How do you split seeing DCs with your ex for Christmas Day?

[gaelicgirl100]

I am a few weeks into a very recent split with my EA (among other things) stbxh.
I have tried really hard to keep things civil with him, so far access consists of him seeing our DC at his on weekends and he has them for dinner midweek. they are both very young, one toddler, one baby.

He put me on the spot last week and asked about xmas day. I stupidly agreed to spend xmas eve overnight with him and the DC so we would be together for them on xmas day. I've since reconsidered and feel huge levels of anxiety about this. I've told him I've changed my mind and suggested we try to find a compromise. I had thought maybe I could do our own xmas day on xmas eve, just me and the DCs, then he could have them xmas day? They're so young they wouldn't really know it's xmas eve anyway.

He is now threatening to pursue changing access (because all weekend and a mid week contact isn't me being reasonable?) but I cannot just pretend things are ok just for xmas day.

So how do you keep everyone happy? Has anyone found a decent compromise or system that works?
Is someone always left unhappy?

We alternate years. It's exH's turn this year. I don't like not having DS on Christmas day but I know it's fair. ExH will bring him back boxing day. Myself, my parents and my grandad will spend Xmas day at my uncle's house. One bonus is I don't have to limit how much I drink.

We split the day in half. Ex's gf doesn't get along with the kids so he picks them up 3pm Xmas day while the gf goes to her parents house. He lives 45minutes away and happy not to drink until after the kids are at his. He brings them back on 27th then goes to join his gf.

My son used to go to his dad around lunch time, and stay over, but now he doesn't stay because of his dad's drinking, so I'll run him over for a couple of hours in the morning. Good job we live close.

My partner will go get his two after lunch. Boxing Day is our proper Christmas, with stockings and everything.

I know exactly how you feel op. Thought I could stay civil and spend Christmas with stbxh the few months after we split for DSs sake.

But his behaviour to me in terms of visitation, control, lack of maintenance and all the bills he left me in the shit with when he walked really coloured my view. And the thought of spending the day putting on an act and cooking a fucking turkey hot and sweaty and tearful in the kitchen while he lay on the floor building Lego as dad of the year did not sit well with me.

I changed my mind and told him no. DS and I spent the morning together. It was a bit sad and hard to do but much less stressful than having bitter feelings and a massive arsehole say on my couch, scoffing my food, invading my space and doing fuck all...

Then a dear friend invited us for lunch. And we enjoyed being spoiled in their family home.

Stick to your guns. Tell him no. Alternate years of Christmas and NYE, and if he wants to go to court, good. Then you can both get on with parallel parenting and rebuild the future relationship with your DC in your own way.

Most of the time it's hot air and blustering. You haven't done anything wrong so why worry about threats?

This year it's my turn for Christmas, and he was supposed to have DS for NYE. DS doesn't want to go, as my family arrive the day before. So I told him he could have the time between. My DS decided this. He's 12 and he knows what he wants.

He is mucho pissed off because he'll have to take work holiday to spend time with his own son. Well I do it every holiday, sick day, school training day. He has to take 10 days a year holiday to spend with him.

Was never that interested in Christmas until realising it was a way to control me (I am absolutely fanatical about it and he knows that). Had to force visitation on him. Not seen a spot of maintenance, I'm paying so far 19,000 in divorce bills and he's ignoring all the court orders and refusing to contribute. So you know what?
Tough titties. He can ram it.

When he plays by the rules so will I.

Sorry but harsh I know. But it really irks me.

This year they're with me (as it was the year that we would have visited my family anyway). I suppose that means that they're with their Dad next Christmas. Which I know is fair, but I don't know how I'm going to deal with that :( I know the kids won't like it either.

I can't split the day as it's too far to travel.

My three are older teenagers and I was very generous and invited STBEx to have Christmas Day with the four of us! hes going to take the 'children' down to the pub around 12 and guess who will be left cooking the dinner?!! Of course I would rather be on my own drinking gin/prosecco/wine than in his company but I'm still wondering what on earth possessed me to offer

Thanks for your replies.
i don't want to suggest turns per year because I don't trust stbxdh will be ok with me having them next year. He is refusing to consider not seeing them wake up on xmas day.

