Allocating holidays and divorce

[Anonymous]

In your case, I would offer Dad primary physical custody, and you take all the holidays, since holidays are really important to you, and you do all the work for them anyway.

[Anonymous]

Don’t make this into an issue. Divide them up as evenly as possible and alternate. If he does Christmas in a different way that is fine - you get the next Christmas. If there is any holiday that is truly only meaningful to you (like religious? Or Mother’s Day) then ask for that one every year.

The more important issue is the amount of time the kids spend with him given that there are apparently issues there. But you saying that you deserve every Christmas because you were always the one who got the gifts and you have the better local family … that’s not going to make you look good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about he picks up on Christmas morning at about 10am? I LOVE Christmas, but the real celebration is Christmas eve and then Christmas morning. After that we just relax and put together new toys.

Maybe in your family, but OP here and after Christmas morning DC and my favorite part is to wake up to Santa, then after seeing all the presents and calling relatives, we read new books under the tree until the afternoon, when we prep to have Christmas dinner with friends. The quiet middle of Christmas Day is one of the best parts of the entire year.

I'm realizing from this thread that it is very difficult if not impossible to seek outside advice about holidays because everyone celebrates so differently and has different aspects of their traditions that they're happy to flex or can't budge on. So even if this thread isn't solving my dilemma, it's helping me see how clinically the parent evaluator or judges or mediators might see the situation and how unimportant our traditions will be to any outsider.

The thought just hit me that I just went from a life where I thought I had 8 more Christmases with my child before college to maybe only 4. I'm heartbroken to have my only DC's childhood fast-forwarded on me by STBX and his decision.

Crazy that marriage and having a baby take two people, but one person can unilaterally upend an entire family for the rest of their lives.

OP kindly - you need to accept the situation and that it is unreasonable for you to argue you get all of every Christmas because you like it more. Get creative and think about how you can split it up (like you get Xmas day and he gets Xmas Eve) or get comfortable with the idea that you will alternate. You already have 80% custody for reasons I assume are good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about he picks up on Christmas morning at about 10am? I LOVE Christmas, but the real celebration is Christmas eve and then Christmas morning. After that we just relax and put together new toys.

Maybe in your family, but OP here and after Christmas morning DC and my favorite part is to wake up to Santa, then after seeing all the presents and calling relatives, we read new books under the tree until the afternoon, when we prep to have Christmas dinner with friends. The quiet middle of Christmas Day is one of the best parts of the entire year.

I'm realizing from this thread that it is very difficult if not impossible to seek outside advice about holidays because everyone celebrates so differently and has different aspects of their traditions that they're happy to flex or can't budge on. So even if this thread isn't solving my dilemma, it's helping me see how clinically the parent evaluator or judges or mediators might see the situation and how unimportant our traditions will be to any outsider.

The thought just hit me that I just went from a life where I thought I had 8 more Christmases with my child before college to maybe only 4. I'm heartbroken to have my only DC's childhood fast-forwarded on me by STBX and his decision.

Crazy that marriage and having a baby take two people, but one person can unilaterally upend an entire family for the rest of their lives.

OP kindly - you need to accept the situation and that it is unreasonable for you to argue you get all of every Christmas because you like it more. Get creative and think about how you can split it up (like you get Xmas day and he gets Xmas Eve) or get comfortable with the idea that you will alternate. You already have 80% custody for reasons I assume are good.

This, but the more unrealistic about holidays OP is, the more I wonder if the reason for 80% custody is also good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who splits holidays with an ex, we wrote our agreement with a default split that went into effect if we couldn't amicably work things out. It alternates the major holidays (with one person having Easter and Thanksgiving one year, and Christmas the next) and lists specific dates for exchanges over winter break. But the agreement is written so that we can change that arrangement based on mutual agreement which we do almost every year. We split winter break, but we adjust specific dates based on travel plans, etc. We're supposed to alternate Easter, but it's not a big deal for either of us, so we usually just base it on our normal alternating weekend schedule. One year we swapped (so we each got Christmas 2 years in a row) to accommodate spending time with family who were about to move overseas.

I guess my point is that you can write a schedule in such a way that offers a split but leaves a lot of room for customization.

