Christmas with the Tripps

Christmas, for me, provokes images from Norman Rockwell paintings with families gathered around the piano caroling, seated by the fire place enjoying each other’s company, or gathered around the Christmas tree opening presents.

Christmas with the Tripps is a far cry from those Norman Rockwell paintings! Nonetheless, I can’t help but feel blessed to be surrounded by family. Each family is different, and no family is perfect. I love my family no matter how strange it sometimes seems.

Christmas with the Tripps includes but are not limited to:

Court orders that needs to be adhered to.

Exes who need to be consulted and coordinated with.

There are the significant others of the exes who need to be regarded.

There are children from the new relationships who need to be accounted for.

Then, there are the families of the exes as well as their significant other’s families who need to be considered. This proves to be a difficult feat when I have a mother who tells me on December 17 that she’ll be flying in on December 20 for the holidays. This also produces much turmoil with the exes and their significant others when asked if they would modify their schedule for this.

The court order for Kimberly, Christen, Abigail, and Jonathan has them with us for Christmas Eve and Christmas day on odd years. However, their mother wants them for a part of Christmas too so the new agreement is that they go spend some of time with her and her family on Christmas day and come back to our house the following day. This is because this is our week with the kids. It would look very different if it was our year with them for Christmas but they were with their mom for the week.

The court order for Angelina states that she is with us on odd years and with her father on even years for Christmas. It also states that the first half of her Christmas vacation is to be spent with us on odd years and the second half of the vacation she is to be with her father.

The court order for Vinh and Jaden has them with their father on Christmas Eve at 9AM to Christmas day at 9AM. This year I asked if he would switch with me so I could have them Christmas Eve to Christmas day. He agreed to the switch. However, the terms of the switch kept changing daily to accommodate for changes with his wife’s family. My thoughts? You agreed to the switch, end of discussion. My husband’s thoughts? Let’s work it out. My mother’s thoughts? He let the boys come back to our house early from this week with them, the least I can do is accommodate his needs.

Doesn’t anyone realize how much I don’t like last minute schedule changes? The scheduled me purposely set up the court orders so that on odd years we have ALL the kids.

Many conversations and phone calls later, it is now agreed on that Vinh and Jaden’s dad can pick them up at 8AM on Christmas day. This means that this year, we change our tradition and open presents on Christmas Even night after church.

I’ve now mastered the art of juggling and ready to run off with the circus. But of course, that involves much planning and forethought on which would be the best circus company to join. Though our family dynamics may be complicated, this is the plan God has for me and I just have to let go and let God.