I really feel like telling him to fuck off, go to court and let him ask for 50/50 access, as he's threatened. I've been advised by my lawyer they wouldn't grant that. I'm just feeling pissed off and ground down that I have been accommodating and helpful in allowing access until now. It's getting me nowhere and I'm being treated like I am withholding him seeing the DCs at all times. I am just not allowing myself to be bullied like I usually do. It's very tiring.
He was never bloody interested in them until I left.
You're right lemonpledge about it being all about control, I'm just struggling to keep up the strong front now.

DC refuse to leave the house on Christmas Eve through to Boxing Day night so they are with me every year :) to try and make it 'fair' to xh he is invited to spend the 3 days with us. Not ideal but at least I get every Christmas with my children!

We have all holidays 50:50 split and alternate who has the DC the first week of xmas hols up to 1pm xmas day, it also means we have alternate nye child free. My turn to have them the second half so we'll have a proper xmas day afternoon with the DC this year with my family, we did xmas day on xmas eve last year. This is court ordered contact and has worked for four years, this year I'll be 37wks pregnant at NYE so not the least bit bothered having the DC, my 4 DC are all older tho 10, 13, 14 and 16.

My parents divorced and we would always wake up at mums house, my dad would pop over around 9am and watch us open our presents etc and be there for around 1.5 hours then go, we'd then spend the rest of the day with mum and spend from 3pm boxing day at my dads.

It was nice and meant dad could see us opening presents etc.

However my dsc, spend every Christmas with their dm and my dh isn't allowed to see them till new years eve. He does see them on xmas eve, so have their Christmas time then.

Its tricky OP. I do think you need to set a precedent now though and be firm with it.
Ex and I do what others have suggested and split it, so I will have DS Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and Ex will pick him up early evening and have him overnight for boxing day. We alternate years so it was the other way around for me last year.
This is all regardless of normal access and arrangements. I am very lucky though because Ex and I get on like a house on fire and to be honest if I were single I would probably have him over Christmas day. We also split our access to him more or less 50/50 and are happy to be flexible with each other. But yours sounds like an dick and I think you should stick to your guns about this.
it is hard the first year though.

DD1 goes to her dads Xmas eve, does Xmas morning with him and then comes home at midday to spend the rest of Xmas at home with her siblings and us. works really well

We also alternate but split once DC was older than toddler.

OP, I alternate and my DP shares.
My arrangement was largely because we didn't live close together (at first 4 hours apart, later he moved abroad). The changeover day was the 27th. Whoever didn't have Xmas got NY. He wanted to take them abroad one year to visit family, so I agreed to him having both Xmas and NY that year. The only fly in the ointment was one DC's birthday which is just after Xmas - I didn't see that DC on their birthday for 5 years and had to make do with Skype.

DP's arrangement only works if you live close together and is a fair sharing of the important parts of those few days - one parent gets Xmas Eve until noon on Xmas Day - so they get the excitement of Xmas Eve, stockings and present opening in the morning. The other parent then gets Xmas lunch, the rest of the day and Boxing Day. Whoever doesn't have Xmas Eve then gets NYE. It works very well for him and his children. Each parent gets to experience with the DCs an important part of the celebration.

I appreciate some people would find the alternating arrangement hard - and many mothers find it impossible to contemplate Xmas Eve/Day without the DCs, but father is as important as mother and the children are entitled to a fair division which treats both parents equally. Until I met DP, when it wasn't my turn for Xmas I would go abroad to stay with some old friends, get a bit of sun and tlc. If I'd stayed I would have found it depressing sitting around a table with my parents without my children. I've only had one Xmas with DP and that was last year (when I didn't have my DCs) - I did find it hard spending the day with all of his children/family, cooking lunch for them, wrapping their presents, tidying up after them etc, when all of mine were away. He was quite good though, he knew I was upset and was extra nice to me.

Just answering a couple of your points from a legal perspective:
i don't want to suggest turns per year because I don't trust stbxdh will be ok with me having them next year. He is refusing to consider not seeing them wake up on xmas day. - get him to commit to it in writing. Next year, in September make sure he still agrees this is happening. If he doesn't, make a court application and you can rely on his written agreement to alternate. Make sure you apply by October so the court has time to deal with it.

