In this episode of Children First Family Law, Krista provides tips to handle the holidays within co-parenting arrangements.
Krista discusses the importance of having a flexible parenting plan that respects each parent’s significant holidays and traditions. Families can navigate the complexities of holiday traditions and new dynamics post-divorce by prioritizing the children’s experiences and well-being over parental convenience.
Effective communication can help transform holiday co-parenting from a conflict-ridden experience into a more harmonious experience. Krista provides strategies for clear communication with your co-parent, extended family, and children, helping reduce stress and confusion. Discover the benefits of coordinating gift-giving, supporting children in purchasing gifts for the other parent, and celebrating holidays on alternative days.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Strategies for successful holiday planning in co-parenting, focusing on children’s needs and new family dynamics
- Importance of flexible parenting plans and respecting significant holidays to foster stability
- Navigating holiday traditions in blended families and maintaining children’s relationships with extended family
- Effective communication and coordination to reduce stress and confusion during holidays
- Benefits of coordinated gift-giving and supporting children in buying gifts for the other parent
- Emphasis on prioritizing children’s happiness and stability during holiday transitions
Resources from this Episode
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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Top Ten Holiday Parenting Tips in Child Custody Family Law Situations Podcast Transcript
Hi everyone, this is Krista. Thanks for joining me today. I’m sitting here looking at a bunch of holiday and Christmas cards that are starting to come in and thinking about all those families who are in new and ever-changing dynamics regarding how they arrange their family parenting time now that they’re in a different family situation than they were in originally, when they were married or co-parenting together in one home, for example, and so I thought today we would talk through what my top 10 thoughts are about how to handle the holidays, and I’ll try to cover really first a navigation of the full calendar and how the holiday planning works and special event type planning works usually in parenting plans. Give you some thoughts on that and then just give you some other thoughts, just generally in terms of what I’ve seen in my cases, what I’ve seen best work in terms of putting children’s needs first. So, first of all, I will tell you that try to be easy on yourselves, or, if you’re helping someone navigate this, help give them some grace, because the holidays can be a very difficult time really, no matter what holiday you’re talking about, but depending on what holidays are the most important to particular people, the holidays can be a heartbreaking time for everybody in the family, for grandparents, for parents, for the children themselves. That’s because we just have so much change going on. I suppose over time it gets a little bit easier as people get used to the new traditions and new ways of doing things. But particularly in the beginning, when you’re used to having your children with you for all holidays, this can be a really, really difficult transition for you and for everyone.
Importance of Planning
First thing I want to talk to you about number one is that you need to plan. Every parenting plan I’ve seen has some kind of even the ones that are just basic with the courts that you would just fill out a quick form in your divorce situation and not go through a large negotiation process or process that’s adversarial with attorneys necessarily has a parenting plan in it that expresses what the holiday plan will be and that has generally a list of main holidays. Sometimes it does not include all the holidays that you care about, so you certainly have the option of adding more holidays on or taking holidays off if they’re not important to either of you, and it has a chart-like approach and usually it’s an alternating of holidays, so one parent will get one holiday one year and the next will get that same holiday the next. So, for example, if one parent has, let’s say, memorial Day weekend one year, then the next year the other parent would have Memorial Day weekend. This can be true of all holidays or just some holidays. It depends on which ones are important. It also depends if you are far away from each other by location. So if you live in two different states, for example, it’s more frequent that the parent who is not the primary parent might get every long weekend, for example. So if there’s Memorial Day or Labor Day or President’s Day whenever there’s school out, we would sometimes often assign that basically to the non-residential parent or the parent who is not handling the school time with the child.
