A split Christmas is what all the people who simply can't countenance a "traditional" family Christmas do – they spend the day itself with their partners and children and then go haring off up and down motorways from Boxing Day onwards to go and be dutiful to the rest of their families.
But if "The McGarrigle Christmas Hour" is now split between two cultures, it is still a celebration of extended family and the intermingling of musical dynasties.
Instead of simply knowing that the teachers were happy pre-Christmas, we are, for that split second, happy teachers, pre-Christmas.
But whenever I find out that a friend or acquaintance with children is divorcing, I can't help imagining myself in their situation and picturing what it would be like to see my kids only half the time, to have to split up Christmases and birthdays, to spend time worrying about pickups and drop-offs that should be spent on lazy Sunday mornings with pancakes and cartoons.
* oh, christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree!
"Perhaps women who are affected by domestic violence don't want to split the family up at Christmas time and they feel maybe it would be better to think about leaving afterwards," she said.
Now it seems ever since the pre-Christmas Day public announcement of the Sarandon-Robbins split, the media is feasting on a story about their love for each other.
The one that stuck with me was a pre-Christmas posting by Mark Liberman, of Language Log, about a purported rule banning "split verbs".
CENTRAL PARK CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT In the nineteenth century, there was a popular Christmas activity in America called the side hunt, in which a party would split into two groups and go off hunting.
In the grand tradition of the Ronettes and the Crystals on A Christmas Gift For You, the 1963 release produced by Phil Spector that remains a holiday joy to the world, the Splits are sugar, spice and everything nice.
