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Top Tips for Surviving the Holiday Season

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

The Christmas period can be a stressful one as you try to make arrangements for your children over the holiday.

In many cases, advance planning and communication can help to defuse some of the stress, so here are some of our top tips to help you survive the holiday.

  • Remember the holidays are not all about you. Your children deserve their holidays/celebrations even if you feel cheated out of yours. Encourage them to have a really good time with their other parent, even if you can’t stand the prospect of being alone.
  • Get into the spirit of the holiday. Christmas holidays are a time of giving, forgiving, and fresh starts. Turn Scrooge's emotional lessons about holidays past, present, and yet to come into New Year's resolutions about letting go of anger and treasuring all you have - despite all you have lost.
  • Another lesson from Scrooge: Love means far more than money. The holidays are not a competition with your ex or for your children. Your time, attention, and emotional presence are much more important to your children than lavish gifts. You may be short on money but you can be long on love.
  • Set up a plan for next Christmas well in advance. If you went through the agony of 11th hour negotiations last Christmas, set up a plan for the coming Christmas now. Everyone will be happier knowing what is coming, and avoiding conflict on the eve of the holidays. Keep each other informed of the details, so that everyone knows exactly where the children will be and when, and how exchanges will take place between you. Try to be flexible for the sake of the children.
  • Communicate and co-ordinate with your children's other parent. A brief email, telephone message, or conversation can ensure that you don’t duplicate presents or plan back-to-back feasts for over-fed and confused children. Ten minutes now can save days (or weeks) of fuming later. (If communicating with your ex takes more than 10 minutes, you probably are getting into issues better left for another time).
  • Celebrate with your children's other parent. Consider celebrating part of the Christmas holidays together with your children’s other parent, especially if your separation is fairly recent. Some people are shocked when divorced families celebrate holidays or birthdays together. Go ahead and shock them!
  • Plan in advance with your extended family. Work things out in advance with your own extended family too, whether that means that you refuse some invitations or spend the holidays a little differently than usual, and/or ask for your family’s understanding and help.
  • Establish traditions with your children. Establish new traditions and rituals with your children, particularly ones that could take place not on Christmas day itself. Your children may not remember the details of Christmas 2008, but year-in, year-out traditions that they can look forward to will stay with them for a lifetime.

Source: Emery On Divorce – Robert E Emery, Ph.D.