AIBU to ask my husband to change Christmas traditions with DSC

[spookymooky1]

My husband has two children from his previous relationship, both boys one aged 8 and one 12. We have been married three years and together for 5, I was not the other woman.
He basically gets his kids 45% of the time. He does all the pick ups and drop offs and their mum lives around 40 minutes drive away.
Christmas (yes I know it's early but in a step family you do start thinking of plans well in advance) he normally picks the DSC up at 1ish on Christmas Day and keeps them until Boxing Day 6ish.
This has never been ideal for me and now we have a 2 1/5 year old toddler I'm wondering if it's time for a change.
him picking up his kids at 1pm means it splits our day right down the middle, we can't go to my families for Christmas lunch and they've often eaten lunch at their mums so won't touch my Christmas tea.
They always had their Christmas Day on Boxing Day morning (Santa came to dads on Christmas night) I don't think the boys believe in Santa anymore.
AIBU to ask every second year we do Christmas the three of us and collect them on Boxing Day morning? I don't mind things staying the same this year but any suggestions moving forward would be appreciated

It doesn't matter what you want or think. Presumably you knew the Christmas routine when you decided to marry and start a family with a man who already had children?
By all means suggest to your husband that he only sees his children every other Christmas day, but expect at some point in the future to only see yours every other Christmas too

I also agree with this - people need to get a sense of proportion.

@spookymooky1
OP, your husband is not wedded to the idea that families have to be together, " all" of the time as 55% of the time 40% of his family is not with him. Given that he is already acclimated to a split family, he might not be as opposed to your taking the younger kids every other year to spend Xmas with your parents.

Also agree with this.

And the wording "we have them at Christmas" - very possessive. And then you get the "it's not my weekend" nonsense.

When parents split up they have to put the kids first.

I see no reason why the mum can't do some of the drop offs and pick ups, either. Who left who is not relevant.

@Ireallywantsomechips You can technically celebrate it any day you like so it seems bonkers for these kids to be shipped around just so both parents can see them on Christmas Day.

Surely that is literally the point though, you can do anything you like and these particular parents both like seeing their children on the day itself.

Of course it matters, OP is his wife not a vegetable 🙄

She's quite happy to disrupt the children's routine because they are not hers, but wouldn't even consider asking the same of her family

This is what we do and it’s made the week between Xmas and new year amazing ! Basically another Xmas eve, Xmas day and Boxing Day and every year not every other year !

But if you aren’t willing to do that, why would you be willing to make your partner have 2 hours (or more) LESS time with his children on Christmas day (to facilitate a later pick up), or him not see his children at all on Christmas Day, for the sake of you keeping your meal time the same?

Can’t you see how unreasonable that is?

As I said before, you chose to have a child with a man who already had a family, you could have chosen a man without. They were around before you, you either fit into their already established plans or change your own. You don’t even attempt to dictate his time with his children on Christmas Day to suit your families Christmas bloody lunch time!

I really don’t like the idea of splitting Christmas Day, it’s so disruptive for everyone. Me and my ex alternate years, so every other year I get them Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing Day. We do ‘Fismas’ fake Christmas a few days before Christmas Day on the years they’re with their dad.

I don’t think your suggestion is unreasonable, you have your own child now and sometimes things have to change to suit a growing family.

Yup I agree. Surely your family would understand.

Hi , can ur partner ask the children what they would prefer?

@WildFlowerBees and mine are young adults who want to stick to what they have always done.

I find it ironic that the OP wouldn't 'dream' of asking her family to make any changes to their long held Christmas tradition of what time their meal is as an adult

But sees no issue in asking her DH to make changes to how he spends Christmas day with his children smack bang in the middle of their childhood.

A fun early informal brunch followed by a late lunch - doesn't sound that bad or difficult, does it?!

YANBU, it would make much more sense to have them alternate years for the full day. I wouldn't think highly of him if he put his foot down about this given it means you can never see your family on Christmas.

Either Christmas is a special case where the normal contact pattern does not apply or it is just a normal day. It can't be both.
If a normal day then most Christmas DH won't see his elder kids and it doesn't matter because that's just how the pattern fell and so what?
If a special case then the normal pattern is irrelevant, it's Christmas and all of the children are important, not just the eldest ones.
Decide.

So he should. Nice to see a man take responsibility.

