You have nothing to fear but fear itself. Your old marriage is dead. Your h was emotionally gone from the marriage about 18-24 months before the bomb drop. You've not had that same amount of time to get use to the idea of being separated. It takes time to detach and come to realize that the man you knew is not the man who is walking around now. He is the mirror image of the man you fell in love with. He's different, he looks at life differently than you do and right now, he's living his life the way that he wants and unfortunately, you are not a part of that life.
Give yourself a break...it takes time, but you can't rush the process because it will prolong his crisis. You can't rush your healing. You have to work through the pain and come out the other side. Your h is doing everything humanly possible to skirt around that pain and one day, there will no longer be any excuses and he'll have to face that pain head on and work through it.
Look, I can understand your disappointment because you were thinking he would jump at this opportunity, but you've given him an option and let him think about it for a while. At least he didn't come right out and say no right now. You've got to keep your expectations at zero. He may very well come up w/some excuse not to be a part of the photo and if he does, accept his answer and move on w/the photo session w/your child on your own. The hardest things to learn is lower expectations, detachment and patience. Just as you have choices to make, so does he. We may not always like the choices they make, but we have to learn to accept them even when we know that they are making mistakes. Mistakes is how they will learn and hopefully not make the same ones over and over again.
Continue moving forward and plan to have those photos taken w/or w/o your h being in them. If you feel that you would be uncomfortable w/him not being in the photo, then maybe you might want to consider your child being the only one photographed w/Santa this year. A new tradition in the making.
Whatever he decides...don't change your plans because of his decision.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
