#187 - Stop Ruining Christmas for your Children

The weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s are often fraught with peril for coparents. But does conflict have to be inevitable?

In this episode, we strip away the sentimentality to look at the practical side of holiday coparenting. Whether you have a court order or are just winging it, we discuss how to manage expectations, communicate in advance, and prevent your children from becoming pawns in a holiday power struggle.

Takeaways:

• Setting expectations: Don't promise what you can't deliver.
• Why communication in November saves headaches in December.
• How to make the most of your time (even if you don't wake up with them on the 25th).

Chapters

• 0:00 Holiday Stress For Co-Parents
• 3:10 Court Orders As The Safety Net
• 6:45 Rethinking Christmas Morning
• 10:55 Santa Stories And Young Kids
• 14:20 Traditions And Alternating Years
• 18:05 Framing, Guilt, And Letting Go
• 21:30 Stepfamilies And New Traditions
• 25:10 Communication, Expectations, And Faith

Transcript

Holiday Stress For Co-Parents

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Wait, hold on, hold on, just a second.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Let me make sure I got this straight.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Are you asking me for a divorce?

unknown 0:06

Yay! Two Christmases.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

What kid does not love two Christmases?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

That has been the one bonus to ever come out of any separation or divorce, I think, for any child. Bless their hearts.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

So we just came through Thanksgiving, and it is a time that is fraught with peril for co-parenting.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Typically, Thanksgiving passes with fewer conflicts, but Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas, the whole holiday season, the two weeks the kids are off of school, the whole nine yards.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

And it's yeah, it's fraught for all sorts of reasons. There's something the sentimentality of the holiday season kicks up all of these feelings that maybe you can sort of suppress during the year.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Well, it goes back to when the parents themselves were children and the family traditions that they held dear and their family may still uh perpetuate. And so it's it's really, I mean, maybe if the parents are not that interested in it, they're still trying to please their parents, the grandparents, or the great-grandparents. And of course, those people all want to see the children. And so there can be a lot of pressure and expectation put on the co-parents from both sides.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So let's focus in on how people can practically make their holiday experiences, co-parents, better, which is the the focus of this episode. So, first thing is it depends on where you are in your co-parenting journey, because you may have an order in place or you may not. Right. And so if you do have an order in place, what I usually tell my folks is that order is great as a backup. If you guys can agree to something better based on change circumstances and something you find works better than you thought it would when the order is put in place, then if you can make agreements, do it in writing in advance, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

That would be great. I I don't know many people that think they can veer off the course of the order or they're afraid to go there, I think, because they might not be able to agree. Or if, you know, at certain stages of a divorce, again, if if they bring up what they want, they feel sure they won't get it. Right. On the other side.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

But if you can, it's great. And if you can't reach agreements and you have an order in place, then it's easy. You just fall back to what the order says, and you will find, typically you'll find, that the universe doesn't come to an end if you follow the order and what it says about holidays.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Right. Sometimes it's even easier, a lot of people find, just to follow it so that for all the years of the child's minority, you can know when you're gonna have what, you know. You could you could put them in the calendars from that point on.

Court Orders As The Safety Net

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. And so our focus for today is not gonna be on following court orders, because that's easy. You just follow the court order.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

If you read them.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Well, yeah, well, step one. Yep. You gotta read the order.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And preferably by at least Thanksgiving, bread the order. Right. And because I know that sounds like it's crazy, but I have seen so many people, you know, even being a PC myself, being in a PC's office, you know, where the PC is getting called to interpret the order down to Christmas Eve.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Right. So make sure you know what the order says, follow the order if there's an order in place and you can't agree otherwise. That presumably should be as easy as it gets. Right. So we're gonna focus instead on the stuff that's not so easy. So, first off, if you either don't have an order in place, or if you do and you want to try to diverge from the order to do something different, what would be, from your perspective, the place to start your thought process in terms of how to structure the Christmas to New Year holiday visitation for the kids in their best interest? As far as the schedules that seem to have worked the best over the years or what are the considerations in your mind that a a parent, co-parents should keep in mind when trying to come up with an agreed holiday schedule? So for example, let me throw something out there. Okay. Um is it the fact that if a kid doesn't wake up in a parent's house on Christmas morning to open presents, that they won't enjoy a quote Christmas morning experience with that parent?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

No, and in fact, um, no, that's not true. They will enjoy it there, but they could also enjoy that same experience at the other house, just like your telegan teledagonites intro. Um I mean, how instantly those kids responded is pretty much how kids would love to have uh even teenagers that are usually kind of not impressed by much of anything. Two Christmases is pleasing to even a teenager. And so it's how you sell it, it's how you put it across. And more than anything, I think it applies to how the adult is getting their head around maybe not having the day, you know, to celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

So the where I get the most pushback from parents on this is for kids who are really young and believe in Santa Claus. Yes. And so they say, well, how am I going to explain to them that I'm getting presents and Santa Claus wasn't there because it was before Christmas? Right. So how do you explain that?

