{"id":390,"date":"2017-11-17T15:51:16","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T15:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.wordpress.com\/?p=390"},"modified":"2018-09-27T12:22:36","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T12:22:36","slug":"familyfriday-split-households-the-holiday-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/familyfriday-split-households-the-holiday-season\/","title":{"rendered":"#FamilyFriday \u2013 Split Households & the Holiday Season"},"content":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s difficult for families to decide how to split holidays when they separate.\u00a0 Neither parent or family want to experience their holidays without their children.\u00a0 So, what do you do?\u00a0 What are your options?\u00a0 On this week\u2019s #FamilyFriday article, the attorneys<\/a> of ERA Law Group, LLC discuss various options for developing a fair and reasonable access schedule.<\/p>\n First, as previously discussed in a #FamilyFriday article, Parenting Plans are a great tool to discuss and resolve these issues before the stress and onset of the holiday season.\u00a0 As a reminder, Parenting Plans<\/a> encourage parents to focus on the needs of their children, how best to co-parent, and how to anticipate and\/or address the various changes in their lives at the time of its creation and in the future.\u00a0 Attorneys and mediators can help you create a Parenting Plan that best suits your family dynamic and situation.\u00a0 For example, perhaps both parents are adamant about wanting to spend Christmas with their children.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is that the children can only wake up once on Christmas morning and how to decide who will experience that can raise a lot of emotion.\u00a0 One way to resolve this is to alternate years so that one parent has the full Christmas holiday on even years and the other during odd years.\u00a0 Another way to resolve this is one parent has the children Christmas Eve through Christmas morning and the other has the children from mid-Christmas morning for the remainder of the day.\u00a0 These types of arrangements are best to be discussed outside of the courtroom as they can involve a lot of detail and negotiating.<\/p>\n Second, talk with the other parent and see if maybe certain holidays are more important to them than they are you.\u00a0 Creating a schedule or agreement that allows for each parent to have or enjoy the days that are important to them in exchange for those that are important to you can settle future disputes.\u00a0 For example, perhaps it\u2019s your family tradition to go \u201cbig\u201d for Thanksgiving but less so for Christmas.\u00a0 Maybe you can agree that you\u2019ll have the children for Thanksgiving and the other parent on Christmas.<\/p>\n