As the Christmas season approached, I started thinking about how I was going to handle Christmas cards this year. With getting divorced this year and then remarried to a man (Darrel Moss) who had kids of his own, I was unsure what the politically correct thing was to do. It seemed there were so many people whose feelings I needed to be concerned with. I had many questions in my mind.
Do I include a picture of our new blended family of my kids, Darrel’s kids, Darrel and I?
Since our marriage is fairly recent, I decided this might make everyone involved feel that the “family” thing was a bit too forced. I skipped this for this year. (Not that I don’t totally adore Darrel’s kids, they’re great kids.)
Do I have Darrel in the pictures with my girls and I?
There were 2 reasons I didn’t opt to do this. #1) I thought this might hurt Darrel’s kids’ feelings. I would never want his kids to feel that they are in any way being replaced. So this idea was out. (However, my family all received an individual picture of Darrel and I from our wedding. The picture I sent is one that I posted on an earlier posting.) #2) I wouldn’t want to send some message to my kids that I was trying to replace their dad with Darrel.
Do I include a picture of me with the girls on the card or just have pictures of the girls like I did last year?
Since I’ve continued having good relationships with most of my ex’s family, I decided that anyone I was sending a card to wouldn’t mind seeing a picture of me along with the girls.
How would I explain to people why I did what I did with Christmas cards?
Instead of doing the traditional Christmas letter and explaining all of this in that, I thought I would print our blog address on the card. I figured anyone that was curious would come here and look.
Would you have ever guessed that Christmas cards could be so tricky?
I’m guessing anyone who hasn’t been through a divorce (lucky you) and hasn’t had the opportunity of having a blended family would even think about all these crazy issues. Plus, I tend to over think everything.
Merry Christmas!