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Uh I did that for years as a stepmom with a little one. She was only about two and a half when uh her dad and I got involved. And I mean, she bought it hook hook line and sinker because it's just a story anyway, you know, and you can amend the story. Come on. So you can add to the story because Santa knows all things and he knows where the child is.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Kind of breaking my heart. Are you telling me it's not real?

Rethinking Christmas Morning

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Well, so the um the story can be that Santa knows that you're at Ad's house on this this weekend. You know, we usually had it the weekend before Christmas, unless Christmas was right next to a weekend, and we were gonna have her the weekend because we didn't get the the whole week, you know, before or after Christmas, like most parents do the holidays. We just had the weekend that we happened to have anyway, that happened to fall around Christmas. And so her dad did the whole, you know, sleigh bells outside the the living room and her hearing them and thinking that it was really Santa arriving. And, you know, I mean, it did not matter. We did that until she was probably eight before she started going, really? You know, so it it's it's a wonderful thing. And then, you know, we always planned the the presence to be something that that would, you know, enrich her experience of being in our house. And and uh it's just it they totally love it, and then they've got more time to play with those things and enjoy those things before they go back to the other house.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

What I'm hearing you say is it's all about the framing of it.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

I think it kind of is in lots of things with co-parenting.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

And setting the expectations in advance and not making the wrong things too precious.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Oh no. No. And so many times we think that our child just can't live without a particular tradition when maybe it's a little dearer to our heart than it actually is to the three-year-old, you know, right then.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Which is valid.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Right. So you as the parent have the right to hold on to good memories and traditions and try to implement them and pass them down to your kids. So that's really sort of the next issue that comes up a lot is, and you you touched on this a little bit a second ago. My family has always done X. You know, my family has always gone to the evening Christmas Eve service at church, and it's really important to my family and always has been. Right. My children's grandparents and cousins are gonna be there, and it's very special. And his family, they don't even care about church. They're not gonna be in church on Christmas Eve. So I need to get the kids every Christmas Eve, and he can get them Christmas Day after the kids wake up and play with their toys. Right. So, what's your thought about that kind of situation?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Well, I've actually seen some parents that will agree to that because yeah, dad really could care less and he thinks there might be some redeeming value in it to the kids, and so he's fine with that. On the other hand, maybe dad's family likes to do something secular on Christmas Eve and he wants the children there for that, you know. And so that's where I think most judges would probably decide to, you know, alternate the years so that you each get to do something that's really important to you with your children on every other year at least.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Right. And just because one parent maybe um acquiesced to the other parents' family traditions during the relationship and the children were exposed to that, doesn't mean that once that relationship is done, the other parent needs to continue to acquiesce to the other parents' traditions. And there's justifications for not doing that. Um I think it it's important to try to figure out how to communicate that without denigrating each other's traditions because that's where the increased conflict comes in, I think.

Santa Stories And Young Kids

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And then the children are many times used as a pawn in that where the the parent has totally lost sight of whether the tradition is important to the child or whether it's more important to the adult. And frequently, just saying, the children are all about the the gifts. Sure. They really are. Sometimes they're about the food, but they're really more about the gifts. And so it's not so much about where they get them, even who they get them from. I kind of forget who that was pretty quickly. But um, as I was telling you a while ago, I've I've done therapeutic visitation for so many years with with parents and kids who, you know, it doesn't always get tied up neatly in the legal system right before the holidays. And so many times we were celebrating birthdays or Christmases in my office. And it still had a lot of joy attached to it. You know, sometimes the parent would bring food associated with it. You know, a dad might bring something his his mother always fixed that the kids loved for Christmas, or mom might make her favorite bread or dessert that the kids loved. And, you know, it it we we had a lot of fun with it, even though it was in a very strange environment to be celebrating Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Well, and that gets back to being all about the framing. Right. Because you can have a wonderful Christmas, you know, skiing in aspen or being in Switzerland and, you know, having hot cocoa in a chalet in the Alps. And that could be an amazing Christmas. Most of us never experience that. Right. You could also have a Christmas somewhere in a hot, difficult, dangerous environment, and that could be an amazing Christmas. Right. It's just about the the moment and the feeling and the being with the family. And I think sometimes we I think that sometimes when you folks get divorced, they feel so guilty for what they've taken from the kids they perceive, right? And they have a sense of loss and they're mourning what they had anticipated Christmases would be like as their children grew up. And so they they sacrifice the possibility of the best today they could have on the altar of this um potential Christmas experience they could have had in a different universe in which they didn't get split up. Right. And that's a hard one to overcome, to stay in the reality and make the most of it, which may actually turn out to be best.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Which also brings up another whole issue with try one may try to hold on to every single holiday routine, ritual, tradition that they did have as a first family. And the other may totally throw it all out or could care less. Um, I'd say traditionally it tends to be the mother who's trying to still hold on to everything, and the father who's like, oh, are we supposed to put up a tree, you know? And so um that's something else, though. I do find, just so you know, that children thoroughly enjoy doing the the traditions that were in the first family with both households, you know. Uh especially if there's a uh older girl in the family, she's gonna love decorating dad's tree.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Well, because now she gets to do it the way she wants. Yes, and he's the lady of the house.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Frequently that's more the case. You got it.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

