First Christmas

[Biffa44]

We are coming up to the 10 month mark with our two boys (9 and 7), so this will be the first Christmas for us together. The excitement is already mounting! I was wondering if anyone had any useful insights into how we can do our best to make sure that everything goes as well as it could - we are expecting raised emotions (this will be the first Christmas they have not seen their birth mum) and we are busy planning out the school holidays (and the big day) so we can keep them going and they have an idea of what will be happening. We are planning a quiet day with just the four of us and my DM, with other family visiting on different days. But other than keeping things calm, does anyone have any specific advice on handling a first Christmas, or even any examples of things that you were surprised at, or came out of the blue for you? Thanks!

[gabsdot]

Plan December very carefully and make sure you get to do everything you'd like.
Include the children in planning. Ask them if there is anything they'd like to do, perhaps a tradition from the foster family or birth family that they would like to continue.
Do start some new traditions for your family.
Don't go mad though, over stimulating can be fatal as we all know.
My kids were younger when adopted but as they're both from Russia we include some Russian stuff in our celebrations, we have decorations from Russia on the tree and we celebrate Russian Christmas on Jan 7th.

[UnderTheNameOfSanders]

I would recommend checking their expectations.

Our eldest was 8 for her first Christmas with us. About 10 days before the day she was in tears. We had mentioned in passing that there would be a Christmas stocking, but that big presents were from friends and family.

In Foster Care, there had always been big presents from Santa as well.

We got round it by discussing that maybe foster children got more presents to make up for earlier years. (Apparently when younger, Santa hadn't known where to find them as they moved around so much ...)

We spread presents out, interspersed by films, food and walks.

Expect tears as they remember earlier years (or feel guilty for having fun).

Personally I try to keep a lid on excitement before term ends, otherwise it's all too much to cope with (for me at least).