Enjoy this encore episode as I walk you through a big one: navigating the holidays during divorce.

The holidays can feel like walking an emotional tightrope while trying to hold onto some joy. Whether it’s your first holiday season after divorce, your last one as a family before separating, or you’ve been navigating holidays in divorce for a while, it’s a time that stirs up all the emotions. 

Wherever you are in this process, I want you to know that you’re not alone. Also, were the holidays stress-free before divorce? Probably not. This episode isn’t just about surviving the holidays, it’s about reclaiming them in a way that works for you and your kids. Get emotionally prepared, collaborate where it counts, and make choices that put your kids at the heart of it all. 

In this episode, I dive into:

• Self-care survival to ensure you’re showing up for yourself and your kids
• Creating new traditions that align with who you are now
• Navigating the tricky question of whether to celebrate together “for the kids”
• Practical co-parenting strategies for gift-giving, scheduling, and prioritizing your children

Resources & Links:

Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch

The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: Welcome to the Divorce Survival Guide Podcast, where we have open and honest conversations about co-parenting, separation, divorce, and the hardest question of all. Should you stay or should you go? I’m Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, and I’m here to help you navigate some of the roughest waters you’ve ever swung in and answer some of your toughest questions.

I’ve been to hell and back, and now it’s my mission in life to help you get to the other side of this process with your sanity and your heart intact.

So today we’re gonna be talking about holidays in divorce. Oh boy. It’s a big one. It’s a really big one. And the first thing I wanna say is that if you’re having feelings about this, then you are human. [00:01:00] And like we all have really big feelings about. Holidays in general, but then if this is your first holiday since separating, or maybe it’s, it’s gonna be your last holiday as a intact married family you’re gonna have a lot of really big feelings about it.

If it’s your first holiday as a divorced family, your kids are gonna have a lot of feelings about it. I think it’s really important to just acknowledge that this is an emotionally turbulent time. Like I said the holidays are an emotionally turbulent time in the best of, and the happiest of families, but with what you’re going through and wherever you happen to be in this process.

This is a really emotionally rocking time, so I just want you to know that you’re not alone. If you’re looking [00:02:00] forward and you’re dreading it, if you’re scared, if you’re feeling alone, if all of the things that you’re right on target, and I know that sucks and it’s gross, but it is the truth.

Let’s. Just accept that as the reality and then do our best to prepare for it. There’s a lot of loneliness. That we feel as a, as divorced people in the holidays, partly because we might actually be spending time alone during the holidays for the first time. It can be confusing and sad and lonely and isolating, and all of those things we’ve gotta really focus on.

Setting some, setting yourself up for self care, whether that’s in kind of managing your own expectations about what this is gonna [00:03:00] be, whether it’s finding supportive communities, whether it’s, asking people, look, one of my, one of my top tips for the holidays in divorce, in a new divorce is to let the people you.

Trust, know, love, trust. Let them know that you’re gonna be alone and that you’re feeling a certain way about it. Ask people to include you in things like, listen, it’s the holidays, right? Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever it is that you celebrate. It is a time. For love and community and sharing and giving and generosity.

People want to be generous. They want to feel like they’re making a difference at this particular time of year. In particular, let’s think of it this way. If someone was to say [00:04:00] to you, Hey, I am feeling a little scared. I’m gonna be alone on Christmas Eve this year. My ex has the kids. I’m gonna have them Christmas day, but I’m gonna be alone on Christmas Eve.

I know you and your family do something really special. Can I come over I don’t wanna crash your party. Can I just come and hang out on your couch? At least for a portion of it? You would be like, oh my God. Yes, of course. Of course. So find the people in your life who have similar personalities and ask them, right?

Because here’s the thing, people want to be generous and they wanna help and they wanna reach out. And they always they are always saying to you, what can I do? Tell me what I can do. How can I help? And you’re always like, I don’t fucking know. This is how. And so you’ve got to be able to name it for them.

