Splitting Holidays Where the Easter Bunny or Santa Comes

[12years]

Does anyone have advice as to what to do the split the holidays where The Easter Bunny or Santa comes? As the mom, I do most of the work, so I feel I should get the payback on Easter morning or Christmas morning.
My husband and I are separated, just this January, so, I want to start setting up the splitting up of the holidays right away! I emailed him to set it up to let him know I want Easter Eve and he can have Easter (after the morning). I don't want him here for the Easter Egg Hunt. He can have his own! And the same for Christmas Eve and Christmas. I get Christmas Eve and he gets Christmas. Does this seem fair? What obstacles do you think will occur? Because if there's any, and if they are bad, he will put them up! My kids are little, though the oldest may not soon "believe," but the little one will for awhile, so I think we'll have to do this for awhile. Then maybe alternate the Easter Eve and Christmas Eve, but then again maybe just keep it that way for consistency.  What kinds of arrangements do people have for major "believing" holidays?

[GaGrl]

There are various ways of handling holidays. My court order (many years ago) also had to consider the father's Jewish holidays.

As your children begin school, there also will be school holidays at Christmas and Spring break, and summer vacations with each parent.I

My agreement alternated Christmas, with exchange happening on Christmas Eve following evening celebrations (almost never conflicted with Hannukah). We coordinated Passover and Easter each year. Spring Break alternated. I always had Mother's Day, and father always had Father's Day. My son alternated who he was with on his birthday.

We didn't get hung up on holidays, but some parents do -- often there is travel involved to see family.

This is all part of what gets worked out in a comprehensive custody agreement.

[kells76]

Hi 12years,

Great question!

Growing up, my dad worked at a hospital. We would celebrate Christmas anywhere from the 20th to 26th-ish, depending on when he had to work. As kids, it was SOO COOL and exciting to get to do Christmas before our friends :-)

So when DH & I got together, I was already used to the idea of not doing Christmas on the 25th. Which was good, because in order to get the kids' mom to sign the PP, he offered her every Christmas every year (among other things), which was a good tactic because it looked very generous (and was), he got other important things in the deal, and we get every Christmas Eve every year.

So the kids are still super excited and not "gifted out" with us, and we can pick when to do Christmas with them so we can be together with family. I think this past year we did one on December 6th(!) with my family and one on the 22nd with DH's family.

You can reassure kids that Santa is pretty good at his job and keeps track of how many houses a kid has, and visits them all. Ours (SD13 & SD10 almost 11) aren't Santa-believers any more, but they do seem to enjoy tallying up how many Christmases they get. We were out of town for the last one so I joked with them that I gave Santa our itinerary. I think you will be able to come up with messaging that rings true for your kiddos.

I think mostly I would encourage you to be open and flexible about what day a holiday is celebrated on. That will be like a "secret weapon" as you work out holiday schedules -- you won't "have to" fight about who gets what days, because you can be the flexible creative one.

Our PP looks a lot different from many traditional PP's, but it has a lot of leeway for DH and a little less for the kids' mom. The kids are slowly starting to come over more, which is miraculous compared to ~4 years ago.

You can have a more traditional holiday/vacation PP -- search online for "County State parenting plan" to see what's typical in your county -- but I guess the takeaway from DH & I is that strategic flexibility can work really well too.

Let me know if you want to hear more!

Cheers;

kells76

[Turkish]

To echo what Gagrl said, is there a custody agreement or is one in process?  The boilerplate default is for parents to alternate holidays year- to- year. It's up to both parents to agree to alter or give grace as agreed to. 

For instance,  in Mexican culture (my Ex) Christmas eve is a big deal,  Christmas morning, not at all. 

It sounds like you put more work into making the holidays special for the kids.  You could alternate Easter (whole day), or agree to return the kids by 10AM, say, but that might depend upon who has that weekend. 

What you establish now is important,  even if you can both agree to adjustments later on after separation emotions subside.

My ex didn't bother to even put up a table Christmas tree (I couldn't understand why,  but really none of my business to pry).  I always do.  She had Christmas week this year.  I had them help me decorate our tree before Christmas,  gave them a present to open before Christmas,  and we had 2nd Christmas the following week when I got them back through New Year's.

What are your thoughts? 

[worriedStepmom]

What does the standard custody agreement for your state say?  (This is the default, which he will get unless you both agree otherwise or you prove he doesn't deserve it.) The state standard also specifies which parent gets even years and which one gets odd years.

My ex and I live close to each other, and our parents live close to each other (in a town hours away), so we agreed to work together and split Christmas - one of us gets from the time school gets out until Christmas Eve at 8 pm, then the other parent gets them until school starts after New Year's. We alternate each year.  This is written into the custody agreement.

We chose to alternate Santa as well - whoever has Christmas morning provides Santa presents and the other house does not.  SD11's uBPDmom was okay with splitting Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, but she is absolutely incapable of delayed gratification/keeping a secret.  She  does "Santa" every year, and one year "Santa" came for SD11 at mom's house the first weekend in December.  It is very rare that they actually celebrate Christmas on whatever day mom has.

Easter is treated like a normal weekend in my custody plan- whoever has the kid(s) that weekend celebrates the holiday with them.  We did give uBPDmom Orthodox Easter every year, since her family observes that and we don't.  Our state's custody plan also alternates Thanksgiving and spring break.

It will be very, very hard for you to overcome the "but I'm the primary caregiver!" impulse.  For your children's sake, it is critical that you work to do that.  They need a good relationship and holiday traditions with both of their families, and that means that you have to sacrifice some memory-making times so they can do that with their dad.

The first year we were apart was his year for Christmas morning.  My mom and I put together Christmas stockings with toys aimed at various ages and delivered them to the pediatric ward of the local hospital.  I was so sad that I wasn't with my kids, and volunteering like this made me feel better.  Now, I'm more used to them being gone.  The first set of holidays is rough, but then it gets a lot easier.

[scraps66]

IMHO splitting a major Holiday with a BP is nearly impossible.  Christmas, we split the day, but the remainder of the Holidays it's all or nothing.  Each year it flips as to who has Christmas eve and morning.
 1pm christmas day we exchange.Too much opportunity for drama to be developed during a holiday.