stepchildren and Christmas

Holiday stepparenting is not all ho-ho-ho

Sue Fagalde Lick alone at Christmas, childless at Christmas, childless stepfathers, childless stepmother, competing with stepchildren for father's attention, holidays with stepchildren, mothering stepchildren , , , , , , , , , , ,
Christmas tree illustrating blog post about being childless at Christmas. It's a small tabletop tree with antique ornaments. Behind it is a window, with pine trees and neighbor's vehicles.

Dear readers,

I shouldn’t have looked at Facebook. Every holiday season, I tell my childless friends to stay off social media because it’s too upsetting. All those happy family pictures, especially the ones featuring babies and children doing happy Christmas things, can rip open the scabs we’re trying to grow over our childless feelings.

If only I followed my own advice.

Look, there they are with Santa. There they are hugging at the airport. There they are around the festive table. See three or four generations gathered together in matching sweaters. . .

Meanwhile, we’re planning dinner for two or maybe just one. If we’re lucky, we can post pictures of our dogs and cats.

Or our stepchildren. I want to give a shout-out to stepmothers and stepfathers this year. It’s a tough job. Some of us give up our dreams of having our own children, thinking our partner’s kids will give us the family we want. But so often, it’s a disappointment.

A reader wrote to me recently about her situation, very similar to mine. The way she described her stepmom situation felt right on: “He told me that he would share his kids with me. They did not want to be shared!”

If you look at it from the kids’ point of view, why would they want a stranger to move into their parent’s home and expect to be some kind of new parent to them? Maybe you’re a child of divorce and experienced that yourself.

Come the holidays, you’re shuffled from parent to parent, often having to spend Christmas away from the place you consider your real home. And now there are other strangers, would-be grandparents, aunts and uncles who don’t seem to get that you already have a family. They expect you to join in new traditions when you have your own.

The divorced parent is caught between the ex-family and the new family.

Divorce sucks.

As for the stepparent hoping to make a family from their partner’s kids, sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn’t. As soon as the kids are old enough to step away, many do. And if you’re no longer with their father or mother, they might step right out of your life. That’s what happened when my husband died. I still love his kids and miss them, but I’m on my own.

This post was inspired by watching my own stepfamily having fun together online. Now there are step-grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but I have never met the youngest ones and probably never will. If my husband were still alive, we could claim this whole beautiful group of young people. I could shower them with love, but now . . . I’ll be going to church and to a friend’s house for Christmas dinner but spending much of the holiday by myself. I’m okay, but I would be more okay if I hadn’t seen those pictures on Facebook.

At Thanksgiving, I offered some suggestions for surviving the childless holidays. If you missed it, take a look at that post.

By now, your holiday plans are probably already set. Maybe you’re reading this from a tropical vacation paradise. Maybe you’re working. Maybe you’re hosting the step-kids this year. Maybe there are no step-kids. Maybe you’re hanging with nieces, nephews or the children of your friends. Kids are fun. It’s not their fault that you feel awkward or sad. Just try to love them if they’re around and enjoy your all-adult life if they’re not.

And take a vacation from Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, or wherever you like to browse. You won’t miss that much, and it will be easier on your heart.

May your holidays be filled with love, peace, and hope for the new year.

Sue

The Childless Christmas Gift Dilemma

Sue Fagalde Lick Christmas alone, Christmas gifts for kids, Christmas without children, Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

The first Christmas commercials showed up on TV before we finished with Halloween. The stores were already putting out the decorations and cheesy gifts in mid-October. You can’t get away from it. Even if you’re not Christian and don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s hard to escape the whole Santa Claus business.

So much of what is offered is for children. After all, who gets the most and the best Christmas presents? Kids. When there are kids around, almost everything under the tree is for them. It has always been that way. When my brother and I were little, our parents, grandparents, godparents, and aunts brought in armloads of gifts for us. We’d crawl around under the tree, prodding and shaking the packages, trying to figure out what was inside, dreaming of the possibilities. On Christmas morning, it felt like we were unwrapping presents for hours. It wasn’t until my teens that I realized Mom and Dad received comparatively few gifts. They would nod and admire our bounty while itching to get on with preparations for the company coming soon.

I have spent plenty of time at other people’s houses watching the kids rip paper off packages while I sipped my tea or slowly unwrapped my one present, fancy soaps, chocolates, or another coffee mug. It was worse when those kids were my stepchildren, surrounded by so many parents and grandparents, step and bio, they couldn’t even keep track. My husband’s ex always knew exactly what they wanted and needed because she was the real grandmother, the one who was around all the time. I was this weird Grandma Sue person who knew nothing about children.

We can say Christmas is not about the gifts, but in some ways it is. All the advertising showing perfect families with two happy parents and at least two beautiful children doesn’t mirror our own reality. If only advertisers would try to understand that. Sure, we might have stepchildren, nieces and nephews, or our friends’ children to buy presents for, but we have to exercise some restraint because they have their own parents who want to give the biggest and best things.

Christmas gifts present a dilemma for many of us without children. If you’re like me, you don’t hang around kids that much and don’t even know what they want or need. I haven’t been to Toys R Us in at least 25 years. What are the popular gifts this year? What do you get for a two-year-old? What does a 12-year-old want? Are you obligated to buy presents for kids you barely know? Do your friends and siblings expect you to shower their children with gifts when you can’t afford them or when even walking through the toy store at the mall makes you feel bad?

I’m afraid I sound sorry for myself. I don’t get a lot of Christmas presents these days, and I open them alone. The joys of being a widow far from family. I have been buying gifts for certain young people for years and never gotten anything in return. But that’s not what this post is about.

I want to know what it’s like for you. Does Christmas fill you with dread because of all the gifts you have to buy or the gifts you don’t get to buy because you don’t have kids? Do you enjoy buying or making things for the children in your life? Or are you relieved because not having children means you don’t have to spend the money or deal with the crowds? What’s your game plan for Christmas presents this year? Do you have suggestions for surviving the Santa Claus side of Christmas? Please share in the comments.