How’s that for Holiday Drama, Llama?

Nov 30, 2011 by Peggy Nolan

I hope you enjoy this fabulous guest blog by Carrie Collins Fadell!

 

How’s that for Holiday Drama, Llama?

Every year, much to dismay of all of the males that I live with, I put up an over-the-top “girly” Christmas tree. I am talking “all purple or pink and silver decorations” girly. Recently, while shopping for holiday decorations that would help me continue my annual holiday pushback against the ESPN zone that my house has become, I came across a table of illustrated children’s books that were for sale in the store. On top of the pile was the book, Llama Llama, Holiday Drama. Judging from the title, I thought this might be a book on holiday family drama. My mind raced. Maybe this was even a book for blended families or stepfamilies? There are many books out there for kids on stepfamilies, helping kids understand that they have two houses when mom and dad split or (my favorite) that explain that stepparents are people too. Shouldn’t a book talking children through the holidays be the next step? As holiday music blared overhead, I thought the timing was perfect. We had made it through Thanksgiving and were headed on to Christmas. If you are part of a stepfamily that doesn’t operate with the cooperation of the stepfamilies you see on television, you know that we are headed straight into the high season of holiday stepfamily drama. If you aren’t familiar with this seasonal treat, let me give you a brief tutorial on how the other half lives.

Before you can even pass the turkey and eat too much stuffing, you have to back up and start at Halloween. Halloween, for many stepfamilies, is the yearly kick-off for this cycle. It usually starts off with some passive-aggressive posturing over who has custody on Halloween. In many court orders regarding custody and visitation, Halloween isn’t designated as an actual holiday. This can lead to one parent always having custody on Halloween and, let’s face it, dibs on the leftover candy. There are many parents out there that have been deprived of taking their children trick-or-treating (and the cute zombie, vampire, and princess photo ops) because they are dealing with a former partner that won’t share custody on this day – period. Backing up, I should add that the entire above scenario also takes place as a main course argument after the appetizer argument over who should/can purchase the Halloween costumes and what constitutes an appropriate costume has occurred.

After that thrilling warm-up, we move into the major holiday season where we contend with Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, and who has custody during winter break from school. This is where a true holiday classic emerges, the split personality holiday schedule, where former partners spend all day racing around in their cars because they split the holiday. This leads the children to eating anywhere from 2 to 4 Thanksgiving and Christmas meals if they visit all of their grandparents and step-grandparents in one day. My husband and his former spouse have a winner-take-all approach to holidays. If it is your year, you have the kids for all of the holidays. The off years where we don’t have the kids bring inevitable pouting by family members who really want to spend time with them on holidays and don’t understand why they won’t see them on Thanksgiving or Christmas. While I sympathize, we’re the adults. Suck it up. And good luck to the brave soul that tries to plan a ski trip, vacation to Disney World or other assorted out of town adventure in the middle of the holiday custody nightmare. I tip my hat to you.

Finally, we end the year with a generous spirit looking towards a new year. New Year’s Eve is a holiday for adults, meaning everyone offers to give this holiday to the other parent. Even the most cold-hearted, court-threatening, baseball-schedule-hiding parent magically has a change of heart about this day and wants to share their parenting time generously. Being out and dressed up with everyone you know is much more fun than sitting at home eating pizza and watching Jurassic Park 3 with people that fall asleep by 9 p.m. If you aren’t hip to the fact that there are three Jurassic Park movies, there are. The biological mom’s boyfriend dies in JP3, and no one seems to care because he was in the way of a reunion between the biological parents, but that’s a topic for a whole different time.

If you are co-parenting teenagers and you have custody of them on this day, you have a different set of issues. Your New Year’s Eve will consist of being the Governor of Fun while your teen assures you that – allegedly – their other parent would trust them so much more and let them go to or do whatever unsupervised place or activity you are currently refusing them. Being the Governor of Fun involves making sure all teenagers entrusted to your care for the evening have no sexual contact, drink anything alcoholic, or even dance, if you want to get all Footloose about it. Your evening will also be no fun, so feel free to use it as a model for the level of fun your teen should be having. If you do manage to have fun with your friends on New Year’s Eve while you are responsible for the teens, you’re not doing it right. Thanks for nothing.

My personal favorite, however, is spending New Year’s Eve with moody pre-teens. They aren’t old enough to have fabulous plans, but seeing the Black Eyed Peas on Dick Clark’s New Years Rocking Eve has clued them into the fact that they should be doing something fabulous on this night. But they’re not, and now it is your fault that everything is stupid. They would also be having more fun with the other parent.

Thankfully, I haven’t experienced all of the scenarios that were mentioned above. The holiday memories that I have with my stepchildren are some of my fondest. My heart breaks for those that are now entering into the holiday season, bracing themselves for stepfamily drama and unsure of what lies ahead. There are parents who haven’t seen their child in years due to alienation, step-grandparents that get forgotten about in the shuffle, and more than enough heartache to go around. Please try to enjoy your time with your partner and your stepchildren this holiday season. And as for the book, Llama Llama, Holiday Drama, it was just about being overexcited about the holidays. I think that means that the world is still in need of an illustrated children’s book about sharing the holidays with multiple families.  Is anyone up for it?

Holiday Survival Tips

*Don’t get caught up on the date of the holiday; focus on the meaning.

My new favorite holiday tradition is the Christmas party that my spouse and I have with his children, their significant others, and my parents. It happens two weeks before Christmas and we eat Chinese food instead of cooking for hours in the kitchen. It is wonderfully relaxing and lighthearted. I hope that it continues for years to come. There are years that we are all together for Christmas and there are years that we are not. Had I been focused on everyone having to fit everything into Christmas Day, this fun new tradition is something I would have missed out on. I am not suggesting that you give up every holiday, but don’t get so caught up on the date of a holiday that you miss out on the meaning of the season – the togetherness, the celebration of love and happiness.

*When it is not your turn, be gracious.

One thing that makes me cringe is when parents don’t respect the alternating holiday schedule that they set in place. If it’s not your turn, it is not your turn. Don’t call the other house looking to qualify their plans to make sure they are more exciting than yours. Don’t constantly ask to switch just because a cousin that you haven’t bothered to travel to see in 10 years is going to be in town. Don’t run down a laundry list to the kids of everything they missed out on while they were with the other parent on a holiday.

*When it is your turn, make your own traditions.

I never asked for confirmation, but I got the feeling that before my large Irish family and I were in my husband’s life, he often didn’t enforce the children staying with him when it was his turn for the holiday. A large portion of his family is out of state, and I think that it was assumed that he would fold like a cheap suit and make way for his ex’s family to have extra time. While this is nice, it is not always necessary to accommodate. Luckily, we staked out time and space to make our own traditions. Not only were those moments enjoyable; now that my stepchildren are older and have more say in where they go for the holidays, they often appear at our house to continue those traditions. Had my husband not stood firm when my family was in the picture that might not have happened. Enjoy your time. Some days it seems like this stepmom gig will never end, but looking at the big picture, it whirls by so fast.

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Carrie Collins Fadell, MPA is a college instructor and runs a media promotion company.  She is a wife and childless stepmother.  Catch up with her at:The Thoroughly Modern Stepmom  www.modernstepmom.com