I always forget how loud December gets. The lights, the school concerts, the sudden flood of emails from teachers who swear they told us about Spirit Week back in October. Then there is the custody calendar. It sits on my phone looking very organised, little coloured blocks telling me where the kids will be and when, as if real children ever move from one home to another without at least three dramas and one missing shoe.
This is our second year doing the two-house holiday thing. I thought it would feel easier by now. It does in some ways, just not in the ways anyone promised. The transitions are smoother. The guilt is not. I still get that pinch in my chest every time they pack their little overnight bags and ask who has them for Christmas Eve. I give the same steady answer each time and then go into the kitchen and stare at the kettle like it might say something comforting.
The calendar version of the holidays is tidy. The real version is not. One kid gets a cold and suddenly the whole schedule has to be shifted. Someone’s grandparents decide to visit on the wrong weekend. Someone else has a meltdown in the car because the idea of Christmas being in two pieces feels strange and unfair. I tell them it’s fine to feel that way, because it is. I still feel it too.
This year I’m trying something new. Small traditions that travel between houses. A storybook we read no matter whose sofa we collapse onto. The same silly hot chocolate mug. A song we sing on the drive to handovers. Nothing fancy. Nothing that requires glitter or glue. Just a couple of anchors that make the shape of Christmas feel familiar even when everything else is different.
Talking about plans with the kids is always the tricky part. I used to oversell it, trying to make the whole thing look shiny and exciting. That backfired. Now I keep it simple. I tell them what I know, I tell them what might change, and I promise them that Christmas is not a competition. Two houses, one family, and everyone trying their best. It isn’t perfect, but it’s true.
When the house suddenly goes quiet after the handover, I go through the usual stages. Relief. Sadness. That weird feeling of not quite knowing what to do with myself. I used to fill the silence with chores that didn’t matter. Now I let myself drift a bit. The other night I ended up on A Place in Javea looking at sunny apartments and pretending I wasn’t still in pyjamas at three in the afternoon. It wasn’t about moving anywhere. It was just a small moment of breathing room. A reminder that I still get to imagine things for myself, even if I never act on them.
I’ve learned not to fight December. It comes in loud whether I like it or not. So I let the kids feel whatever they feel, and I let myself feel it too. I keep the traditions light and the conversations honest. I accept that some days we’ll all get it wrong. And I try to remember, when the handover is done and the house goes still, that quiet is not failure. It’s space. It’s a pause before the next noisy, imperfect, completely ours bit of Christmas.