productions of doing Christmasy things together.
The first was the tree lighting in Rockefeller Center.
1/
It was past his bedtime, so I taped it. The next night, we baked cookies and watched it together.
A few nights later, it was more cookies and Rudolph.
Another night, we went to get hot chocolate and look at Christmas lights.
We called them Christmas Fun Nights.
2/
The next year, we watched the lighting of the tree again. And then we did all of those other things too.
They were excuses to just do something together in the Christmas spirit.
Christmas Fun Nights were now a tradition.
3/
We had done them 10 years in a row before this year.
I cherish them. But that's me. I am a malomar: hard outer shell, marshmallow center. I'm sentimental as shit.
You don't always know how much your kids share in your sentiments though. And my son is 13 now. *Things change*
4/
Since COVID hit, to make it as easy on my son as possible, he just splits time between his homes. Spends a few days in one and then spends a few days in the other.
It's flexible. We just sort it out week to week. Easy.
5/
