The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (?)

I've always been one of those folks who love the holidays and the holiday spirit.  I know that's hardly unique, but I really have enjoyed Christmas shopping every year.  The crowds and parking at malls aren't ever much fun, but the opportunity to find the perfect gift for the people in my family more than makes up for minor shopping headaches.  There's always online shopping too, but there's something about walking around a mall and shopping the old fashioned way that I can't ever completely pass up.

The last few years my family has had a bit of a tradition of taking our time Christmas morning.  We've had breakfast together, and after coffee we usually put on either A Christmas Story or Christmas Vacation on the TV while we open gifts.  We broke out cameras to take pictures of each other while unwrapping presents, and we've usually taken a couple hours doing so. 

This year, things have taken a decidedly different turn.  My parents separated again this past spring - not long after I had lost my job actually - and they're in the middle of their divorce as I type this.  I've kept my nose out of their dealings mainly because I feel like ignorance is truly bliss in this case, but I know it's been taxing on them both, to say the least.  What little I do know about their divorce is that it's been an ugly process (as most divorces tend to be), and it nearly led to my father not attending my sister's wedding in September (though he did still come in the end, fortunately).

The divorce process has cast a fairly dark cloud over a lot of things during the last few months.  First and foremost was my sister's wedding, but there have been other events sprinkled throughout the year that have been affected by their split.  In the back of my mind I've wondered how the holidays would work out given our traditions won't be the same anymore, but I guess I pushed those thoughts aside since Christmas was so far off at first.

I've been talking about Christmas even though this is Thanksgiving week for a specific reason.  Since the Ravens are playing Thanksgiving night, my sisters and I are going to the game, and we're tailgating Thanksgiving dinner in the parking lot.  It's a once-in-a-great-while kind of event, so we couldn't pass up on it.  In a way, it's spared us all from having to deal with the change in the family for a few more weeks; whether that's good or bad is up for debate. 

I've spent quite a bit of time over the last couple weeks on the friends I've known whose parents split when they were very young.  Going through a divorce from the child's perspective isn't easy no matter what age the child is, but I feel like someone whose parents had split when he/she was 6 can adjust more easily than someone who's 32.  A 6 year old will only know the holidays as days to split time apart between parents.  The kid will have house hopped every year, or perhaps even see one parent for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas.  It's more of a shock to the system for me given I'm used to spending the holidays as a single family unit. 

As bittersweet as this year's holiday season will be, I'm not going to enjoy gift shopping any less.  For one thing, I have a niece to shop for this time.  I have to live up to my civic duty as uncle to find some toys for her to play with, preferably ones that light up and make some kind of obnoxious noise to drive my sister crazy.  I've even done some looking online for gift ideas and have something in mind for just about everyone on my shopping list. 

Maybe this holiday season will still be the most wonderful time of the year, just different from years past.