She's the lady of the house now. You got it. Which actually brings us into the issue of when it's no longer just the mother and the father from the first family, and now we're introducing significant others and stepfamilies with their own independent traditions, and then also with maybe a stepmother who now wants to impose her traditions on the entire household.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

And decorate the tree all by herself.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

And decorate the tree.

Traditions And Alternating Years

SPEAKER_01 14:10

I've heard many of those young ladies in the family that might have had a Christmas to do their own thing at dad's house, who suddenly have had that taken from them too. Right. And so one of the best things you can do as a step parent, especially a stepmother, is to very much support the kids doing it their way. Who cares what your tree looks like? If you can just let them enjoy the process and be involved in it, they will like you a whole lot more.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah. Now, what if you're a step parent who has your own children and you're bringing them in? And so your children who are bringing into this family unit have experienced their own traditions. And now those traditions may be butting heads with the traditions of your significant other who has children, that gets so complicated.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I think this is why a new tradition over the past, I want to say at least five years has been households having multiple Christmas trees.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, we have multiple Christmas trees, and we're we're still together. And I'm in charge of designing neither.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

I figured that.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

That's because your wife is such a cool artist. But it's uh many children tell me now in um step families that they each kid has their own tree. You know, they're small, but they each have their own tree that reflects their personality. And, you know, stores like Hobby Lobby are only quite happy to support all that. Sure. Oh. I was just strolling through there last night going, wow, who knew there were this many ways to do a tree? Right. So it's, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. And and then in doing so, you can create your own blended traditions and so forth too. Uh, I think it's important to listen to each person. You know, even when the the first family couple are coming together to make their own new family traditions and so forth, it's important for those two people to talk about, you know, what what was important in your family of origin, what was important in mine. Is there anything that I really don't want to give up? Is there anything I really don't want you to do? You know, um, is there something that in your faith is is important to you that I don't even understand, you know? I mean, occasionally you you find people from drastically different faiths together that need to know where not to step on each other's toes and so forth. And so then you've got that that a child may have grown up with. And then when there are new people introduced to the to the family uh in the form of a stepfamily, you've got multiple traditions to be talking about. And so I think it's very important, once again, about now, the end of November, to be talking about, you know, if you're a new step family, to be talking about those kinds of things. What is very important to, and and even the biological parent may be surprised at what the child of whatever age may go, no, it's really important that we have pumpkin creamer in our coffee. You know, because they get to drink coffee right then because it's mainly the pumpkin creamer that they're tasting, you know. Or it's it's just something that they they you didn't think was a big deal to them, but it was, and and you didn't realize it because, you know, maybe the other parent that's no longer in that household was facilitating that.

Framing, Guilt, And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 17:46

I think it's so great. So a little behind the scenes, I've gotten in Linda's head with the pumpkin creamer because I promised her pumpkin creamer in her coffee. Yes, he did. So she's I can tell she likes that idea. Yep, yep. Yeah, um, but so much of what we're talking about here gets back to what is important in all of these situations is communication in advance, right? Taking into consideration every person's honestly held uh beliefs and preferences, right, um, setting expectations appropriately, reframing as positively as possible, and maybe learning to be able to uh celebrate traditions that you weren't familiar with, it doesn't make them wrong. And maybe you can just sort of add to the traditions that you enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Because when children are complaining about Christmas, yes, to all the above. When children are complaining about Christmas to me, it's when everything as they knew it in the first family got wiped out.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

It comes out of the blue. I mean, things may have been stable for a while and you feel like things are going well, and it can be kind of disconcerting for the parent to all of a sudden remember, oh, things aren't perfectly right solid. Right. These are there are going to be these issues that pop up periodically. It could be a sense memory from a dish, it could be a holiday, it could be a TV show that comes on.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

