Moving on Christmas Eve

Barbara Stanton has a wonderful husband these days, but still recalls this hellish Christmas memory. It goes well with some hellish Thanksgiving memories she was kind enough to share.

The first Christmas with my first husband was a huge warning of what was to come with that relationship. Before we were married my husband had been unemployed for a while and he owed lots of back rent. After we got together, I had been paying the rent on time, as well as an agreed-upon amount more to try and catch up with our debt to our landlady.

In November of that year she offered to forgive our debt if we moved out of the apartment because she was planning on renovating.

To make a long story short, we ended up moving on Christmas Eve. I had a three-month-old baby with colic who wouldn't let me put him down. I also had laryngitis with a fever and couldn't speak above a whisper. My mom saved my life that day by showing up before my husband became violent because he was angry at me for being sick and holding the screaming baby. She packed up my kitchen and unpacked it in our new home.

We only had a car to move large furniture and had no idea how we were going to do that until friends stopped by to say "Merry Christmas" in their pickup and we begged them to help.

Needless to say we didn't bother decorating that year because EVERYTHING was in boxes.