And once you do. I promise you they will welcome you with open [00:05:00] arms. And if they can’t, if they’re like, oh shit, this year we’re actually going to my mother-in-law’s and let me ask her. Or oh, that’s, I think that it’s gonna be awkward or whatever. Move on, ask somebody else.

Don’t take that personally. Okay. Really I told this story before, but my favorite, one of my favorite Christmas memories was an e, a Christmas Eve that I had when my son was not with me. It ended up being, there were like maybe six or seven of us, and we were all divorced moms, including my mom and a friend of hers, and then two of my friends who didn’t have their kids.

It was the most lovely. Lovely divorced mom Christmas and we all got it and we had such a great time. And I remember one of the women actually still will write to me on Christmas Eve and be like, I just remember that Christmas Eve, it was so special and thank you for creating that. And that was like, I don’t know, six or seven years ago.

It is a lasting experience for people. If you [00:06:00] have others in your life and you wanna create something new in that way, that would be so great. However, you need to care for yourself. Look, if you choose, if you actively choose to sit home on your couch watching Elf or the Notebook or whatever you wanna do, that is like your preferred Christmas, and that’s what you wanna do, then do it.

But I don’t want you to be finding yourself sitting home alone with a bottle of wine watching a sad movie, because. You didn’t think ahead to try to protect yourself in this, okay? This is a time that you can create new and joyful traditions with your kids and without them. So I want you to start thinking about what you want those to be.

If you have not yet created your parenting [00:07:00] plan, I wanna just put this out there. One of the things that I recommend is that you. Try not to flip flop if it’s possible. Let’s say, so for example, in my family, my ex-husband always, like Christmas Eve was their big celebration in his family growing up.

And in my family, Christmas day was the big celebration growing up. So in the beginning it was really pretty simple. That he would get Christmas Eve and I would get Christmas morning because, or Christmas day, because those were the days that were more special to each of us individually. What that allows though, is if there’s consistency, you can create new traditions, right?

So every Christmas Eve. If you know you have your kids every Christmas Eve, you get to create a new Christmas Eve tradition, and then on Christmas day, if you know you’re gonna be alone, you can create a new tradition. But if you’re flip-flopping back and forth every year, and one year you have Christmas Eve and the next year you have Christmas Day, [00:08:00] it’s harder to create those traditions.

It’s not impossible. By the way you can figure it out, just a little bit more complicated. That’s just one of my tips is if you’re still working things out to consider having it always be consistent. Now, one of the questions that I get often is, should we consider doing it together and just sucking it up and having a holiday together for the sake of the kids?

I am. Of two minds about this. On the one hand, I’ll tell you, so my ex and I did that in the beginning. It was the first Thanksgiving and it was. Oh, it was so painfully awkward and we had, it was just my mom and my ex-husband and my son and I, and we were having a great time and we were goofing off and then my son really started to freak out and he was.

Four and he started freaking out. He was [00:09:00] really upset. And then finally it came out that, we told them that we told him that we were getting divorced because we couldn’t get along as a family. And then here we were getting along as a family. He was screaming at us to get back together.

So us spending a joyful holiday together in the early stages of our divorce was actually really confusing for our son. So I do think that. The more separation. I say this all the time, the more separation you can have in the beginning, the better. If over time you choose to come back together and create some, holiday traditions as a family.

I think that’s a. That’s better because it gives everybody the chance and the space to create their own holiday traditions and new lives. The other thing that happened [00:10:00] early on in my divorce was that I started to notice that every fucking Thanksgiving or Christmas I was cooking meals for and my ex was like bringing her girlfriend, right?

And I’m like, what the, what am I doing? All of these like random, what, no, this is not mine. There was nothing about it that felt like it was mine, and then eventually when my ex remarried, he had hi they created their own traditions and then we would blend at a certain point.

It, look, it’s always complicated, but the more separation you have in the beginning, I think the clearer it is for your children unless they’re older and you can talk to them about it, and it’s what they want by the way. If you’ve been in a toxic environment and then you’re like, but we’re gonna do the holidays together, your kids are gonna call bullshit on that and it’s gonna make them feel uncomfortable.

