Single-parenting during the social media era is hard enough without having the added challenges of single-parenting, holidays and social media. The pressure of seeing the Christmas trees swamped with gifts is pretty hard when you are picking yourself up after a divorce.

I have been watching old home videos the past few weeks and trying to be more sentimental this Christmas. As such, I am converting old VHS movies and mini DVR’s to MP4’s and loading them onto thumb drives for my sons to have as gifts.

I am astonished at how many videos we have of Christmas morning and just how much fun we had. My marriage was very abusive, but when things weren’t scary, we had a lot of fun together (if that makes any sense) and Christmas mornings were full of tradition and tons…I mean, tons…of gifts.

It was near the end of our marriage when Facebook really took off. Therefore, I didn’t have many years of flaunting our Christmas tree engulfed with Christmas gifts…but I did have a few.

Then, social media took off and everyone was trying to ‘one up’ one another with their perfect life, perfect families, perfect holiday’s, perfect Christmas trees with tons of gifts for their perfect children.

And, not too long after, I was a single mom stressing out about how I was going to even provide Christmas morning for my children–at all; and my perspective on posting Christmas morning images completely changed at that time. Single-parenting through the holidays is not for the faint of heart.

Single-parenting through the holidays is not for the faint of heart.

Parenting Alone Meant a Tighter Budget.

That first Christmas after my divorce was very memorable. Every single image posted to Facebook brought my heart so much pain; wishing that I could give my five sons even a fraction of what others were buying for their children. It was then that I promised that I would be more careful with the hearts of others. Reserving images of our gifts under the tree for our own personal use might just save another momma a day of tears.

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Images that I do post:

• Our family lighting and decorating the tree
• A fully decorated tree
• The kids wearing their Christmas jammies
• The kids opening one or two smaller gifts

And, the rest I keep for my Christmas albums.

Saving the images of my children’s presents is my gift to those parents–whether mom or dad–who are having a rougher than normal Christmas holiday.

Would you consider doing the same? How do you handle Christmas images on social media? Tell me all about it in the comments below.

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