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In this episode we talk about going through the holiday season in the midst of a custody agreement/battle/season. We give some helpful tips on what to avoid from a legal standpoint that could sour your holiday long after the season ends.
Your no bullsh$t guide to divorce with experienced attorneys from New Direction Family Law and guests and professionals who have been there. Unfiltered discussions to help you move from victim to victorious and from bitter to better.
Elizabeth: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. It's Elizabeth Stephenson with new direction
Sarah: and I'm Sarah Hayne, Carol Elizabeth, where they partners and a couple of the many attorneys we got over there these days and
Elizabeth: thirties are coming out of the woodwork with us. I don't know, we get lots of clients. There's a lot going on.
Sarah: Yeah. They haven't been listening to this,
Elizabeth: but we're getting close to
Sarah: the holidays.
So today is November 2nd, the recording this, and it's a couple of days after Halloween that's over. So that means we have to like the slew of holidays, right? The people who love Christmas are already singing Mariah Carey. You seen her at
Elizabeth: her commercial has come out with the pumpkin. [00:01:00]
Sarah: I'll have to Google it later.
This is very cute. Yeah. With holidays comes drama
Elizabeth: and lots of drama.
Sarah: Yes. So the today's episode is it's do's and don'ts of the holidays. And just giving you some advice, whether it's marital advice, I'm sure we have great things there. Custody advice, all sorts of topics that we've learned and discussed by practicing our family law.
Elizabeth: Gosh, for 30, what are we together? 30 . Years,
Sarah: .. .. Almost 40.
Elizabeth: Yeah,
Sarah: 47. You're 21 that aging ourselves
Elizabeth: this week, I'm getting the oldest, he
Sarah: listened to our last episode. You remember that Elizabeth did not exchange our child together for the
Elizabeth: holiday, pissed off about that. So to fix that,
Sarah: Let's just start with in general custody issues over the holidays.
So we're looking at Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner, but there's holidays. [00:02:00]
Elizabeth: So mainly it's somebody is not happy or somebody doesn't want to exchange or can I just keep them, an extra hour or so, or no, you're not coming to get them,
Sarah: especially if you break up or separate right before the holidays.
Cause there is no defined plan yet. And I'm sure it's really hard for you to think, okay, this is the first Thanksgiving or Christmas without my child. And I'm sure that's
Elizabeth: so hard. I can tell you from experience. Hard as hell. But you got to
Sarah: do it this trial together, and now you're separating some people want to celebrate the holidays together.
Elizabeth: I still did it so funny. It's like I've been divorced and separated for 17 years. And we still do Thanksgiving together. We still do Christmas morning together. We didn't start out that way. It takes us about 10 years to get there, but we're, that's just odd. I A lot of people don't do that,
Sarah: but some do, and I would say don't force
Elizabeth: it.
No, we still got favorite thing, but it makes my child happy, and he likes to see us altogether and [00:03:00] that's,
Sarah: That's what we do. Yeah. And so I encourage people. One of the dues of the holidays, when you're you first separated is creating new traditions. I'm sure that the child is going to miss both parents there.
Think of something fun to do and start that tradition going forward. And that way they look forward to doing this with you every Christmas, even if it's not on Christmas day, making sure you put out some hay for the reindeer that are going to come, go find a Christmas tree together.
Elizabeth: Yeah, maybe with the train.
I can't remember now. Polar express. Yeah. Jonathan and I, we would go, we always went to church early, and then. It could have a dinner and then we would always turn off the lights and the Christmas tree and get the fire and watch polar express and eat
Sarah: popcorn. Yeah. Yeah. So we create a new tradition for what is the new dynamic and near in your relationship and your
Elizabeth: family.
And so most people was like us, our schedule was, it's Christmas Eve. Then you have the even years and dad has an odd years. So you gotta figure out. And people don't think about this. I had to find my own ritual for the year. I, he wasn't with me on Christmas Eve. That's a big thing.
Yeah.
Sarah: So the first [00:04:00] holiday, the big holidays where you don't have custody and you don't have your kids around, you got to take care of yourself, make sure you spend time with other family members or friends or trait create your own traditions,
Elizabeth: right. Or go, Go take a weekend trip to Biltmore, or the mountains or something, and get a, get your mind off of it.
Because you're going to get it back at Christmas and you don't, you got to put on a happy face.
Sarah: Okay. Typically one parent will have the Thanksgiving holiday and then the next one will have the Christmas . Holiday. Or some people decide to split the day, which I always make them really I'm thinking about it.
Elizabeth: That's so hard on children. We used to split.
Sarah: Yeah. You think that they would want to see both parents on the day, but it's not about necessarily that day. It's the events and the people that come with that holiday, when you get to Christmas, you get to Turkey. Yeah. Just, make it work.
And, think about if you want to travel and see family, say your family is in Wisconsin, that's not going to work out really.