So I think it’s a conversation to have with older children, but I also think that it’s really, I think more separation the better. I will tell you now, we are as [00:11:00] 15, six, almost 16 years out, and my ex is divorced again. And and even actually before he got divorced again, when he was still married, we did end up having all of our holidays together.

But it, they needed a good. Seven, eight years of being together and creating their own traditions and forging their own lives. Before his wife and I were in a place where we wanted to do things together, and that was an active choice on both of our parts, but it took a while to get there.

Those are my thoughts on celebrating together.

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And in terms of creating new holiday traditions, right? I think. Go back to your childhood, like what did, what things did you love? I know that for me, my mom always hosted an open house on Christmas day, and so everybody would come over some at some point during the day for cocktails and nuts.

There were always those, whole nuts with the nutcrackers and everything on the table. And then she would host Christmas dinner. My mother, God, love her. She put on, she was a single, full-time single mom, and she cooked a massive [00:14:00] Christmas dinner for usually I don’t know, 20 people.

I don’t know how the hell she did it. I don’t even know how she afforded it, but, and we didn’t have a dishwasher. That was always important to me. That feels like Christmas to me. And so when I was forging my own traditions, I have now created a Christmas day open house. That I host, my friends love it.

Everyone, all of my friends in the neighborhood, they all come over and we have a great time. And that’s one of the things that I created. And I looked to what was important to me in my past to be able to figure out what I wanted to do in creating my own traditions. So let’s talk about. Co-parenting strategies throughout, right?

Look, there are a couple of things. A couple topics, right? So one is gifts, right? We’re gonna have to communicate with your co-parent about gifts. And one of the questions I hear a lot is he has a lot of money. I don’t have anything. How are we not going to, how are we gonna coordinate gift [00:15:00] giving between us?

This depends on. What your traditions are, what you know, how you normally traditionally give gifts. But if, let’s say you do Santa gifts, right? I think you guys, it’s really important if you can, if it’s possible to coordinate. Usually if you’re the mom, you have probably often done most of the holiday shopping and gift giving and just sign the card from both of you.

And look, you can still do that, but you need to agree on a budget ahead of time and agree to share it. What I would say to my ex is, Hey, I’m usually the one who did all of this gift giving and buying and whatever. I’m happy to do the legwork on this again, and let’s talk about a budget so that we can share it.

And are you open to having the. A gift giving budget. Be equitable instead of equal if that’s what you have. If you have, you’re in an equitable distribution state and you are sharing expenses, let’s say 70 30 based [00:16:00] on income. Are you cool to do 70 30 for the. Gift giving And what is, what’s the budget like?

What are we talking about here? This should be a conversation and it should be like a corporate, email or text if you’re somewhat high conflict, if things are difficult, if. You can start this off by saying, listen, in the spirit of the holidays and in the spirit of collaboration and communication, for the sake of our children, I just wanna open up a dialogue about gifts.

How do you wanna do this? Here’s an idea that I have. What do you think? And if they come back. Like a raving asshole. Then you shut it down and say, okay, it seems to me that you don’t wanna coordinate on this. I’ll just take care of things myself, and you can take care of things yourself. And then.

That’s what you do. But hopefully you’ll be able to coordinate and all the gifts from Santa you guys are sharing. And then look, if there are little things that you wanna get on your [00:17:00] own and little things that they wanna get on their own for the kids, then great. But like the main present or to should be shared so that it’s.

Not a one a, a contest and a one-upmanship, which can happen so often. I think we’ve already covered the idea of scheduling and if you can, have Christmas Eve or versus Christmas Day or if Hanukkah I don’t know, do you do four and four? Who’s, are you just lighting the Hanukkah candles, on your parenting days that, that you normally would have?

And I think that makes sense. Here’s the thing, I think that during the holidays, especially flexibility and compromise are gonna be key. You’re going to need to stick to your co-parenting agreement. But if. Your in-laws, your ex in-laws are in town and it’s not your par, your co-parents day, but they wanna take your kids to the mall.

