When you are used to spending all the holidays together with your family, the first thanksgiving after divorce may become a nightmare for you. Your marital life is gone, your family is split up, and your holiday mood has vanished as a result. Yet, you have to prepare well so that you can celebrate your first holidays without serious harm to your physical and mental wellness. Here is what you can do to succeed:
1. Don’t Make a Big Deal
If you are so fed up with Alabama divorce forms and all the related issues that you wish for peace and quiet only, no one can force you to celebrate. Suppose you don’t feel like joining any company, cooking, or participating in any holiday events, you don’t have to. Treat Thanksgiving as just another day and follow your regular schedule. It may be easier for you not to concentrate on the holiday itself so that the connected memories don’t bring you any pain or other unpleasantries.
2. Take a Risk
If you are getting ready for your first holidays after a divorce, it doesn’t mean you have to consider the regular plans you used to have with your family but do it alone this year. It will only highlight that you are not married anymore and will never have similar celebrations. Instead, you’d better gather confidence and approve plans you never dared for earlier. Join your neighbors in the adults-only party, travel to your dream destination, and do something from your bucket list. Perform anything that will bring you bright feelings and emotions to make you forget you don’t have the same atmosphere as the last year.
3. Prioritize Your Kids
If you have mutual children with your ex, navigating your first thanksgiving after divorce may become a serious challenge for you. But your main point is to care about your kids’ needs and wishes in the first place. Consider the following points to bring your children a festive time despite the circumstances:
- think thoroughly before deciding between two separate celebrations and a neutrally united holiday with your former partner;
- maintain the old traditions if you can;
- create new traditions to empower the festive atmosphere;
- take into account how your children want to spend the day.
Overall, if you want your kids to be happy on their first holiday in a broken family, you have to be ready to celebrate yourself. So focus on the positive and your children will follow your example.
4. Do the Good
Thanksgiving is about doing good deeds so you can try out one. If you don’t feel like celebrating the regular way, help others to feel the festive mood. Let your kids spend thanksgiving with new family at your former spouse’s and devote yourself to volunteering. You may choose to cook for the poor, organize any festive event at the orphanage or geriatric center, or spend your day at the pet shelter. Anyway, you will direct your energy in the right way and spend your holidays with the use.
5. Don’t Be Alone
Spending your first thanksgiving alone after you used to have a family celebration for many years is not a good idea. You may get overwhelmed with memories and feelings of loss, and get your physical and mental health worsened as a result. So, your task is to care about a support team for that very day. You can join a group of friends for the traditional celebrations, organize a sleepover for your closest people who don’t have any other plans or ask a dear person to stay with you on that very night not to feel lonely.
If your friends and family don’t have an opportunity to support you and you are not in the mood to participate in their plans, your main task is not to stay alone at your place on Thanksgiving. Visit the cinema, go to the cafe with live music, get holiday shopping. You will not feel that lonely surrounded by people, even if they are strangers.
6. Nurture Gratitude
Thanksgiving is also about feeling grateful for the things you have in your life. So another good idea is to say thank you to people who make your life better or at least make a list of what you are grateful for at that very moment. This may include Surviving Divorce without complications, being able to meet your kids regularly, having a house to live in and food to eat, etc.
As soon as you manage to concentrate on the positive things, it will be easier for you to live through the first holidays after marriage termination. Come up with a suitable Thanksgiving Day plan ahead and spend your holidays with pleasure.