Planning Your Divorce Now Before the Holidays of 2023
Divide Up Parenting (Custody) Time with Children
If you have children together, one of the most important things to consider when planning for the holidays is how you will divide up custody time with them. This might mean coming up with an alternate schedule for both of you, such as alternating weeks or months. If your divorce starts in January, this gives you plenty of time to talk through different options and decide what works best for everyone in the family before the pressure of the holidays is added in.
Plan Celebrations Ahead of Time
The holidays are a time for celebration, but when it comes to divorce, it can be hard to know who should host festivities and how they should look. To help make sure that everyone is taken into account, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and agree upon some ground rules before celebrations start rolling around. For example, if you have children together, perhaps one parent celebrates on Christmas Day while the other celebrates on New Year’s Eve – or vice versa!
Decide Who Gets Vacation Time First
Holidays are also a great opportunity for vacations, but if you both want to take your kids away at the same time it can get complicated. To avoid any issues like this, try discussing who gets vacation time first so there’s no overlap or confusion later on down the line. The same idea applies to summer parenting – deciding now who takes the children for a week or twoof vacation prevents fights later.
New Traditions to Honor the Old Traditions
If you have family traditions associated with certain holidays that are important for you or your children, make sure those are respected and honored as much as possible during this transition period. This could mean having different members of your extended family over for certain meals on certain days or building in extra time for visits from grandparents and other relatives on both sides of the family tree. While these conversations may seem difficult at first, they will become easier over time as everyone adjusts to their new normal — well before the stress of the next holiday season.
Planning your divorce can be tough – especially when it comes to figuring out how to divide up the holidays between yourself and your ex-spouse. However, by taking some extra time in January before everything starts getting hectic again come December, you can make sure that both parties feel respected during the holidays, Plus, if your divorce does go through early in the year, then this gives you plenty of extra time to plan ahead and figure out what works best for everyone involved.
If you want to start down your path to a divorce in 2023, and can work out the details with your soon-to-be-ex, reach out to my office. You will find I have fair prices, which are on my website. if you call, my answering service will get some basic information for my eyes only and I will email you to arrange a time to talk.