There’s a lot of caveats to these holiday parenting plans and it really depends what you care about. So, for example, I had one parent who was super interested in Halloween. That was the main holiday she liked celebrating and it wasn’t as important to her co-parent, and so we created a plan where that mom could have Halloween each time. Sometimes we have different traditions within different families, so we will have one part of the family has very important Christmas Eve traditions and the other has very important Christmas Day traditions, and so we will take those things into account. Parent I think I’ve maybe only seen that be part of a parenting plan that one time, but it was really good that we planned and considered what was important to that person and that parent’s side of the family so that we could contemplate that. Another example I had a parent who was in the military. I get lots of parents who are in the military, but one in particular wanted Veterans Day. That was an important holiday for that person’s family and for that parent, and so we accommodated that in the parenting plan.
It is unrealistic to think that you will get all of the holidays or all of your favorite or most important holidays if you’re not conceding some to the other parent. I frequently have parents and it’s particularly chronic with moms who have young kids who think that their kids are going to suffer if they don’t have their mother handling the holidays in the way that she has always handled them. I know that sounds very genderized, but it is typically what I’ve seen. It has happened also with husbands or fathers who have done the same thing, but it is frequently, and most frequently something that I see with moms trying to kind of control every holiday. You know, I want Thanksgiving and I want Christmas Eve and I want Christmas Day, and my poor littles will not be able to handle this without me and that is just unrealistic. So it’s a shift for everybody in the family, including the kids, and we have to figure out a way to balance the parenting rights.
Handling New Family Dynamics
Again, we keep going back to this being able to have experiences with the children, both parents being able to do so, both parents extended families likely being able to do so, and even if your kids might prefer to be with one parent for every single holiday and prefer the way mom does it, for example, or dad does it, for example, then we’re going to have to do it a little bit differently because of the new realities of divorce. So we want to put a calendar together. That calendar needs to be as specific as possible regarding times you’re going to transfer the children and who gets which holidays. Again, it’s particularly complicated when you have people out of state, and I think I’ll do a separate podcast about relocation and really I will tell you how bad that is when a parent relocates, how bad that is for children, but there are different realities for people that are in two states, because now we have to deal with all of the travel needs. The weather needs depends where you live. The time changes, who’s going to chaperone younger kids on airplanes or drive them, and these can be. These put a whole bunch of more messy situations into the holiday planning.
Usually what we try to do is give one person Thanksgiving and if you’re in the same area of town approximately, you know, within easy driving distance of each other that person would just have Thanksgiving day and the regular parenting plan would go the rest of the time, the rest of that week. If you’re out of state, we’d probably give that person the full break of school and that would alternate every other year. Okay, even if somebody’s out of state, generally we switch Thanksgiving Then with Christmas, if you’re celebrating Christmas, which many, many people do. Sometimes there’s other holidays that people are celebrating in the frame and these apply in similar ways. But I’ll speak to Christmas, since it is the one we most typically in cases in that I have seen, and that is that we have Christmas Eve traditions and we have Christmas Day traditions and we have time that both parents often want to see the kids both of those days.
Usually what we do is we give one parent the first half of the winter school break up through Christmas day sometime during Christmas day, meaning that that one parent will get Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, which is a big time of celebration for many families, especially for young kids. If people do Santa Claus and these things, then a parent is very fixated sometimes on having that Christmas Eve and morning, and then we try to not want to hurt the kids too much to be able to have to move them, you know, too early on Christmas day, so oftentimes we’ll do that later in the day, or noon or one or something like that on Christmas day, and then that parent gets Christmas day through the return to school. Okay, so I will say, is this best for kids? No, it’s not best for kids. Kids don’t want to go to a different house on Christmas morning or on Christmas afternoon. They don’t want to pack up their stuff at one house and go to the other. So again, like some of my other podcasts, this is basically a concession between parents that gets parents what they think that they want, but it doesn’t genuinely really, I think, meet the kids’ needs. I think better would be actually switching the full Christmas holiday so that they get it with one parent one year and one the next, and I will talk about ways to kind of work around that, but most of the time I’m seeing that split on Christmas morning Again. It can be done lots of different ways, but that’s what we generally see. I don’t think it’s best for the kids, though, so it’s something you really should think about.
