Tonight, I went over to the house to share Chris’s birthday cake with the gang. When I arrived, Greg and Tina were decorating one of their Christmas trees. Due to some communication issues, the accumulated family ornaments had not been divided up yet… but there were Greg and Tina, trimming the tree.

What the heck was I supposed to do? It’s not that any one ornament was so dreadfully important that I had to make a stand and claim it. But I had none. They had all of the ones from the marriage and family.

Amazing how fast the adrenaline leaps when it comes to things like dividing up Christmas ornaments. Should I make a scene? Remember, the ornaments at this point are mostly already on the tree! Bah. So I said, kind of quietly, “I guess you didn’t get my voicemail about the ornaments?”

I guess they hadn’t.

So we did some very polite wrangling, me and my ex-husband and his brand-new wife, although she occasionally went into the other room. I would have given a whole lot to be able to do the same. Greg got a carton and started putting ornaments in. I believe I said at one point, “I’m not going to take ornaments off the tree!” But I was willing to let him take some off. I now have at least an assortment of ornaments to decorate a small tree with, including one very tacky one that might have once been a Happy Meal toy. It is a puffy stocking thingy that has a character from Fievel Goes West. I’ve tried for years to get rid of it.

It may now be my favorite ornament ever.