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Christmas is traditionally considered a feast for the family.
Our son has two families: his father - and me.
We parents live separately and look after him in an alternating model.
“Fifty-fifty” is often used, and sometimes “part-time parents” are mentioned.
It is misleading.
Because half of my motherhood did not walk out the door with my ex - and moving into the apartment two streets away didn't lose any part of his fatherhood.
Separate parenting is not like a Christmas cookie when shared.
But like love: it becomes more.
Christmas in a changing model?
A double gift.
This can already be seen in the advent calendars: Our child has one with his father and one with me.
So theoretically two, practically only one at a time - and in fact a lot of chocolate.
When it's mom time, the calendar doors stay closed with his dad until dad time.
Then our child catches up for the missed doors.
The next time he's with me, overdue doors are waiting for him again.
Typical change model: We parents have set up a double life for our child.
Two apartments with two children's rooms, two clothes and toys.
But only one pair of shoes.
In the past few years, St. Nicholas' Day happened to coincide with Mum's days, including this year.
For me that means: getting small gifts, explaining the tradition to my child and how to clean his shoes thoroughly, getting up early and filling shoes.
The bill is on me.
Nicholas in a changing model?
For free.
We always have the opportunity to unravel care work and finances fairly.
That costs time and energy, which I sometimes prefer to use differently.
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Three and a half days with my child are always followed by three and a half days with the child absent.
As a mother you are never “without a child”.
The constant availability for emergencies is as real as the thoughts and plans that you still make (yourself) when you are alone.
In addition, the time together with my child has so many beginnings and ends that we are always aware of its transience.
So I try to use our time intensively.
The bottom line is that this is not better or worse than with other families, but our lives.
In December I fill it with contemplation, baking cookies, reading stories and poems, singing songs, decorating the apartment, lighting candles, making gifts, ice skating, writing Christmas cards or visiting the Christmas market.
Our child experiences something similar with his father.
It never occurred to us to split up these Christmas traditions or just stroll through half the Christmas market or bake half the amount of cookies.
What for?
The pastry balance of our child, this year alone: two tons, at least.
The interchangeable model adapts to our family - not our family to the interchangeable model.
In theory, it would be easy to divide the Christmas season and Christmas Eve: our child could spend two Sundays in Advent with me, the other two with father.
We could divide December 24th into Christmas Day and Christmas Eve, or we could alternate annually.
But first it should be clarified what is important to the individual family members.
Sometimes the alternative solutions are exactly what everyone needs and wants.
For example Christmas: The memories from my childhood are a treasure for me that I want to pass on.
Christmas Eve alternating every year?
Please do not.
The author lives and works in Berlin
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My mother was a single parent.
As a child, I used to go to my grandparents with her and my brother every year.
My aunts, their partners and children also came.
In the evening the lights on the house twinkled, and a decorated Christmas tree shone from inside.
Candles, music boxes and snow globes stood on the showcases and the fireplace.
We children built snowmen in the garden, skated across the frozen lake and licked the icicles that hung from the roof.
At six o'clock dinner was steaming on the table: salmon, game, dumplings, cabbage, potato salad, and sauces.
As soon as our bellies were full, either my grandma or grandpa disappeared.
Then suddenly a Santa Claus stomped through the white garden outside the door - he was holding a burlap sack in one hand and a brass bell with the other.
He exchanged gifts for poems and Christmas carols, and one of my aunts played the piano.
Everything invited to dream.
Two minutes of Christmas on the phone
I would like to invite my child into the attic of my memory and wander through these memories with him.
Or put it under the Christmas tree for him as a gift.
But not possible.
So I'm a mother who values Christmas.
Easter is more important to the father of my child.
That fits!
So Christmas Eve is mom time.
Except last year.
At Christmas a year ago, my family celebrated a relative's 60th birthday.
Many of his friends should come - faces unknown to me.
Contemplation was not to be expected there.
Therefore, our son should celebrate Christmas with his father.
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Giving presents was no less time-consuming for me than usual. Several phone calls with my mother and grandma to clarify: Who is coming for the Christmas birthday party?
Who are we celebrating with?
Do we have enough beds?
What's for dinner?
Do we give presents?
Then the conversations with the father of my child: Who is our son celebrating with?
What does he give, what do I give?
Where exactly?
Until when will he stay there?
How do the handovers work?
I got animal figures, a CD and a book, packed everything and gave it to my father - for “Santa Claus”.
Then I was worried about my child missing me for Christmas.
Until his father sent me a video of the presents on my cell phone that evening.
Two minutes of Christmas with my happy child.
That counts!
This year our child is spending Christmas with me again.
We were in self-quarantine in Berlin before my mother took us to the country by car.
An old story sounds soft to me.
There is no snow, no icicles and no frozen lake.
But my mother's house is glowing under Christmas lights.
Here I come as a single parent, like my mother back then.
With a child that I look after alone and to whom I give a full treasure with warm Christmas memories.
Every day a little more.
And Santa Claus?
Even with us you only come once, but there is still a double gift.
So we don't have to discuss which apartment a joint gift can move into.
I, aka Santa Claus, have a researcher kit with dinosaur bones.
His father gives him a Lego police station, without Santa Claus.
He'll give it to him as soon as we get back at the end of December.
Then our child will slide into the New Year with his father.
In our podcast THE REAL WORD we give tips for films, series and music with which you can end the last days of the year in an entertaining way:
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