No I’m not remarried. Based upon my past history I may never get married again. That is not a knock on my Judy who is the most wonderful, beautiful, understanding and compassionate woman I have ever been with. Both of us have children who we love like there is no tomorrow. She has two boys and a girl, I have two girls. Judy’s daughter Randi is married and is pregnant and working on a family of her own. Her other two boys are 22 and 19. Danny still lives at home, and Ben is a freshman at Dartmouth. Yeah, Ivy league. I have two daughters, Sarah and Grace who both live with their mother. Sarah is almost 17 and Grace is 11. Christmas has become a wonderful time for me. It wasn’t always that way, but it is now. I love spending Christmas day with my kids, exchanging gifts and enjoying a wonderful Christmas meal that Judy always prepares. By the way Judy is Jewish so before she met me Christmas day meant a trip to the movies and a Chinese restaurant. Because she loves me and my children so much she makes Christmas at my house festive, joyful and a lot of fun for everybody.

The problems comes in when I have to wrangle with my ex wife during the holiday season. I usually have the kids on Christmas, but because she really wants them she can have a tendency to make life less festive. She does have the kids on Christmas Eve, when they have dinner at their aunts’ house. My kids love coming to my house on Christmas because they are the center of attention and receive their presents. It is an absolute blast for me to give them their gifts and see their eyes light up. The tension though of dealing with my ex wife can dampen their spirit and sometime mine, if I let it.

Now, some dads may be remarried, have kids from a previous marriage, have kids from their present marriage and have something called a blended family. Managing that crowd of people during the holidays may be something that you have to start preparing for right after the New Year. But, maybe not if you just make a few adjustments in your thinking as you deal with this complicated mess.

The thing I want most during the holiday season is peace. I don’t want arguments during the year and I sure don’t want them now. I can’t control my ex wife’s thought process, my God that would require a slide rule, but I can develop my own perspective on the situation. During the Thanksgiving holiday I had my Thanksgiving dinner on the Friday after Thanksgiving. My kids were with their mother on Thanksgiving day and it made it easier to manage everyone’s schedule by having dinner the day after Thanksgiving. If Christmas is going to become the same type of problem for you, try to understand that you may have to break from tradition and celebrate Christmas the day before or the day after. Believe me you will have a better time and there will be far less tension, and running around.

The world is not a perfect place. The Christmas season can make us more aware of that then any other time. Small things can become big things if we let them. Let negative comments go and focus on the kids and what you can do for them. Try to avoid financial arguments that seem to always come up during the holidays. Do your best to discuss things in a calm manner and let go of the small stuff. Money always seems to be a problem for my ex wife, not because of my lack of giving, but because of her distaste for working. Gift giving has always been my self imposed responsibility. Having different expectations of her during the holidays will only make me angry and destroy the joy that I have in giving to my kids.

Lastly, no matter how small your holiday celebration might be don’t make it a downer for your kids. Kids by their nature love the holidays, whether it be Christmas or Chanukah. Try to keep your spirits up because you love them, and want them to enjoy the season. When your kids are with you the biggest gift that you can give them is a loving dad who has tried to do whatever was necessary to make their holiday a peaceful one.

If you are a religious person you know that the gift of grace from God is something that is called unmerited favor. It’s something that God gives us to help us through difficult parts of our life and sometimes even the difficult parts of a day, an hour or a minute. About eleven years ago I received the gift of Grace from God, and it wasn’t a spiritual experience. Rather it was my daughter Grace who was born on October 9, 1996. I have two daughters, Sarah and Grace. Sarah was my first born; Grace came along more than five years later. I ended up separated and divorced from their mother when Grace was almost four years old. Both of my daughters have rallied behind me and continue to let me know how much they love me. I owe a debt of gratitude to the two of them. Just like a father is supposed to devote time to each of his children on an individual basis, I would like to devote this writing to Grace and spend the time letting her and everyone know what she means to me.

After my divorce it took me about 5 years before I finally bought a house. I chose to buy a house close to my children so I could get to them with ease whenever I wanted to or needed to. They both slept at my house on some weekends and sometimes on a day during the week. Sarah’s scheduled seemed to keep her from doing this as often as I would have likee, but Grace always kept coming to my house week after week. We developed a routine. I would pick her up from school every Tuesday and Thursday, and she would come over to my house. We would have dinner, do homework together, go to bed, and start over the next morning. On top of that, she stays with me probably every other weekend. Sometimes she would ask me on a Sunday if she could come over on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, and of course I would say yes. As time went on and Grace and I were spending all of this beautiful time together, Grace and I were becoming best friends. The word grace has taken on new meaning for me. As I mentioned earlier, the word grace refers to what God has given us to get through the hardest times in our lives. The gift from God of my daughter Grace has truly allowed me to survive the very difficult years after my divorce. She is God’s gift to me, and I am so grateful that He has given her to me.

I think the most excitement that I ever have had with Grace has been watching her evolve into an unbelievable soccer player. Grace started playing soccer at about four years old and has participated in soccer for about 7 years. If you count her participation in the spring and fall that’s 14 seasons. When she first started out she did nothing but run up and down the field. She didn’t care one bit if she ever even touched the ball. She just loved playing the game. That changed very quickly as she learned how to handle the ball, pass and shoot in no time at all. She worked hard and became an unbelievable team player. I can remember her complaining to me only a year ago that she had never scored a goal. She always knew that she would at some point. This past fall season she broke through. She was named captain of the team, and I don’t think a game went by when she didn’t score a goal. The season ended with something called a soccerama on a Sunday afternoon. Grace played soccer from 2:00 in the afternoon until 8:00 at night that day. She was exhausted. I never saw anyone play that hard. She was named the MVP of the team.

I love Grace. To me she is an MVP also. She is my Most Valuable Person. She is an example to me. She has so many wonderful qualities that they are just too numerous to mention. She hugs and kisses me all the time; she covers me when I fall asleep. She watches out for me. I remember when a dog that was in her friend’s yard came after me this summer. I was trying to run away, and I fell down in the driveway. I will never forget that worried look that she had in her face thinking that I really got hurt. We laugh and we learn together. I never had a friend like this ever, even when I was a little boy. Grace is a friend that is more interested in giving than getting. She knows how to be a friend. I have been blessed by God’s gift of Grace.