All the other holidays I think you just need to be really cautious about, like do your kids actually care about New Year’s Eve? Do we really need to be thinking about that as a holiday and making the kids drive around that night to see one parent or the other? You know Halloween, for example. Yes, it’s cute to see your kids in costumes and that’s fun, especially when they’re little, but do you really need to take them trick-or-treating? If it’s a school night, for example, and it’s regular holiday time, you can take them over to the other parent’s house and have them do Halloween every other year at that house. But I really think you should be trying to put yourself in the shoes of your children If they’re in a neighborhood that they really like trick-or-treating in. Maybe there’s some other ways to do this that is not so parent-centric.
The usual holidays that we look at are New Year’s, president’s Day, spring Break, which is sort of different. It’s a school holiday and that usually alternates, unless it is an out-of-state parent. In that case, generally, that out-of-state parent gets spring break every year generally. Then we have Memorial Day, we have Easter, and I would encourage you, if one parent is more religious or we have a religious holiday in any kind of faith, that you would allow the parent who has the more religious perspective or celebrates it in that manner if it’s an important high holiday to them, or something like Easter or Christmas Eve or however, someone who is in the Christian faith is celebrating their traditions you would be a little bit deferential about that. So then we have Memorial Day, 4th of July, labor Day I’m sure I’m missing some. These are the big ones, though and then we have Halloween, thanksgiving and then Christmas time or the other December holidays. So those are the big ones. I’m sure I might be missing a couple as I rattle them off, but those are the ones that come to mind, and just make sure that you’re agreeing on what that looks like.
Put it in writing and indicate you’re going to have problems, for example, if a parent decides to travel on his or her parenting time. Make sure you have something in your parenting plan that has the priority listed. So generally we have holiday parenting time first as the first priority. Second priority vacation. So for example, if you have Christmas, the other parent can’t choose a vacation over Christmas, so you’d be clear about that. And then third would be regular parenting time, and so it’s sort of a prioritization. Regular parenting time goes on unless there’s a vacation and unless there’s a holiday as the top priority. So your parenting plan should indicate that. Just go into this reasonably that you’re going to have to alternate or you’re going to have to split holidays in half, and you just need to think about how that’s going to affect your children.
Sometimes people ask me should we spend holidays together? And a lot of times people try to do this when they’re still in the same home and they are in the divorce process. I would just be cautious about that because there’s often so much toxicity between parents that you’re ruining it for your children by doing that. So it’s particularly hard. I’ve had cases, and have some now actually, where parents are starting this process you know, october, november and they are, you know, kind of in the middle of this early pain around the divorce situation and the kids are reeling and they’re trying to force the same holidays. I had the thought that they should actually just go and do something brand new and change this. They’re teenagers. They could do some new traditions and by forcing it in, doing it the way that they were trying to do it back in the just regular things that they’ve done when it’s happy family every year is, I think, causing more pain than is necessary for the children. So think about that.
I have had one family though I mean one out of hundreds, so that tells you something but who have really done a good job of celebrating together, and that’s great. If you can do that, all more power to you. That’s wonderful. You just got to make sure you’re making it positive, okay. So make sure you check the holiday plan ahead of time and adhere to it, communicate really early so there aren’t any glitches, and so the second thing I would say is you want to carefully plan and communicate regarding extended family, new family, new events, things like that.
So oftentimes we get a family parenting plan in place and then all of a sudden, grandma’s mad about something, or mom has a new boyfriend and that boyfriend has some other holiday, or husband has this new holiday plan that that person celebrates and wants to go do, and everything gets pretty twisted around because of all these other people and other priorities. We have a lot of blended families these days. Now we’re trying to navigate multiple families and multiple traditions together, so you need to think about what are truly the priorities for your children. It’s dangerous to come in and start prioritizing over your own children the priorities of your new stepchildren or your boyfriend’s children or things like that. That can cause a lot of problems with your own children feeling very cast aside. So be very sure that you’re navigating that carefully and really thinking through how to accommodate the needs of your children predominantly and balancing the needs of everybody else. This also means that you should be careful about denying extended family time. So oftentimes we have extended family who all really love the children and want to see them, and you’re now trying to navigate how do I allow my children to go see their grandparents from my ex when they have something special going on? It’s very important to your children. They didn’t divorce your ex and they didn’t divorce their grandparents or the cousins or the extended family, and so, even if that means you have to give a little, I would strongly encourage you that it is very important to allow your children to have those kinds of relationships.