[00:18:00] Yes. That’s for your kids, right? Remember, your parenting time is not my time and their time. It’s your kids’ time. If there’s, if you’re, if it’s no skin off your ass, really, other than now we have time, right? Then, it’s my time and you’re infringing on my time, and are you gonna pay me for that?

What the, that’s not about your kids, that’s not child centered. Okay? So flexibility and compromise. And by the way, you can be flexible and you can compromise even if they’re not going to. So if they’re asking you for things. That they’re not willing to give you, you give it to them because it’s what’s right for your kids, even if that you know that they’re not going to show you the same courtesy.

Just because we’re not do, we’re not, we’re just not doing this. Like we are opting out of tit for tat. We’re opting out of competition. We’re opting out of you [00:19:00] didn’t, you did this and so I’m not gonna do that, or whatever. God. Let’s grow up. Okay. We are focusing on what’s best for the kids.

We’re gonna prioritize their happiness. We are gonna keep the kids at the center of all of the holiday decisions. We are going to try to create something that is. Maybe new, but it’s also stable. It’s also consistent. Maybe it has something to do with the old and creating the new. I always love the idea of engaging your children in the process.

Hey, we’re gonna create some new traditions. What do you guys want? So start talking about it now. Things are gonna be different this year. Let’s have fun. What do you guys wanna do? How do you want this to feel and look and what are some things that we used to do as a family that you wanna still do?

What are some things that you, we used to do that you think suck? Look, if your kids are like, I just wanna go out [00:20:00] for Chinese and go to the movies, right? Then great. Maybe that’s what you do. Maybe that’s your new tradition and it’s okay. What is better at the holidays than seeing your kids happy?

Literally nothing. My son this year, he was like, mom, I’m so tired. He is I like our ornaments, and they’re cool, and we love getting them all out every year. And oh, remember this guy? And oh yeah, that guy and all of that stuff, right? But then this year he was like, I wanna do a themed tree.

So like maybe this year we’re gonna do a theme tree. I don’t know. But if that’s what he wants to do, hell yeah. And he might be going off to college next year, so this might be the last time that he’s not, the last time that he’s home for Christmas, obviously. But, it’s like his last kid Christmas.

Maybe he’s 19. He’s not a kid, but so we’re gonna, we’re just gonna, we’re gonna let him, I’m gonna let him, we’re gonna do what he wants to do in terms of. Decorating for the holidays. The, the other thing is that we’re gonna really empower your [00:21:00] kids to share their feelings about it, because while we’re busy trying to make everything perfect, and ah, we’re gonna have so much happiness and joy, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonna be happy no matter what.

Dammit, they’re having feelings about it. And so it’s important for us to keep the lines of communication open about how they’re feeling and if they’re sad, like it’s okay. It’s okay. We don’t have to change it. We don’t have to undo it. We don’t have to make it different. We don’t have it’s okay.

They get to be sad and then we can, we just have, we just hear them, right? We just hear them and we sit in that with them. And I’m sad too, and it’s confusing and we’re gonna get through this and we’re gonna get through it together. And as a family and a little bit separately and all of the things, right?

I don’t want you adding too much stress. In trying to make this perfect and wonderful, right? Because here’s the deal, you’re gonna do things this [00:22:00] year that are gonna feel shitty in the moment, and all that is an opportunity for you to go. Yep. We’re not doing that again next year. So what I love to do is keep, I keep notes in my phone, the My Notes app, and I.

Write notes about okay, next year, don’t do this, don’t do, make sure that you have the, because I would forget the time that I wanted to do my open house, and so now I have it like in my notes app this is the best time, this was the worst time. Don’t make a cheese platter or don’t make Crue.

Nobody eats it. Things like that. In terms of traditions and things that you’re gonna do with your kids, it’s gonna be, you’re gonna keep track if something falls flat and doesn’t work. Write it down and make sure you save it so that you remember next year. And then I want you to be prepared for some potential challenges, right?

