Talking With Kids About Holidays and a New Home

Started by Kat54, August 29, 2019, 09:19:51 AM

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Kat54

My young adults kids came over for dinner and we hashed out a few things that will happen in the fall and the holidays that will be upon us before you can blink. Last year it was all on the fly and sometimes uncomfortable for me and my stbxH with Thanksgiving and Christmas. They stayed with him for Thanksgiving which I don't think it was so great, it was very quiet and just different. They ended up going out to a restaurant when in years past it was always my family which is large and we have football and lots of laughs at a big family gathering.  Christmas was supposed to be with me but we ended up all being together with my sister. My ex and his family are not close at all so its going to be harder for him to find a new normal for the holidays, which will end up affecting my kids.  Its OK though, things change and we will have new traditions.  This year we are making a plan. Christmas I will fly out to my brother and step-mothers for the Christmas holiday possibly, and the kids will be with their father. How have you all handled the holidays with kids and an ex who is very needy and all about them? 

The housing thing, I'm looking for a new home and will start a very active search in the next couple weeks. Told them I'm looking in a large area as my job is 1 1/2  - 2 hours away and I have to consider my commute also. Right now I commute with my boss on a couple days to offset the driving but the boss is retiring in a couple years. I just got a big promotion and raise so not thinking at all about leaving.

Penny Lane

I dislike a lot of things about my husband's parenting plan but hands down the best thing he and his ex agreed to was that they split up Christmas and Thanksgiving each year. Meaning one has Christmas every year, the other has Thanksgiving. So we can make special traditions each year for our holiday and let the other parent take the lead on the other. (They do still get Christmas presents at both houses though). Maybe you can make a similar arrangement directly with your kids - like they always spend Thanksgiving with your family and Christmas at his family, and maybe you can arrange to do Christmas gift exchanges earlier or later.

athene1399

If your kids are adults and have significant others, that's when it starts to get tricky IMO.

We usually have SD for part of the day and take her to BM's later (or vice versa). SD sometimes feels bad that we take her to her mom's family, but I tell her between seeing my family and SO's, we are driving all over anyway so it doesn't matter to us. And BM's family is only about ten min from SO's. There has been a couple of times SD requested she just stay with us and have dinner with SO's family. We didn't make her see BM's family, but told her it wouldn't be a problem if she wanted us to take her there.

My cousin is divorced and they usually have one parent does Christmas Eve and the other does Christmas day. With Thanksgiving you could try one parent gets Thanksgiving and the other gets the kids on Black Friday. Or one parent does brunch and the other does dinner on Thanksgiving.

You can always ask the kids what works for them and try to work around it so every has a chance to spent time with them.