I really feel like telling him to fuck off, go to court and let him ask for 50/50 access, as he's threatened. I've been advised by my lawyer they wouldn't grant that. - do not be so sure. The courts are moving closer and closer to 50:50 arrangements. I was recently involved in a case with 2DCs, 9 months and 4 yrs, and father got 50:50. They clearly felt that M was not accepting of F as an equal parent and that this was the only way of remedying that. The magistrates deal with most contact cases these days (rather than District Judges who could be expected to deliver more consistent judgments and have far more legal experience). I think it's been drummed into them that the starting point should be 50:50. Then again I had another case where M was very clearly minimising the role of F and doing everything she could to limit contact/his role, he wanted something approaching 50:50 and he wanted some other minor things which would have redressed M's attitude of being the more important/primary parent - but he didn't get it. Magistrates are incredibly inconsistent. A barrister once said to me "you wouldn't trust the magistrates to make a decision about your hamster, let alone your child". Apologies to any mags reading this post. But as a practitioner, the inconsistencies in decisions and the "litigation risk factor" is enormous.

If you let him go to court it is at the risk that he does get 50:50. But he may not. It's impossible to predict. Then again, perhaps it would benefit both of you to have a set in stone regime?

alternate years here too, although my children have refused to go with exH this year (his year).

They suggested he take them out on Boxing day for brunch or something but he's refused. (says there's nowhere open ) .

My stbexh is spending from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day at my house. Not what I wanted (and the DC said Initially that they wanted to go to my mums-but are now fine with arrangements). his suggestion was to split the day so they'd have the morning with me and the afternoon with him and his family.The DC adamantly didn't want to do that and he wouldn't agree to them going with me to mums for the whole day so this is what we've hit apon.
I'm not sure how it's going to go tbh-in fact I feel very anxious about the whole thing.Im not looking forward to it at all.
He is done me a lot of harm emotionally this year with seemingly little remorse and I'm just starting to get right again-I'm hoping this won't derail that.

Another split the day in half. Supposedly from 3pm but he has form for a 1pm show. He didn't bother turning up at all last year.

I couldn't have Ex in the house. That's far too stressful and he'd want to be weighted on (with me paying for all food).

Sod that.

Blobby10 I hope to God you leave the washing up to your ex.

Seriously once dinners over, tell him the hot waters on and the kitchen is over to him for tidying up. In fact if your DC are older teens they can do the drying and putting away while you put your feet up with some fizz

We split xmas each year one year xmas eve through to 1pm xmas day the next year 1pm xmas day through to box day. First year shared but a disaster as dh's ex brought kids round in the morning she had asked for money and duly got them 3 presents each dh acknowledged that it wasn't what they had had in previous years and kids said it's alright we had our proper presents at mums earlier!

Kids were usually with me christmas eve and morning. Stockings opened; ex came for them at about 11am and took them ice-skating (free on christmas day), bringing them back at about 4pm for christmas 'lunch'. They stayed with me christmas night then went to him boxing day morning-ish (where they had a repeat christmas day re stockings, presents).

One year I was so exhausted with 'helping father christmas' (aka about 2 hours sleep) I insisted they went to him. It was a disaster because he's a lazy sod

First Xmas for us being separated. We split in Aug. Kids are 9 and want to stay here so stbxh will stay xmas eve, Xmas day and Boxing Day. Don't know how that'll work as he's very up and down. Would hate kids not to be here. Don't think I could cope at all with that. Hugs to those who are facing that. Dreading Xmas to be honest x

It's our first year of being separated. Stbxh is sleeping here Xmas eve, I'm sure it'll be fine but we will probably be sick of each other come the night!

Update:
after all the unpleasantness and anxiety he's caused, stbxdh has agreed to my offer of him having the kids on xmas day as long as I have them xmas eve and Boxing Day.

I am going to have xmas eve as xmas day for them as they're so young they won't know. So they'll get 2 full xmas days. Ex doesn't know this is my plan or my Boxing Day plans. holding firm on what I want appears to have taken the wind out of his sails with his threats and nastiness.

Thanks for the advice on this though, and I will definitely get something in writing regarding next year once things become a bit more official regarding our split.

I like your Christmas Eve plan!

DS has Christmas Day with me, Boxing Day with his dad. I don't split days, he's not a toy to be shared.

That sounds a great plan. Kids won't mind at all having two Christmas days in a row. Though I would tell them that's what's happening so they don't get bewildered at your ex's and say "but it's not Christmas today!"

I'm lucky in that i get them every year and ex has boxing day. He can't be arsed to do stockings