How We Manage The Holidays As A Blended Family

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…holiday season! Just typing that gets me all giddy on the inside. Yes, I’m THAT person. It’s currently only a few days into November as I type this and I may or may not have already ordered our family Christmas pajamas. HA! I love love love the holidays. Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Years. Holidays at the William’s household is all about Jesus, family, food, and photoshoots (couldn’t leave out the photoshoots lol, sorry hubby). My husband and I are both HUGE on family. Both of our extended families live out of town so our holidays are filled with a lot of traveling. Now that we are married, we’ve had to come up with a system on how we split holidays each year between both of our families. It’s pretty simple…if we do Thanksgiving with my family, we’ll do Christmas with his. Then the next year we will do the opposite. Our families don’t live close enough to try and see both on one holiday.

As joyous as the holidays are for most people, for the 50% of American families that are in some type of blended family like my husband and I, the holidays can become complicated. A lot of families find themselves having to deal with some type of “new normal.” It can be tough for some because the holidays come with a lot of traditions in regard to how they’re celebrated. Dealing with having to share kids with an ex and another family is already tough, but especially around the holidays is when it’s the hardest to let go. But that’s just part of being in a blended family. The more you try and fight it, the harder you make the situation. The more you accept it, the easier it gets.

Here’s how we’ve navigated the holidays in our blended family the past three years. If you weren’t aware my husband and I both had one child when we got married. Since then we’ve added one with another on the way. These steps have worked for us and hopefully can help ease the transition for anyone who has a beautifully blended family themselves who may be reading this:

HAVE A PLAN

If you’re newly blended, you want to do this right now! If you’re not newly blended but never came up with a concrete plan for the holidays you need to do it now as well. Having a set holiday schedule makes it easier on the parents AND the children. That way the children aren’t having to wonder each year what their holidays will look like and which parent they’ll have to be with. It prevents any confusion. The setup can vary greatly from family to family. If your blended family lives in the same city you guys can divide it up to where one parent has the child/ren on Christmas Eve and the other parent has him/her on Christmas, then swap the next year. Or one parent can have the child for the first part of the day and the other parent have them for the second part of the day. (These are just examples, there’s plenty of ways you can set it up as long as both parties agree) With our son living over 5 hours away in a different state with his mom, we don’t have that luxury. So if we have him for Thanksgiving, his mom will have him for Christmas and the next year we swap holidays. Same with our oldest daughter. We also have it to where we have both of the kids from previous relationships on the same holiday, then they are with their other families on the same holiday as well. That’s our setup and we stick to it.

CREATE A NEW NORMAL

Although, we have a plan, we stick to it, and neither of the families make a big fuss about it, doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Of course ideally we would like for it to be our entire family together for the holidays. That’s when we feel most complete. Especially for Christmas. That’s probably the toughest holiday to have to share because that particular holiday is really centered around the children. But we don’t allow ourselves to dwell on how we wish things were. That’ll only frustrate you about a situation you can’t change. Instead we cherish the holidays we have with them and create a new normal on the holidays that we don’t. Creating a new normal is an important part of moving on. Fortunately for my husband and I, we are expecting our second child together. So soon we’ll have two kids that we’ll always have on every holiday. Not that it makes it any easier to not have our other two kids but it keeps us busy. We aren’t stuck having to just look at each other on Christmas haha. (Jk, I could stare at my handsome boo all day, just us two!) If you don’t have any other kids or don’t have another spouse yet which will leave you on your own for the holidays, be sure to keep yourself busy. Have a plan for the holiday. Don’t just sit in the house by yourself because it’s easier to become sad about the situation if you do. Venture out, visit family or friends. Whatever you do, try to avoid spending the holiday alone.

KEEP THE KID’S EMOTIONAL WELLBEING FIRST

Through it all, you want to make sure that both parties focus on what’s best for the kids and push their own personal feelings/emotions to the side. This is where it can get tough and really takes some maturity because people tend to be very passionate and/or spiteful when it comes to the holiday sharing. You don’t want to make an already tough situation even harder by putting your feelings first before your child’s. It could be something as simple as letting the child call their other parent on the holiday to wish them a happy thanksgiving or merry Christmas. Don’t be that immature parent that doesn’t allow any contact with the other parent while they have the child. Or you could send one big gift with your child to open up at the other parent’s house on Christmas so you can feel like you were a part of your child’s day. You never know, with growth and maturity some blended families get to the point where they can still do holidays together. How awesome is that for the children involved?

No matter what, stay hopeful. Even if your situation isn’t amicable right now, I’ve seen some bad blended family situations turn out great. I pray this blog helps you switch your thinking and you no longer focus on how having to split the holidays suck but you turn that focus on how you can make the holidays you do have with your child amazing. And how you can create a beautiful new normal on the holidays you don’t have your child. Blended families done right is just double the love and double the gifts for our precious children during the holidays. At the end of the day, Jesus is the reason for the season so use this opportunity to show his love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion. You got this! I’m rooting for all my fellow blended families out there.

As always…love you all,
Courtney N. Williams