How do you think the step kids will feel that they will be told that they won't see their Dad every other Christmas because it doesn't fit in with his 1 (then 2) new children

I think that unless your DC wants to change this Christmas arrangement you should not interfere.
It’s bad enough not being with your DC all through the Festive season, without an attempt to change Christmas Day, which is the magical one for children. The fact that you have younger DC is irrelevant. They have both parents living with them, the other DC have more to contend with.

The are children are not the only children involved here. It is not just about what works for them or what they want.

The OP needs to be the adult who is advocating for her children in this scenario. They shouldn’t be treated as secondary considerations to the SC show and expected to just find what traditions they can scavenge at the margins.

It’s not unreasonable to say that the routine needs to change because the circumstances are different.

It’s also worth remembering that, while you cannot force your DH to change the way he is doing things, you do not have to fit in with that. If he’s unwilling to look at the circumstances overall and make changes to best accommodate everyone (rather than having his existing contact arrangements determine everything), then you will need to consider whether you are or should be willing to go along with that.

You may decide that it is in your children’s interests to have proper Christmas traditions and a proper Christmas lunch, for example. You don’t have to accept having a non-event Christmas tea because the SC have already had a Christmas dinner with their mum. Have lunch with your children and your husband needs to figure out how to organise his contact around that.

Similarly, it’s not fair if you and your children can never have Christmas with your family because of your DH’s choices around contact. It wouldn’t be fair in a nuclear family for his choices to prevent this. It may be totally reasonable to say that every second year you need to be able to plan to celebrate Christmas with your family. He needs to figure out how to support this.

It’s not like you haven’t already shown you can compromise. He needs to recognise that it cannot all be one way.

We've always split Xmas Day too, and it's worked very well.

One parent has ds2 all of Christmas Eve day until Christmas Day morning- around midday/one o'clock. The parent who has that 'shift' takes ds2 to the other home for that time. Christmas dinner happens after that- around 2pm.

Then the other parent has him from then until Boxing Day evening.

All members of both of our families have worked around this- so last year, for instance, as it was my turn to have DS2 on Christmas Eve, we had Christmas dinner then. When XH has him, they do the same, so ds2 gets two Christmas dinners.

When he was younger (he's 15 now) XH used to bring him over (or he would come over) and we'd all do present opening together. Now he's older he prefers to have two separate present opening sessions.

We offered him the choice of alternating Christmas Days, but he didn't want to not see either of us on the day itself, and prefers this arrangement.

As your step-children are 8 and 12, you should be asking them what they would prefer, I think. But I would also ask that they come to you earlier on Christmas Day, and that Christmas dinner is with the person they are with from Christmas morning onwards. And certainly it shouldn't be any big deal to ask your family to accommodate the two young members of your new family.

This is absolutely awful logic. The same nasty logic we see on here all the time.

the younger children are not lesser family members. They don’t matter less. They shouldn’t just be shunted to the side and told to be grateful they live with daddy.

Your update might not go down too well… on MN I’ve noticed that second families should just lay down and be thankful that first families will walk over them.

You request is not UR but the way you present needs consideration so that arrangement put children first, both sc and your own. Wanting to spend time with your own family is also reasonable. Since your child is young, they won’t care or know. By the time they are old enough to have an opinion the sc will be older and probably take the decision out of your hands.

Lot of replies against splitting Xmas Day, but my 16yo has done that since she was 4 - apart from a year when dad wanted to have a Xmas abroad skiing with her.
She has had total freedom to change contact since she was about 11, and happily does - so I don’t think she’s just saying what she thinks we want to hear!
She prefers having one set of traditions that are the same every year. She says alternating would suck as every year she’d be missing half her traditions.
She wakes up with me, and by midday is with her dad. The big family Xmas dinner is there, the traditional movie on Xmas eve is with me. The exact time of drop off has varied - she likes to go earlier now, because presents are no longer something to play with immediately (more clothes, now - or a phone that’ll go with her to her dad’s). Also cos she had FOMO about her dad’s mum coming there!
I’m not saying split day is best - it’s child dependent of course. But for her, it really has been best.
Wanted to share in the face of so much negativity for it!

@IncomingTraffic but it's fine for the stepkids to be lesser, to not see their dad on Christmas every other year, because it doesn't fit in with the plans of the new family