Single mums don’t need a ‘father Christmas’ to have fun
THE single parent has it tough during Christmas. Discuss.
Actually, if you knew what it’s like you’d be Brussels-sprout green with envy.
Yes, the Christmas marketing monster is relentlessley focused on the nuclear family — mum, dad, kids drowning in an avalanche of branded consumer items.
The consensus is that Christmas, like everything else, is worse for single parents.
No. It. Isn’t.
It so is not.
Apart from not having someone with whom to split the cost of said branded consumer items, it’s all very relaxing, in as much as a three-month materialistic frenzy that climaxes with you collapsed in front of the telly, in a diabetic coma for a day, ever can be.
This is not about co-parenting, where you and your ex negotiate every festive tussle through clenched teeth and lawyers’ emails, arguing about which house Santa will visit or who will nag the kids to step away from the Lindt reindeers.
Such dynamics sound like hell.
No, I’m talking about being a single parent — that is, a lone parent — over the holidays.
Below are a list of advantages — there are more, but space is limited, so these are the edited hightlights:
- No Christmas arguments, other than whether it’s too soon to open another box of chocolates.
- No driving 600 miles to see in-laws you can’t stand, who can’t stand you.
- No tension headaches. No drunken outbursts.
- No people in your house that you have to tolerate because it’s Christmas.
- Nobody’s irritating friends — the slightly drunk ones, the patronising ones, the inappropriately flirty ones, the boring ones — camped out in front of your fire demanding mince pies. Bah humbugger off home, the lot of you.
No, single-parent Christmas involves only people you like. Your own family, your own friends, your own loved-ones.
You may have temporarily blinded yourself with pine needles hoisting the tree up by yourself, but that’s because it’s your tree.
Like the festive menu.
Want to eat sushi for Christmas dinner? Go right ahead.
Want to skip Christmas entirely and go somewhere hot, faraway and non-Christian? Buy those plane tickets — the kids will be too busy riding camels or elephants to know what day it is.
Single-parent Christmas is just like anyone else’s, except without the psychological hassle.
You choose with whom you want to spend it.
If it’s a new partner, and they have kids, then you can have a Brady Bunch Christmas. (If you’re too young for that reference, sorry, you’ll have to Google it).
If your kids are young adults, then Christmas becomes a group effort, with everyone contributing, rather than the mother — because it’s always the mother, even when there’s a father — running around with her arse on fire.
The only tricky time for single parents is New Year’s Eve, but this applies to all parents of kids young enough to need a baby sitter.
Forget it — you’re staying in.
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