Honestly, it's been kind of fun the years I have the kids the non-Christmas week. We pick a different day to celebrate and still do all of the same traditions. Some years we do a vacation--which we wouldn't do during Christmas week. It's kind of liberating. Since Christmas was plopped onto a random date originally anyway, it's not like it really matters. Adopting this attitude will serve you well when your kid is a kid, and when they are an adult and you don't want to make holidays a fraught experience.

Please say more? OP and probably this wouldn’t apply in my situation unless things change substantially, but I’m curious how you worked things out. How far in advance did you discuss holidays? Who usually brought up the conversation as you neared a specific holiday/event that you needed flexibility for?

I’ve been the one initiating every conversation about custody so far, so I wouldn’t see this working because it would feel too much to STBX like I was running the show. But I’m curious how more functional families approach these things and how I might adapt those ways to my life in the future.

DP. I also have a flexible holiday schedule with my ex. I have more custody time (70%) so part of this is that I let my ex take whatever holidays he wants - except for Christmas and Thanksgiving which we alternate. Even then I let him take two in a row if he wants. Part of this is that since I get more time I know it’s fair to let him have more holiday time. I think you may need to internalize that.

[Anonymous]

OP, it’s just a day on the calendar. You can do all your magical stuff another day in alternating years. What’s more important than your need of the perfect Christmas, is your child’s need to spend time with his dad. My kids are grown, married, and have their own kids. Some years I get Christmas Day and some years I get the weekend after. It doesn’t bother me because I still get a day to be with them all together, and my wants are far down on the list at this stage. You are being a bit selfish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about he picks up on Christmas morning at about 10am? I LOVE Christmas, but the real celebration is Christmas eve and then Christmas morning. After that we just relax and put together new toys.

Maybe in your family, but OP here and after Christmas morning DC and my favorite part is to wake up to Santa, then after seeing all the presents and calling relatives, we read new books under the tree until the afternoon, when we prep to have Christmas dinner with friends. The quiet middle of Christmas Day is one of the best parts of the entire year.

I'm realizing from this thread that it is very difficult if not impossible to seek outside advice about holidays because everyone celebrates so differently and has different aspects of their traditions that they're happy to flex or can't budge on. So even if this thread isn't solving my dilemma, it's helping me see how clinically the parent evaluator or judges or mediators might see the situation and how unimportant our traditions will be to any outsider.

The thought just hit me that I just went from a life where I thought I had 8 more Christmases with my child before college to maybe only 4. I'm heartbroken to have my only DC's childhood fast-forwarded on me by STBX and his decision.

Crazy that marriage and having a baby take two people, but one person can unilaterally upend an entire family for the rest of their lives.

OP kindly - you need to accept the situation and that it is unreasonable for you to argue you get all of every Christmas because you like it more. Get creative and think about how you can split it up (like you get Xmas day and he gets Xmas Eve) or get comfortable with the idea that you will alternate. You already have 80% custody for reasons I assume are good.

This, but the more unrealistic about holidays OP is, the more I wonder if the reason for 80% custody is also good.

OP and I have 100% custody right now, not 80%. No overnights. Short daytime visits in public places only for STBX. The reasons for the 100% custody are very not good reasons but I don’t want the conversation to get bogged down in that because that’s a thread in itself; I posted because I wanted to understand how people actually allocate holidays in real-life situations.

Any holiday/custody plan I propose and any final recommendation from the evaluator is 99% likely to be accompanied by a recommendation for a gradual step up plan for any increase in custody for STBX, but I am still required to go through the process of dividing holidays on paper for the purpose of the custody evaluation process.

[Anonymous]

What if you offer Thanksgiving and New Years but keep Christmas Eve/Christmas?

Or, you may need to give up Christmas Eve if you want Christmas Day (or vice-versa).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if you offer Thanksgiving and New Years but keep Christmas Eve/Christmas?

Or, you may need to give up Christmas Eve if you want Christmas Day (or vice-versa).

You know, he doesn’t care about Thanksgiving but if he thinks I care about it but he might be willing to think he’s taking 2 holidays from me for the price of one.