Continue to flourish at holiday times and other times. So if a cousin on your ex’s side, cousin of your children is having a birthday party and it’s your parenting time, try to accommodate that, like this is your kid’s cousin. It doesn’t have to be that all of these people are associated with your bad feelings about your ex. So try to stay in touch with those people. Try to keep it peaceful. One of the sad things I see in divorce is just this total breakdown of all the relationships. Even though it really and sometimes there’s a reason for it, but even though it really is between you and your ex, you just blow the whole thing up and allow everybody to pile on in the way that everyone feels injured and it ends up making your children miss out on traditions from the other side of the family and relationships and important holiday events. So carefully plan and communicate all of that.
Flexibility in Holiday Planning
Thirdly, I would say be flexible. The holidays are never perfect. Sometimes things go wrong. When you’re a family law attorney, you can just you know you could bet your entire retirement on the fact that you’re going to get calls about crisis things happening because people don’t plan well and all of a sudden things are happening and people are, I rate, that they’re not seeing their children as much as they thought, or an exchange is going, you know, not as expected, or somebody is crying, somebody is upset, whatever. I don’t mean to say that so sarcastically, but these things are predictable. I actually was just at a meeting with a judicial group that I’m part of a committee on, and as we were starting the meeting, the magistrates and judges were commiserating I would say would be the word about how, here we go, we’re about to get all these emergency motions about holiday stuff, even though this was entirely predictable, you know, and they’re sort of tongue in cheek saying how ridiculous this is. It’s like when school’s starting and all of a sudden there’s emergency motions, it’s like you couldn’t have foreseen this and figured it out before the middle of December or with school before August.
So it’s very important that you’re flexible and that you plan ahead and if your plan goes off track or you forget to include something in your plans, or your or co-parenting ex does not communicate well and doesn’t give you all the information, try to be flexible and calm rather than letting these things get to you and try to not double down in your irritation and make your kids suffer based on that it’s supposed to be fun and family time in the holidays and we end up ruining a lot. By the way, we respond to somebody else’s communication problems and because it sometimes feels appropriate to us, let’s say, like to deny going to grandma’s house because your ex didn’t tell you about that early enough. If there’s any way you can be flexible, please look at it through your children’s eyes and don’t get mad, and certainly do not let them see that you’re frustrated or say anything about how bad this parent is. You know he or she just messaged you and how. This is how he or she always is and is always last minute. These are poisonous things for your children. So, to the extent you are able, allow that flexibility so that your kids can flourish during the holidays, even if that means you kind of have to be the bigger person, honestly.
Communication is Key
Fourth, communicate. This means communicating with your co-parent, communicating with extended family if necessary, about expectations and communicating with your children about what the holiday plans are and what they should expect. A lot of kids feel very rattled because they don’t know or they feel your stress, and so the more you can explain to them and the more it can be. I talk a lot about being on like team kids. So let’s say her kid’s name is Sarah, being on team Sarah, because we just want your holidays to be great and dad and I or mom and I have decided that this is what we’re doing for the holidays. Not dad wanted this, but I don’t think that’s best. And you know, letting the kid be in on your sort of toxicity around you two not getting along. So the more you can plan this ahead of time and then explain it even together if possible if that is too Pollyanna-ish that you can do that, then I understand that, but at least if you’re both sending the same message about what those expectations are, they will really benefit.
