If you are separated or divorced father, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas and the children, especially if there is bad feeling between yourself and your ex. This is especially important if you have only recently left the family home. It’s part of the painful learning process following break-ups in which you are no longer partners but are always parents.
Here are seven tips that might help:
1. You’re going to have to talk to your ex about how to handle Christmas. Not easy? Maybe so, but making assumptions about what will happen on Christmas Day is a recipe for disappointment and conflict. Remember, it’s easier to do the talking now than on Christmas Eve. If things are really bad, maybe a friend or relative could act as go-between.
2. Christmas isn’t only Christmas Day. If you can’t, reasonably or unreasonably, be with your children for any part of Christmas Day, see if you can arrange something for Christmas Eve or for one of the days after Christmas. Indeed, if coming to you on Christmas Day is going to disrupt the children’s Christmas – a long trip, say – it might be more considerate of them for you to have your celebration with them on another day.
3. Work out where and when you will see the children. Will you be in the family home for the opening of the presents, for instance? Maybe this happens too early in the day to be a practical option. Maybe the relationship with your ex is such that you cannot be there, fairly or unfairly. If that is so, you need to agree another day to see them, and another place.
4. Accept, at least for Christmas, the role of your ex’s new partner if they have one. If your attitude to the new partner is one of absolute hostility – perhaps justifiably – see if you can park it during the Christmas celebrations for the sake of the children. And to any mothers reading this I would say the same in relation to the father’s new partner, if he has one.
5. Get advice from sensible friends and relatives about how to handle Christmas. Note that word “sensible”. The sort of friend or relative who will egg you into battle by ramping up the drama is not really helpful in this situation right now. Ask somebody whose advice you know is worth taking.
6. Think of other children in the home. If your children are living with your ex’s new partner’s children, consider buying something for them as well to avoid conflict or jealousies. Also, try not to wrongfoot your ex completely when it comes to buying presents. Getting your kids something very expensive when the mother has been trying to keep costs down can add to difficulties in the relationship in the long run.
7. Include grandparents and extended family if you can. Most children really love their grandparents and they will want to see them at Christmas. Bringing them to your parents could actually serve as your Christmas celebration with them if being with them in the family home is out of the question.
What if all fails and you are cut out of the children’s Christmas? You can still send cards and presents and hope that they will get to them. Remind yourself that as your children get older they will be able to make their own choices. When that day comes, if they want to see you at Christmas or at any other time of the year, nobody can stop them from doing so. But take care of yourself so that you are around when that day comes.
If Christmas is painful for you, try to accept that bearing the pain with dignity is a gift you can give to your children. It won’t stand out as a gift in their eyes at the time and it mightn’t even feel like that to you. But compared to asking them to take on their parents’ pain, it’s a gift and it will make a difference.
Padraig O'Morain is accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Mindfulness for Worriers. His daily mindfulness reminder is free by email.