I’m realizing too that if we were in a situation of alternating weekends or similar eventually, those could theoretically bump up against split holidays or split break weeks to create mega breaks when I might not see DC for potentially the second half of December through the first week of school, depending on if holidays fall on weekdays. Time to print calendars for the next few years to understand how this might look in reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who splits holidays with an ex, we wrote our agreement with a default split that went into effect if we couldn't amicably work things out. It alternates the major holidays (with one person having Easter and Thanksgiving one year, and Christmas the next) and lists specific dates for exchanges over winter break. But the agreement is written so that we can change that arrangement based on mutual agreement which we do almost every year. We split winter break, but we adjust specific dates based on travel plans, etc. We're supposed to alternate Easter, but it's not a big deal for either of us, so we usually just base it on our normal alternating weekend schedule. One year we swapped (so we each got Christmas 2 years in a row) to accommodate spending time with family who were about to move overseas.

I guess my point is that you can write a schedule in such a way that offers a split but leaves a lot of room for customization.

Honestly, it's been kind of fun the years I have the kids the non-Christmas week. We pick a different day to celebrate and still do all of the same traditions. Some years we do a vacation--which we wouldn't do during Christmas week. It's kind of liberating. Since Christmas was plopped onto a random date originally anyway, it's not like it really matters. Adopting this attitude will serve you well when your kid is a kid, and when they are an adult and you don't want to make holidays a fraught experience.

Please say more? OP and probably this wouldn’t apply in my situation unless things change substantially, but I’m curious how you worked things out. How far in advance did you discuss holidays? Who usually brought up the conversation as you neared a specific holiday/event that you needed flexibility for?

I’ve been the one initiating every conversation about custody so far, so I wouldn’t see this working because it would feel too much to STBX like I was running the show. But I’m curious how more functional families approach these things and how I might adapt those ways to my life in the future.

For the smaller stuff (like figuring out when a logical switch day is during winter break) it is almost always my initial suggestion, because I am the one who pays attention to the school calendar and I'm more type A and like to be able to plan things in advance. I usually have a draft calendar prepped once the school year starts that proposed one. But this year, for example, he has plans the weekend I had proposed switching, so he just emailed to ask if we could do it on Monday instead of Saturday. He generally goes along with my suggestions, but I think I'm pretty reasonable and make logical suggestions.

One thing I didn't call out previously is that we mutually agreed that we didn't want to try splitting Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I would rather have the whole experience every other year than have a part holiday with the chaos of a custody exchange in the middle of it. It also gives more flexibility for travel if you're not chopping that week up. Other people (as you see from comments) feel differently. And if the church part is important to you, alternating Eve and Day might work for you, and you attend Mass together whichever one you have.

For summer vacations, our agreement gives us alternating first picks for vacation weeks each summer and we're supposed to choose them by a certain date. However, as the kids got older and wanted more specialty camps, our schedules were really more dictated by camp than by our preferences. I am way more likely to be making advance travel plans for summer (he's more of a last minute, smaller trips person) and I need to have dates settled so I can buy plane tickets. So I usually send an email along the lines of: Kid A has these restricted dates and Kid B has these restricted dates, so that leaves weeks A, B, D, and F open for vacations. I'd like two consecutive weeks of possible, so are you ok with me taking A and B, and you take D and F? [I know you're not asking about summer, but just giving a sense of how our dynamic works, because I think it's pretty functional.]

[Anonymous]

The fixation on Christmas and it being a certain way is just weird. I can guarantee you that your son does not care as much about these traditions as you think he does. Let him spend every other year with his father, the man you married and had a child with (unless there is abuse of course).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fixation on Christmas and it being a certain way is just weird. I can guarantee you that your son does not care as much about these traditions as you think he does. Let him spend every other year with his father, the man you married and had a child with (unless there is abuse of course).

I think that it is being hinted that there is some kind of abuse or a substance or mental health issue but it’s maybe not being brought up so as to not derail the discussion entirely.

If a divorce is underway and an evaluation is taking place and one person has 100% custody and the other person hasn’t challenged that 100% custody with a motion for temporary orders, something big is going on. Because otherwise the STBX’s attorney would have jumped on a motion for an hearing and tried to disrupt the current 100% status quo before a precedent was set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about he picks up on Christmas morning at about 10am? I LOVE Christmas, but the real celebration is Christmas eve and then Christmas morning. After that we just relax and put together new toys.