But we always did, you know, if children, as I'm reconciling them with a parent, almost always do the after they've they've been, you know, heard and apologized to and so forth for any way they felt hurt. I always know we've turned the bend on the reconciliation when they start saying, remember when. Right. And that's what you will listen for with your children now. And don't get defensive, you know, if they go, remember when we used to have, like you said, certain thing to eat, or a a certain, you know, they used to uh drive over to Rima and see the Christmas lights, or they used, you know, it's it's the the remember wins that are. Clue to you that, oh, they want us to do that.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

And even as adults, like I remember um when Rebecca and I, the first time I had like a Christmas dinner at her family's house, cornbread became an issue because her family makes cornbread that tastes like um they intentionally made it as dry as possible. And then they put stuff on it that should never hit cornbread. It should never be eaten at all. Like such as? Like black-eyed peas. Oh my goodness. I can't stand black-eyed peas, but they eat those. And so does some of my family too. Um, I like cornbread that tastes like it should have ice cream on it. Because it's so sweet cornbread. And it was such, it wasn't like a huge problem, but it just really struck me. I'm in a extended family. It's cornbread. Right, where they don't know how to make cornbread.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

And then when you start using cornbread to make dressing with, oh yeah, many parts of the country they don't do that. And in this area, we do a lot of that. And so, yeah, the cornbread can lead to other problems.

Stepfamilies And New Traditions

SPEAKER_00 21:10

And that's just like a little thing, but it's just an example of here I am thinking I'm gonna have cornbread, and instead I have something that came from, I don't know. I'm not gonna say. It just wasn't my expectation. And it took me a while to reframe it as oh, aren't they? I'm glad that they get to enjoy whatever that is, even though it's not cornbread.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Right. So if I were there, I would have had the cornbread with the black-eyed peas with ketchup on top.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

So well, we all have our problems. So and to sort of bring this to a close, and we could talk about this forever. And in fact, I think we were talking and putting this together that we may add, not for this holiday season, but afterwards, I think we'll put together a holiday themed course because there's so much as we were talking, we just had to stop talking and start doing the podcast, or this would be two hours long.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

And it can apply to, I mean, we've just taken advantage of it being this time of year, but it it can apply to birthdays and how they're celebrated. It can apply to a lot of things. Right. Yeah. Not not every order says every parent gets every holiday on the day.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

You're exactly right. We should, I think what we'll do is we'll create a like a special events or special occasions course and how to deal with those and improvement. And the different occasions have different um implications as well that we need to think about. But for this to close this out, I think what we'll say, I'm thinking of it, and correct me if I should be thinking about differently, but going from the outside in. So, first, with the the two households, with the two co-parents, see if you want to do certain things that may not be in your order if you have an order. And if you can agree in advance, great. Talk in advance, take each family's traditions into consideration, take the children's view of the traditions into consideration. And if you can make a plan that accommodates everything, oh my gosh, that's perfect. Right. If you can't, see what you can accommodate. Maybe you can accommodate some things for one person one year and one person the next year, but try to work that out. Don't tell the kids in advance what to expect until you reach an agreement between the parties. And if you can't reach an agreement, then if you have an order in place, hopefully, then you just fall back on the order. Right. But the important thing is to try to be respectful of everybody's traditions and not set expectations for the children, which are not going to come to fruition.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

And another thing I'd add is that, you know, not that it you do everything exactly as the children want it to be done, because once again, they're focused on gifts. But do take the time to talk to them about what their memories are and take a clue from that about what you want to make a priority in your home. And then depending on what stage you may be in of a separation, perhaps you're in a an apartment with hardly anything there. So there are still lots of ways to make it festive and fun. And I think so many times when I listen to the children, the fun has been totally eradicated from the holiday, uh, except for the getting of the toys and they can move on and let the adults go back to whatever they're gonna do. But it's it's really important to celebrate with your kids and enjoy making memories with them.

Communication, Expectations, And Faith

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Try not to destroy the holiday for your kids just because you're in conflict with your co-parent. Right. And I love the idea of at least trying to find one thing, maybe one important thing to your kid that you can incorporate into your plans to have them have a bit of consistency as they transition to a holiday season that's going to be different than anyone that they've experienced before if it's the first time. Right. All right. And if you haven't had the opportunity yet to hit Coparentacademy.com, check us out. We've got tons of courses that are available for you. You can purchase them individually as courses or in bundles of courses, or you can even get access to everything we've got for the low, low price of$185 per year for 12 months of access. So check it out. Coparentacademy.com. We provide the education the parents.