I want you to feel like how are you gonna, how are you gonna handle last minute changes if plans fall through? Or disagreements happen. I, that’s where I want you to [00:23:00] bring back that sort of flexibility and compromise. Okay, have a backup plan. Have somebody that you can call last minute and be like, oh my God, can I come over?

Because everything just fell apart. Keeping yourself in a sort of zen state through the holidays is probably like an almost impossible task, but if you can. Just keep yourself in the mindset of, say, the Serenity Prayer. Grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

So if you are in that space of, okay, this happened and I’m leaning into acceptance, I can’t change it. There’s nothing I can do to change it, so I’m just going to have the serenity. To accept it, and if you can stay in that state, you’re going to have a far better. Holiday season overall, probably a better life.

That’s a life tip. And then if things come [00:24:00] up in front of the children, around the children, I just want you to remember to not pick up the rope and say things like. Why don’t we talk about this when when the, can I call you later when the kids are in bed? I really wanna talk about this. I really think, this is obviously something, a problem that we need to solve.

Why don’t we talk later when the kids aren’t around? Keep that boundary of not talking about things with, troubles or conflict with your ex or soon to be ex in front of the kids or with the kids, because good god, they don’t need that. They really don’t. So really the important things here emotionally prepare for this new space, collaborate as effectively as you can with your co-parent.

Make decisions that prioritize the children. Oh, one of the things that I also wanna say about prioritizing the children is I am not a fan and know people do recommend this, but I am not a fan of splitting the day with the kids. I don’t want. [00:25:00] Your children to be like we have to split, Christmas Eve down the middle, or we have to Chris Christmas Day down the middle, Thanksgiving, we’re gonna do half of the day with my family and half of the day with your family, the kids are gonna be ripped out of a party.

They’re gonna be basically picked up in the middle of a party and taken to another party and like maybe that’s not the best for them. Maybe that’s for you. Maybe that’s for your ex. Maybe it’s okay for you to spend Christmas Day alone or with other people, without your children so that they can en enjoy a full Christmas day with their other parent.

If you’ve had Christmas Eve and you’ve done all of your celebrating together, one of the things that I do, and I’ve always done with my ex is that because he has other kids at his house. Now, only other one other, but there used to be five of them, three kids when he was remarried. I would always ask that if he had [00:26:00] Chris if my son spent Christmas Eve with him, that at least at the end of the night he would bring him home to me so that I could wake up not.

Not wake up alone on Christmas morning, ’cause that sucked. But you know what? Some days I did wake up alone on Christmas morning and it was fine. And then my ex would bring him, my son over, or I would go pick him up and it was fine. But if you’re gonna wake up on Christmas morning alone, and you just might, and that’s a thing for you, and that’s, a special time, then find something nice for yourself.

Make sure you have your bagels and locks that you like, or take your dog for a special walk something again. Looking at how to take care of yourself and make sure that you are comforted and taken care of on a day that might feel really sad and a bit for Lauren and then. You can lean into that and then we’re gonna shift and you’re gonna have other plans so that you are right.

You are going to prepare yourself, you’re gonna prepare yourself to find new joy. This is [00:27:00] all new and it’s okay. So if you are about to go into the holidays as a newly single person, or if you’re about to face your last holidays together, there’s a lot to consider. There’s a lot of emotional stuff. You are not gonna get it right the first time, but you’re gonna think about this as a journey to creating something new for yourself and your children as the years go on and just remember.

Holidays before divorce weren’t a cakewalk either, right? We always have this weird idea of how special and amazing it’s all gonna be, and it never is. So it might not just be the divorce, it might just be the holiday season. My loves with that. I just wanna say, I love and adore you, and you’re gonna get through this.

Create this for yourself. Just take some time to plan and create.[00:28:00] 

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Divorce Survival Guide podcast. If you like what you hear, head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen in and leave me a review. And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram at Kate Anthony divorce, coach. I’ll see you next time and until then, remember that you my love.

Deserve to be happy.

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DISCLAIMER:  THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE.  YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.