The holiday season has a way of amplifying all our emotions, both the good and the bad. Unfortunately, after a divorce, the holidays can be a painful reminder of how things used to be and how different they are now.
Post-divorce holidays will not only stir up a lot of feelings for you but also for your children, making it even more challenging to co-parent at a time when you may not be feeling particularly cooperative or joyful toward your ex-spouse. How can you navigate sensitive memories, create new holiday traditions, protect your children’s emotional welfare, and still maintain a sense of sanity?
Managing Your Divorce Grief
Divorce grief is real, and it can leave you overwhelmed by feelings of loss, sadness, or anger, especially during the holidays. You are missing the long-held traditions you did as a family. Invitations to celebrations may have changed because of the dynamics of your divorce. Especially during the holidays, your divorce can leave you feeling sadder and lonelier than usual.
If you aren’t spending the holidays with your family, don’t spend them alone. Connect with friends or spend some time volunteering. Take a break from picture-perfect social media holiday posts that will just throw you headlong into comparison. If you are struggling with your emotional well-being after your divorce, talk with a close friend or therapist or reach out to a support group. You can’t be an emotionally healthy co-parent until you can manage your own emotional health first.
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Support Your Children’s Well-Being
You are not the only one struggling after your divorce. Your children are also trying to navigate their own sense of upheaval, feeling that nothing will ever be the same. If you are spending the holidays with your children, they deserve a celebration that doesn’t focus on loss and sadness.
Reassure your children that even if the holidays look different this year, you and your ex-spouse want to make their holidays fun and memorable. Be honest that while some things have changed, other things have not, like your love for them.
Encourage your children to share their feelings about the holidays. What are they most concerned about? What is most important to them? What are some of their best memories or holiday traditions they’ve loved most? Focus on how you are looking forward to recreating traditions from the past and creating new traditions and memories with them. Talking about expectations and concerns allows your children to get their emotions out on the table and gives them permission to create a different type of holiday right alongside you, even if it means a more low-key family day.
Keep Communication With Your Ex-Spouse Open, Respectful, and Focused on Your Children
Post-divorce holidays are already stressful enough, and communicating with your ex-spouse will undoubtedly add to that stress. You may already have your schedule figured out and know how you will handle sharing the holidays with your kids. But if not, or if conflict arises, keep it away from your children. Managing co-parenting details, especially around the holidays, is an adult job and should not be their problem.
Early planning will set reasonable expectations and avoid last-minute confusion and disagreements. When communicating with your co-parent about the holidays, keep conversations away from issues that will create added tension. Be respectful, avoid past conflicts, and stick to a child-focused agenda. If you and your co-parent struggle with direct communication, using a co-parenting app is an excellent way to share messages and holiday schedules on a more neutral footing.
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Sharing Holidays With Your Co-Parent
The first holidays will be the hardest for everyone. If you and your ex-spouse can spend some of your holiday time together, it can make your children’s first holiday after your divorce easier. You may plan some joint family events or attend your children’s holiday performances together to keep some of your mutual traditions alive and demonstrate that you can put your grievances aside as adults to ensure their happiness.
There are many ways to share holiday schedules as co-parents, such as dividing them by alternating years or alternating the holidays themselves, such as one parent getting the children for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas. If you have plans for your children to see extended family members, communicate these early, so everyone is on the same page or has time to adjust schedules. Putting these in writing is helpful as a reference and keeps both co-parents accountable to the schedule.
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Maintaining Old Traditions
Maintaining old traditions will feel different, but they can provide stability and comfort for your children after a divorce.
Familiar activities, meals, and holiday routines can keep you connected to cherished memories while giving them new life. Involve your children by asking what activities have meant most to them and then work them into what can be done separately as co-parents. Focus on the fun and less on perfection. The most important part of keeping long-held traditions will not be the perfect execution but being present for your children and making your new memories fun.
Creating New Traditions
Creating new traditions can keep you focused on the positive and new instead of what you are missing.
You may have longed to do things as a family on the holidays, but your spouse disagreed. Have you always wanted to cut down your own tree on Christmas Eve, go ice skating, pack up unwanted items for a Boxing Day tradition to make way for the new? Have you wanted to participate in some form of charity work as a family that allows your children to do something for others?
You can create your own family tradition in your household, collaborate on new traditions with your co-parent, or let your children come up with traditions of their own. Filling your holidays with new traditions allows a sense of hopefulness for the future and carves out something new for you and your children to share.
Avoid Gift Competition
Unfortunately, parents often try to compete with each other’s gifts after a divorce. This competition keeps co-parents at odds and can also lead to kids playing their parents against each other. The best way to avoid this kind of competition is to discuss it openly and coordinate your gift plans to prevent competition or duplication and ensure balance.
Share a list of potential gifts so both you and your co-parent can choose options. You may also want to set a budget range to keep gift-giving in line and avoid the pressure of one-upping each other. If you are considering a big-ticket item, split the cost so you can present it as a gift from both of you.
Set boundaries with family members as well. If grandparents or other family members become competitive with gifts, you will want to set reasonable limits with them.
Navigating Custody Disagreements Around the Holidays
Disagreements are common when co-parents are newly divorced and first trying to navigate holiday plans. If you and your co-parent cannot find common ground, some strategies can help you work toward a compromise and prioritize your children’s interests.
Use Your Custody Agreement As Your Foundation
If you have a custody agreement, it will typically spell out holiday schedules, detailing who gets the children on specific holidays or how holidays and vacations must be divided. If there is a conflict, your custody order is a quick way to settle it. Review the agreement to see what it says about holiday custody. Unless you both can mutually agree to an adjustment in the schedule, your default should be to follow your custody agreement.
Prioritizing Your Children’s Best Interests
Your first post-divorce holiday plans should be enjoyable and comfortable for your children. What arrangements will best support their stability and happiness? What arrangement would allow your children to celebrate the holiday with minimal stress or disruption? If a family tradition or holiday plan does not work with your children’s needs or current custody arrangement, how could you adjust it or create something else that better considers your children’s best interests? Agreeing to put your children’s needs first should make finding middle ground with your co-parent easier.
Compromising and Getting Creative
Flexibility and a willingness to compromise will go a long way in your co-parenting journey. Creative custody solutions, including alternating annual holidays, splitting the holiday itself, or even celebrating on an alternate day allows both parents to have quality holiday time with their children. Having a flexible mindset will also foster goodwill with your co-parent and show your children that their well-being is more important than your conflict.
Plan Ahead
Holiday custody disagreements are often caused by unclear or last-minute plans. Once this holiday season is behind you, set up a clear and consistent holiday schedule for the future. Developing a clear, long-term holiday plan will help you avoid disagreements and create a routine you and your children can rely on.
Making the Holidays Work for You and Your Children
The first holiday season after your divorce will likely be emotional and difficult. Co-parenting during this time will likely come with some unique challenges, but it will also provide an opportunity to demonstrate cooperation and resilience. Show your children that although life can bring sorrows, you can still find joy and optimism in moving forward. With careful planning, open communication, and a focus on your children’s best interests, you and your co-parent can create a joyful holiday season for everyone involved.
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