The Homecoming

The holidays arrived.

And where were the Baldwin sisters with their "recipe" when I needed them?


There is one simple truth about divorce. It changes everything. It doesn't matter whether your divorce is acrimonious or a peaceful parting of company. Whether you gave it 3 years of heartfelt effort in counseling or ran screaming from the bonds of matrimony with your hair on fire. From the moment one spouse declares that they won't be growing old together, everything changes.

Some changes are small - I suddenly had to give a hang what days trash is collected in my neighborhood. Others are emotional minefields fraught with the potential for calamity. The holidays fall into the latter category.

And they come every year, as reliably as the circus. And with them they bring the requisite sideshow entertainment. All too familiar. Not nearly entertaining enough.

There is Once-A-Year Joe, the guest who arrives late and leaves only when you've begun to turn out the lights for the evening. And while he drinks all of your good beer, which he expects you to fetch for him, he assumes other more rational adults will happily watch his children. (They won't.) And invariably one unattended child smears pate on your foyer walls while another smashes a Christmas ornament to smithereens. A sentimental favorite, natch.


And of course, there is the annual pilgrimage homeward of my gypsy mother, Estelle, and her reluctant accomplice, Bill. Always welcome but anticipated with a steaming, congealed serving of angst. When Estelle and Bill come calling, we are all advised to buckle our seat belts.


And since there is a court-ordered way to handle things like holidays, as if we needed any more conductors in the orchestra pit, there is a steroidal dose of feverish running around. We go dashing through the snow, blowing in and out of people's beautifully decorated homes, scarfing down half bites of cocktail weenies and hurried gulps of Christmas cheer before hurling the gifts at the hosts and stashing their unopened gifts to us before hastily kissing everyone goodbye and promising we'll find time to linger in the new year. And then we are off, careening over the river and through the woods to the next destination with the belt of my overcoat caught in the car door and dragging in the muck in the street.


If there is one thing I appreciated about the frenetic pace this year it was the imposed limit on the amount of exposure to the surlier people in our lives and, as if by divine providence, less potential for unwelcome shoulder-rubbing with the bride and groom amidst the choking fumes of wedding mania.

So, with a truncated visit to the dining table at J.'s mom's, I managed to avoid bearing witness to the feigned nostalgic lament that this would be Em's "Last Christmas as an O'Malley! Aaaaaaawwwwww!" Just as we'd bewailed the last Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Columbus Day as an O'Malley. And would likely devote a scrap book page to the last single-zero tax return, last visit to the dentist, last tire rotation, last bounced check, last box of Dexatrim, last trip to a public restroom. All together now, "Aaaaaaaawwwwww!"


And so while Em and Chuck were busy chronicling their lasts, J. and I were trying to establish some firsts. Because while we have made a yeoman's effort to maintain consistent homage to the traditions our children have come to expect, we need to create some new traditions and expectations. The holidays are forever changed. They will never be easy. We need to take deep breaths and accept that many of the traditions we'd built over decades of marriage and family life had had their swan song. How could we half-way do the things we did with people with whom we can no longer be confined to the same room?

In between whirlwind visits and inhaled hors d'oeuvres and rushed gift exchanges, we'd make time to focus on the season, and collect moments. A look on a child's face opening a gift they'd hoped for. A beaming expression of thanks. A twirl in a beautiful Christmas dress. A story told in giggling fits and starts before the fire. A pile of family on the sofa watching Ralphie's plight in A Christmas Story.

None of this will be pasted into a scrap book with rickrack and glitter. But hopefully all of it will make an impression strong enough that when we reflect on these holidays in years to come, we remember them vividly - and as joyous and familial and candlelit and fragrant and whole. You might call it my grown up Christmas wish. Aaaaaaaawwww.

Goodnight, Jim-Bob.