Maybe in your family, but OP here and after Christmas morning DC and my favorite part is to wake up to Santa, then after seeing all the presents and calling relatives, we read new books under the tree until the afternoon, when we prep to have Christmas dinner with friends. The quiet middle of Christmas Day is one of the best parts of the entire year.

I'm realizing from this thread that it is very difficult if not impossible to seek outside advice about holidays because everyone celebrates so differently and has different aspects of their traditions that they're happy to flex or can't budge on. So even if this thread isn't solving my dilemma, it's helping me see how clinically the parent evaluator or judges or mediators might see the situation and how unimportant our traditions will be to any outsider.

The thought just hit me that I just went from a life where I thought I had 8 more Christmases with my child before college to maybe only 4. I'm heartbroken to have my only DC's childhood fast-forwarded on me by STBX and his decision.

Crazy that marriage and having a baby take two people, but one person can unilaterally upend an entire family for the rest of their lives.

Honestly the Christmas you described will change so much over the years anyway, regardless of the divorce. PPs had good advice to think about what you want for the future. I feel like Christmas was the same for so many years and then bam, I had teens and things were different. Not bad, but different. We've tweaked some traditions and added new age appropriate ones. All this to say that my DCs are streaming whatever Christmas station they want and nobody is reading under the tree anymore. Even if we do still bake cookies for Santa!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about he picks up on Christmas morning at about 10am? I LOVE Christmas, but the real celebration is Christmas eve and then Christmas morning. After that we just relax and put together new toys.

Maybe in your family, but OP here and after Christmas morning DC and my favorite part is to wake up to Santa, then after seeing all the presents and calling relatives, we read new books under the tree until the afternoon, when we prep to have Christmas dinner with friends. The quiet middle of Christmas Day is one of the best parts of the entire year.

I'm realizing from this thread that it is very difficult if not impossible to seek outside advice about holidays because everyone celebrates so differently and has different aspects of their traditions that they're happy to flex or can't budge on. So even if this thread isn't solving my dilemma, it's helping me see how clinically the parent evaluator or judges or mediators might see the situation and how unimportant our traditions will be to any outsider.

The thought just hit me that I just went from a life where I thought I had 8 more Christmases with my child before college to maybe only 4. I'm heartbroken to have my only DC's childhood fast-forwarded on me by STBX and his decision.

Crazy that marriage and having a baby take two people, but one person can unilaterally upend an entire family for the rest of their lives.

OP kindly - you need to accept the situation and that it is unreasonable for you to argue you get all of every Christmas because you like it more. Get creative and think about how you can split it up (like you get Xmas day and he gets Xmas Eve) or get comfortable with the idea that you will alternate. You already have 80% custody for reasons I assume are good.

This, but the more unrealistic about holidays OP is, the more I wonder if the reason for 80% custody is also good.

OP and I have 100% custody right now, not 80%. No overnights. Short daytime visits in public places only for STBX. The reasons for the 100% custody are very not good reasons but I don’t want the conversation to get bogged down in that because that’s a thread in itself; I posted because I wanted to understand how people actually allocate holidays in real-life situations.

Any holiday/custody plan I propose and any final recommendation from the evaluator is 99% likely to be accompanied by a recommendation for a gradual step up plan for any increase in custody for STBX, but I am still required to go through the process of dividing holidays on paper for the purpose of the custody evaluation process.

If you are refusing all contact but a few hours supervised let’s be real, he’s never seeing his kid again so stop with the false promises and be honest about your intentions. Real life , with good parents, they work it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fixation on Christmas and it being a certain way is just weird. I can guarantee you that your son does not care as much about these traditions as you think he does. Let him spend every other year with his father, the man you married and had a child with (unless there is abuse of course).

I think that it is being hinted that there is some kind of abuse or a substance or mental health issue but it’s maybe not being brought up so as to not derail the discussion entirely.

If a divorce is underway and an evaluation is taking place and one person has 100% custody and the other person hasn’t challenged that 100% custody with a motion for temporary orders, something big is going on. Because otherwise the STBX’s attorney would have jumped on a motion for an hearing and tried to disrupt the current 100% status quo before a precedent was set.

Op said not for good reasons. This really isn’t even a discussion as dad isn’t allowed to be a parent or see his kid again