Our First Christmas: Rewritten

This year will be my first Christmas as a solo parent.

It still feels strange to say that — not sad exactly, just different. Different in the way the calendar looks, the way the house feels, the way traditions I used to know so well have gently shifted into something new.

Right now, we’re living with my parents. It’s a blessing in so many ways, but it can be hard having less space and it also means that our old Christmas traditions won’t quite fit the same.

And that’s okay. This is our first Christmas Rewritten!

We’re celebrating early this year. The children will spend the marketed Christmas Day and Boxing Day with their dad, and I’m genuinely okay with that. It’s taken some adjustment, yes — but I’ve come to realise that the magic of Christmas isn’t held hostage by the date on the

calendar. It’s something we carry with us, something we can choose to create anytime.

So we’ll do our own Christmas, a few days early. There will still be excitement, pyjamas, wrapping paper everywhere, and far too many chocolates before breakfast. We’ll make new memories, maybe start new traditions, and I’ll remind myself that even though this isn’t the way I imagined it, it’s still full of love.

Being a solo parent has been a journey of constant learning. It’s the balancing act between holding it all together and letting yourself fall apart sometimes. It’s making the decisions alone, second-guessing yourself, and then realising you’re doing a pretty incredible job — even if no one’s there to say it out loud ( although in all honesty, I was a married single parent anyway, but I do still find little bits difficult, not having our own space is the hardest).

There are moments of loneliness, yes. Moments when the weight of doing it all hits you in the quiet hours. But there’s also something empowering in the independence — in knowing that you can create a warm, happy, secure world for your children, even if it looks different now.

Solo parenting means redefining what “family time” looks like. It’s finding joy in shorter visits, smaller traditions, and quieter evenings. It’s realising that you can still give your children everything that matters most — stability, love, laughter, and belonging — even if it comes in a new form.

This Christmas, I’m choosing to let go of “perfect.” I’m choosing presence over pressure. I’m choosing to embrace this new chapter for what it is — a chance to create something fresh and real.

We may not have our usual Christmas morning, but we’ll have our own version — just as special, just as meaningful, just as full of love.

Because at the end of the day, Christmas isn’t about keeping everything the same. It’s about keeping the love, wherever and whenever it happens.

And that, I’ve realised, will always be enough.

And as my youngest said ' I am Christmas, the magic comes from me'

Me and girls in London last week