Coordinating Gift-Giving
It’s also really good to number five coordinate gift giving plans. Now, most of the time you aren’t going to listen to me and you’re not going to do this, but I virtually guarantee you that this is one of the best things you can do during the holidays to make sure that you are both affirming one another and affirming each other’s love for the other child. So I pause because I know that many, many parents can’t do this, but it’s so beautiful when you can. But it can help you avoid buying duplicate things. It can help you avoid having one person blow it out in terms of how much they spend. So one person’s getting I don’t know whatever the great new gaming device is, and the other’s getting a pair of socks, you know, and the other parent is trying to buy the child’s love. I will tell you that that rarely works and kids resent it, even if you’re the one giving the most expensive gifts.
The better thing to do honestly is to somehow try to coordinate what the children want, because they might tell you the same things honestly and if you’re not communicating, you might both get them the same thing, which makes no sense at all. Really, try to decide. Hey, let’s decide how much we’re spending, what we’re going to get, and really navigate that together. Now, if any of you actually do this and take this advice, I want you to reach out to me, because I bet you won’t, because you’re like I’m not going to do this with this person, forget it. I’ll take all your other advice, but not that. But I really do think that it would be a beautiful message to your children that they’re first and you could get other things separately, but maybe you do a big gift together.
Even I had one kid I think she was getting a car actually but I had one kid. Her parents had been divorced for a really long time and she was in a really gross situation with her parents just lots of conflict between them. Her parents ended up figuring out how to do a car together for her, which obviously is a much bigger thing than just a PlayStation or whatever. But she was so blown away that they gave her a gift together and she said I can’t believe they got me a gift together. I don’t remember any gift they’ve ever gotten me together. And she said that in just such a sad way. So if you could give a gift together, you know Every year, that’d be great. Just try to think about that Again. Put the goggles on of your child instead of your own. This is not a competition. We’re trying to show the child love and affection and that both of you love this child.
Helping Kids Shop for Gifts
Okay, six, I would say help your kids shop. It is wonderful if you can get gifts for your ex from your children and don’t be a jerk about it, like, let them buy something for them. Don’t be a jerk about it, like let them buy something for them. Don’t be like, oh, I would buy something better for dad if he paid me more child support. Do not ever say that to your children. That is not appropriate. Help your child make something for the other parent. Do something like that Like Mother’s Day, father’s Day.
I’ve seen beautiful situations where the co-parent gives that other parent flowers from the child, has flowers sent to the house for Mother’s Day, for example, or sends a gift for Father’s Day from the children. Can you imagine how affirming that is? It also just gives so much positivity to your co-parenting that it really allows for some beautiful possible co-parenting that is more gentle and a co-parenting relationship that just is more amicable and flexible and gracious. This is not your enemy. Now again, I know there’s some cases where we do have sort of enemy situations and you’ve got to navigate those as best you can when there’s been victimization that’s gone on. But this is still your child’s co-parent or parent and your co-parent, and so you really can do a lot by making those kinds of gestures.
Resetting Expectations
Next, I would say reset your expectations a little bit and in that way I would say you really could do something really beautiful where you would, for example, have Thanksgiving not on Thanksgiving. Why does Thanksgiving have to be on Thanksgiving? Why is it just that one day that it has to be that Thursday, even Christmas? Honestly, unless you’re somebody who’s going to church on Christmas Eve, which may be a very important thing for you and which therefore should be accommodated. You know, maybe two parents want to go to church and every both of them do, and every other year we take turns making use of that specific time because it’s so important to both sides of the family. If it’s more important to your co-parent than it is to you, let that co-parent have Christmas Eve and you celebrate Christmas in a different way. Kids are delighted to have more than one birthday celebration, more than one Christmas celebration, more than one Thanksgiving and, frankly, even if you stay married and you get into older kids who get married and you’re going to end up having to do this in different ways I mean, I have a daughter now who is married and we don’t always get her for every holiday and we have to accommodate around that and figure it out. So start practicing that when your kids are more little and you will benefit from that, so that flexibility again will help you Now some things you can’t do.
