With Thanksgiving coming up, it is time to think about holidays post-divorce.  Holidays can be extremely difficult for families just recently divorced and navigating the first year of these holidays sets an important tone for everyone involved.   While there is always a court holiday schedule adopted in all counties in the State of New Jersey that divorcing or separated parents can default to, the reality is that using that schedule will often ensure chaos for everyone and most importantly the children.  The goal should be to maintain holiday traditions for the children that they enjoyed and look forward to, however, this is not always feasible given the separation of the family and therefore, new traditions and new experiences will occur.  The bottom line is that holidays can be incredibly stressful on children who not only experience change in their everyday lives, but now worry about how this will affect Thanksgiving, Christmas and even Halloween wherein they simply want to do what they have always done.  Making sure that as parents we minimize the stress of the divorce, holidays are a good place to start as showing the children that this part of their new life will still be enjoyable, fun, and surrounded by their families and extended family they look forward to seeing each year.  

To ensure less stress on the children during holidays as well as the family overall, the following advice is helpful: 

• Maintaining Old Traditions: Attempt to maintain existing holiday routines regardless of what a mandatory court holiday schedule is. Don’t insist on things out of spite which result in your children missing seeing their cousins and other extended family-their lives have already changed dramatically.
• Create New Traditions:  If, it is not feasible or agreed upon to maintain existing routines, then create new traditions for the children that are created with them, with love and with fun.  As divorce creates upheaval in every aspect of life, holidays are no different and many divorced and/or separated families focus on their previous traditions without an open mind to creating new ones.  Be open minded, include the children, and create new a new holiday experience stress free and argument free. 
• Be Flexible and Reasonable: Couples, especially newly divorced, tend to insist on strict adherence to days and times for parenting time, and quite frankly out of necessity for the most part.  However, holidays are a time to be flexible with times and days if reasonable and possible as this will eliminate stress on you, allow you to enjoy the holiday and most importantly your children to relax. 
• Buy Gifts for the other Parent:  As to birthdays and Christmas, children love to give their parents gifts.  However, they generally do not have their own money to purchase gifts nor any way to go shopping.  Set aside pride, and even if it is a small gift, give your children money and take them shopping to buy a gift for mommy or daddy as this is something that truly resonates with them, gives them comforts and alleviates their own guilt and shame around post-divorce holidays.  So, what if the other parent does not do this, you have shown your children respect for them and their relationship with the other parent and that goes a long way.   
• Be Positive:  Of course, adults are human and even though we are parents, we still feel sad, worried, guilty, and all those negative human thoughts.  Do your best to push them aside for the holidays, knowing full well that children mimic us and can intuitively feel our sadness.  It is not about telling the children “I will be so alone when you go with your dad for Christmas” or worse “your dad gets a holiday when he spends no money and pays no child support” as while these things do get said and do happen, even a silent sadness can cause guilt, shame, and destroy holidays for children.   No one is suggesting that the other spouse be invited to your holiday, however, check yourself, your mood, and your behavior around the children during these holidays as in my opinion, this is one of the number one causes of stress in children around the holidays.  Our children love us, they love when we are happy, so they can handle almost anything discussed above and anything holiday related whether it is new or old, so long as they see us happy and enjoying it with them.     

As a child of divorce, I am not only speaking from the place of a divorce lawyer, but of that child whose post-divorce holiday memories are happy ones.  No, the divorce was not fun, not happy, and very stressful for me as a child but, my parents put us first when it came to holidays.  They maintained old traditions, created new ones, and as a result I do not have that shame or guilt or sadness around holidays, instead I think of them as the one thing that did not change for the worse at that time.  While we certainly have no control over other people (or the other parent), we have control over ourselves and our reactions.  Regardless of the way your ex-spouse handles holidays, be that source of love, comfort, and happiness for your children during the holidays and you will be rewarded with their love, smiles, and laughter.   

          All of that being said, as noted, we cannot control the other parent and holidays do create some of the most emotional custody related issues.  In the event that you are struggling with custody related issues and holiday parenting time, it is important to act quickly so that anything that needs to be filed with the Court can be filed in advance of these holidays.  Contact Kelli M. Martone, Esq. of Martone Law Group, LLC, located in Haddon Heights, New Jersey to address any holiday and custody related concerns.  We serve clients in Camden, Burlington, Gloucester and Atlantic counties. Call us today at 856-432-4587 or contact us online to schedule an initial consultation.