I have a schedule with my family for the holiday season. A written down schedule. A color coded written down schedule that takes up my every weekend for the months of November and December.

This is because my parents are divorced. I have two separate branches of my family tree, each with its own branches of divorced, step, and half families. Right in the middle of these branches are me, my brother, and my sister: we are the trunk of our family tree.

The biggest problem is that neither side will talk to the other. For some reason my parents think being divorced means they pretend each other doesn't exist. So that means I have to go through every important holiday two times: once with my mom's family and once with my dad's.