Holidays/Christmas

[May_May]

Hi everyone...

This will be my first Christmas / New Years having to split our children between the two houses.

Wondering how you typically split the holidays/Chrismas Day (with the current schedule my stbx would have our boys the week prior to Christmas, until 4pm on Christmas Day...then I would get them for a week). I would like to recommend that I get them earlier as it is Christmas Day and I think we should switch by 2pm...any suggestions ? (besides how on earth I'm going to get through not having my boys on Christmas morning...frig...)

[fireweb13]

What is the major reason with getting them at 4 PM? Do you have long drives and family dinners to contend with that will require extra time to get to or anything like that? If your family always does a dinner christmas day and you need to get the boys and get there then I would ask for him to be flexible, but if its just so you see them more on christmas day then it may not be worth the hassle. My ex and I were supposed to alternate christmas day but I went 4 years without seeing her christmas day for 1 excuse or the next so I started to make plans to have "Christmas boxing day" as Santa can come twice and christmas morning can easily be on the 26th if need be. I would assume you have christmas morning next year and your ex will feel equally hurt by spending a christmas morning without the boys.

[fireweb13]

On a side note, thanks for reminding me christmas was coming, I have tried to avoid dollar stores for fear of seeing christmas stuff before halloween lol.

[dorano]

I've got a situation with Christmas also...
During our time together, my stbx and I always celebrated Christmas with his family on the 25th at dinner and with mine on Christmas eve and/or morning.
We are sharing custody of two small children - 4 and 18 months.
He wants the following:

This year - I have the children christmas eve, they must be returned to him by 10pm so that he can have Christmas morning with them. I will then get them back for lunch and nap time, and then have to return them to him for Christmas dinner at his aunt's house by 4pm latest.

Is it just me or is this nutts??!! I will be 1.5 hours away on Christmas eve celebrating with family.

I have tried to propose that we just alternate Christmas eve and Christmas day, but he INSISTS he wants them every Christmas day afternoon/evening and alternating Christmas morning. He is refusing to compromise, refusing to even discuss or consider anything different, saying we always celebrated with his family on Christmas day. I even tried to propose that if Christmas day was that important to him, then he could always get the 25th and I could always get Christmas eve and Christmas morning.

How can I get through to him? We narrowly avoided court due to crazy circumstances which got us communicating, but I cann't agree to get 25% of Christmas time every two years because of his bullying agressive controlling ways.

[Lorac]

HI MayMay,

Like you this will be my first Christmas without all my family being together. All my children are grown but Christmas has always been at Mom's house since "forever" :-) I have 4 sons and I kept debating what I should do. I know it will be hard on them with their father not in the picture but such is life. My oldest son lives in Toronto and his girlfriend called me and asked me there for Christmas as a surprise for my son. I jumped at the chance. I then called my other 3 sons and said "Mom is not going to be here for Christmas I've been invited to Toronto by your older brother. It was a blessing in disguise...no stress on me...and no stress on them as to how Christmas should be handled.

I can well understand the stress of not having your children for Christmas. Even though my children are all grown they still feel the stress of Mom and Dad and not having their home that they grew up in available to them at Christmas. Even not having to be able to drop in for a coffee is still hard for them. They were all raised in that house, the grandchildren also spent many nights in that house.

I wish everyone well at Christmas and hope everything goes well for all

L.

[fireweb13]

Dorano, simple plan and I am sure the judge will agree. Either you have the kids christmas eve and morning till just after lunch or you alternate Christmas eve and morning. For me, since my ex cried to the judge about not having christmas morning with her daughter on christmas morning I gave up that morning, we have our dinner Christmas day so she can have christmas dinner with my family every year which is nice.

[mcdreamy]

We switch at noon on Xmas Day, and alternate Xmas Eve/mornings.

So if I have her Xmas Eve, I have her until noon on Dec. 25th to open presents and have plan a special brunch; If we don't have her until noon on Dec. 25th, we stay in our pj's and break open the gifts at 1'ish after I've had another coffee/baileys.

Any of my family gatherings with her are done either Xmas Eve, or Boxing Day, depending on the year.

doran - It's a busy day for everyone, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have the kids switching houses more than once, so I wouldn't agree with him.

MayMay - it will get better. The first year will be tough.

[May_May]

Originally Posted by fireweb13

What is the major reason with getting them at 4 PM?

With our normal schedule we switch @ 4pm on Sundays. I would like to ask my stbx if we could switch @ 2 instead as it is Christmas Day so it is evenly split. Wanted to see if it seemed acceptable to some others before I went ahead and asked him.

Originally Posted by dorano

Is it just me or is this nutts??!!

Dorano-My potential problem is nothing in comparison. That is silly ! He is just being difficult. Maybe some of the other folks who post here have some advice if they have already had to split a couple of years.

Originally Posted by Lorac

It was a blessing in disguise...no stress on me...and no stress on them as to how Christmas should be handled.

Lorac-How wonderful ! (are you the surprise ?)

Originally Posted by mcdreamy

We switch at noon on Xmas Day, and alternate Xmas Eve/mornings.
....
If we don't have her until noon on Dec. 25th, we stay in our pj's and break open the gifts at 1'ish after I've had another coffee/baileys.

Thanks mcdreamy-I think I will ask him to alter the sched by a couple of hours...Love the coffee/bailey's idea !!!

[Berner_Faith]

We don't switch the kids on Christmas Day, we alternate Christmas day each year. In my bf's & his ex's agreement, it states that in even numbered years the children will spend the first day of Christmas vacation until Boxing day at 9am with the mother, and then from 9am Boxing day until the day they return to school. This is then swtiched in odd numbered years... it sucked for him last year not having the kids, however we did our Christmas thing on Boxing day.

[Rioe]

Mine's a little weird:

Christmas Eve I take the kids to my parents' house, and we set up for Santa and sleep there. In the morning, we see what Santa brought, have a quick breakfast, then drive across the city to my ex's sister's house where all their family gathers, and have Christmas morning and brunch there with the ex. I stay, feeling welcome but awkward at the same time, as driving across the city twice more by myself is a bit silly. Then the kids and I drive back across town, with naps in the car hopefully, and have more presents and Christmas dinner there. We stay the night and drive back home on Boxing Day.

We split in late November, and this is what our mediator hashed out with us for the next month while we were both all up in the air emotionally, and we've sort of both been afraid to change it, I think. Our separation agreement has the usual alternation, but we've been ignoring it as only being a fall-back plan if we can't work it out ourselves. Ex works retail and only takes Christmas Day off, so unless he changes this, I can't see anything else working easily. It might vary a bit this year due to no naps anymore, not sure. Haven't broached the idea of changing it yet!

The worst part of all this turns out to be having to buy small Christmas presents for everybody because they need to fit in the car!