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This is every dooce photo posted to dooce.com and includes daily photography (photo, chuck, style) posts.

Holiday for Her

Fortunately (for me) the girls are spending Christmas here this year. That’s all I want from Santa. That’s it. Last year I was pretty miserable, but splitting up holidays (among many, many, many other things) is something you have to take into consideration when you get divorced. In 2012 while I was still in the thick fog of our separation I wrote the foreword to 42 Rules for Divorcing with Children: Doing It with Dignity & Grace While Raising Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted Children by Melinda Roberts (number 17 up there). I just now pulled up the text file in which I wrote it and parts of it are hard for me to read:

“I was ten years old when my mother and father told me and my siblings that they were getting divorced. We sat around the kitchen table, and I remember the sound of my legs squeaking against the yellow vinyl of the dining chair when I took my place. I thought that if I could crawl up inside that noise then I wouldn’t be able to hear what I knew they were about to tell me, news that had been years in the making.”

“I was the child who took my parents’ divorce the hardest. Yes, I was the youngest, and my brother and sister could process that split with more maturity than I could. But the truth is that I thought I had failed everyone. I had tried to fix it and it broke anyway. All that furious work I had done, and the family still fell apart.”

It’s a wonderful book, very direct and clear about the things you must hear that you do not want to hear. If you or anyone you know is going through a split and it involves children, read this book. And then pour yourself a stiff drink and buy a purse.

1. 2016 Stitch the Stars Calendar Kit $25

2. Soma Sustainable Pitcher & Plant-Based Water Filter$39.99

3. Volcanic Ash Mialisia Necklace $41.30

4. Spotlight Clear Gold Tone Earring $38

5. Vintage Selig Tufted Lounge Chair $525

6. Staub Round Cocotte $371

7. S’well Sparkling Champagne Stainless Steel Water Bottle $25

8. Reed Krakoff Atlantique Bag $380

9. Heavenly Braclet $89

10. Rustic Copper Mug $16

11. To Be At Peace Essential Oil Blend $23.90

12. To Be Happy Essential Oil Blend $19.80

13. Leombruni Flats $121

14. Meet Circle $99

15. Nel Lusso Cruiser Bike $92

16. Modern Romance $17.37

17. 42 Rules for Divorcing with Children $19.95

18. Hall of Small Mammals $19.98

19. Between the World and Me $14.40