You can’t do 4th of July that way, unless you I don’t know have your own amazing firework show. But for a lot of these traditions that are the ones we fight about the most. Then try to figure out, you know, really, are you able to do it in a different way in a different day and make it better for your children? That’s particularly true of Christmas Day, especially if you live in two states. Try to not make these children have to fly on Christmas at 10 am. I mean, who wants to do that? It’s just terrible for them. All right. So the other thing I’d say is, for example, on the 4th of July, look for celebrations that have firework shows on different dates, for example that happens a lot or Halloween activities they’re not just that one day, so you might be able to go. One of you gets 4th of July on the actual evening and the other gets the Saturday before or whatever, where some places might be having firework shows.
Be flexible, start new traditions, do new things with your kids and don’t feel like you have to keep doing all of the old things and those expectations can be really hard, because if you have had a certain way of celebrating Christmas, like you’ve made a certain meal every single Christmas for your entire life that you can remember. Now you are going to mourn that your kids are not going to experience that every year with you. Try to reset that in your head and say, okay, what new traditions can I do? Ask your kids what new traditions that you can do. It doesn’t have to be just the way you were raised in exactly the same way, and it is an opportunity to make it positive, not negative. Next I will say I don’t know what I’m on.
Practicing Self-Care
I think I’m on maybe eight Practice self-care. Okay, and this is where I just kind of take over from what I was just saying.
It’s really your expectations that are the problem, not necessarily your kids, and you will mourn when you don’t have your kids with you for an event that you’re used to having them with you for, whether that’s Christmas or a particular holiday that’s important to you. So make sure that you’re planning something for yourself. You know you’re going to a spa day or you’re getting a massage, or you’re going to do something special, or go see Christmas lights on your own, or go do something at your synagogue, or do something that is affirming of yourself and your own new traditions in your life. Make sure you are identifying what you need so that your sorrow doesn’t become your kid’s sorrow, and so you are being positive about this for your children and for yourself. You could binge some you know great holiday films you haven’t been able to watch. Take a trip that you wanted to take, do some things that you enjoy or be with people who are important to you. That will really help you more smoothly navigate this.
Building and Leaning on Your Village
Nine, I will say use your village support. So navigating the holidays can be so, so challenging and you really want to lean on friends and family. If you don’t have much of a community, it’s a good time to go, be working toward one through various things that you’re interested in doing, so that you can create new traditions, new things for you to enjoy and make sure that you are not alone. Okay, there’s a lot of like excessive alcohol use going on, a lot of depression happening for people who dwell in their sorrow on this and they don’t move forward, and being around your village of people or finding a village of people is super important to this and, of course, if you or your children need counseling around dealing with all this. That’s the person to process this with. If you don’t have sort of a trusted other confidant, find some counseling resources. Even at any income level, there are counseling resources out there. So I encourage you to go find those and really get yourself the help that you need, so that you can find the support so that you can be positive and not wallowing in the sorrow around all of this. It’s supposed to be a happy time for you as well.
Putting Children First
And then, lastly, and as always I’m always saying that this is the most important thing that you really do need to consider this from your children’s perspective.
This is about children first, your children first. Be attentive to any signs of sadness from them or their frustration or confusion. Talk to your co-parent about that. Be united as much as you can and I will explain that. There is this thing where children just feel like they are, they’re being shuttled around so much that it’s just not about them. So try to find ways’s just not about them. So try to find ways to make it about them, to make it within reason, flexible for what they want to do, and encourage the love and affection of the children to your other parent and to their grandparents and to all the people in their lives. It will just go so so far and just resist the tendency that we have to be negative about the other co-parent. I’m sure I have not covered everything here, but this will give you at least a primer on how to handle holidays and, as always, if you have questions or thoughts or suggestions, please do reach out and I wish you a very, very happy holiday season and wonderful co-parenting so that you and your children can flourish.