Elizabeth: And that's one of the questions you ask as you're putting this together, so you asked me what's important to you and where's your family. Do you have to travel? So a lot of people will say you have Christmas Eve until 1:00 PM on Christmas [00:05:00] day, and then you have that doesn't work. If you trapped your family lives in Georgia or Alabama or whatever, y'all need.
When you have a muni, bigger chunks of times, right through, as you were thinking
Sarah: about the schedule. Exactly. And also, some relationships and marriages are from two different religions. So that kind of works out nicely when you're thinking of Hanukkah and Christmas. Cause rarely do they overlap.
They think about it though. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. So you always have to think about the scenarios. This does happen. And it's the same with Easter and spring break. And so you need to say a provision in there that covers what happens when they do
Elizabeth: overlap. And I think people sometimes think that we're like, you're so depressed about all that, but it's our job to be negative.
And it's our job to look at this contract or this court order or whatever. And punch holes in it and do the what-ifs well, what if this happened? What would you do? So you got to Tim steps down to make sure that we've covered as much as
Sarah: we can comes with our experience, knowing what prior clients has, have thought about and run into issues when planning for the [00:06:00] holidays.
So I always make sure to cover those little caveats of what would happen if the calendar just doesn't line up. And a lot
Elizabeth: of times they'll go, especially if they're not school, age is a little easier, but when they get school a. Sort of wraps around the school calendar of how the holiday schedule will work and some will be on a trip.
Then you have a problem. You've got middle schoolers and elementary. They were on a year round and then the high schoolers and that's where things have think about to you. Cause we'll put in some times here's what the schedule is going to be. The children are in year-round school, but we didn't go another step further.
And. And when they go to high school and in a traditional schedule, this was what it would be.
Sarah: It is. And some people, they want to put every single holiday into their court order or parenting agreement and the other parents like I don't think we need to dictate who the kids with on Halloween or exchange every labor day or birthday
Elizabeth: birthday be with me on my birthday.
Yes. I don't think that's appropriate, but that.
Sarah: Yeah. If you guys agree on it, then whatever, I'll put it in there, sometimes you just gotta let it fall where it
Elizabeth: falls, just okay, it's the child's birthday. That was that's [00:07:00] hard. But do you want to be with them? But again, I'll just celebrate with you the next weekend after your birthday.
And I don't care. It's all about you.
Sarah: Yeah. I would hate to miss Halloween. I love Halloween, but maybe you can trigger trick together if you can work together or you just take turns. That's it generally,
Elizabeth: it's going to be falls on your, the problem is if you look at the calendar, I didn't realize this.
When I started practicing, generally the holidays will fall on the same page. Time each year, you gotta make sure, go through the calendar,
Sarah: but something to you, like my parenting agreement would cover Halloween. Mine
Elizabeth: would, wouldn't give a shit, but
Sarah: I'm going to take Elizabeth Patrick
Elizabeth: pretty well.
We should get mine at Christmas. There was some weird, people have different, you got to think about to some people like, Monday holidays, July 4th, like I would always want July 4th because I'm always at the beach and we go to the beach every July for. And then the other, now we have to have the memory.
Sarah:
Yeah, I can just think about what's important to you, what traditions you want to have going forward. Sometimes I have clients who have [00:08:00] family reunions that they're still doing and are still big event. And the other parent will be like, yeah, you know what? That is a big event.
I'm going to let them always have this weekend for this family reunion. And that's good do that. If you're the other parent let that happen, this
Elizabeth: isn't necessarily holiday, but sometimes you put in provisions about Family events or big events or life-changing events like, dad's getting married or a pet parent gets married, and sometime that's not your weekends and they're not going please don't do that.
Please don't do that. Let them go.
Sarah: You want the wedding to be ruined
Elizabeth: completely because they're not there. But sometimes people. And Pam, you put that in there just to head it
Sarah: off and be like, okay, a little Johnny go be the ring bearer. But when you're walking down the aisle, just make sure that you just knock everyone over.
Don't do that either, but that'd be fun.
Elizabeth: I have a case where their parents live in Florida and New York. And mama's decided that no, you can't fly. You have to drive and you have to tell me who's driving with. What kind of car you're [00:09:00] driving. It's like one that's none of your business, so travel is a thing over holidays and just assume that they're doing the right thing.
I'm not going to put that minutia for the most part in a, an agreement. And the court is not going to, to
Sarah: trust each other. Yep. And some other do's and don'ts about the holidays. And we have other issues that come up besides kids, or even with kids is don't drink too much if you're going to be with your kid.
And there might be other people around to testify about that.
Elizabeth: So if you get new year's Eve, every other weekend, go out and do it every other year, go do what you want to do on your own. Don't do it on your rig and go do first the first night or whatever
Sarah: it is. Yeah. And then also, if you're just going through the emotions and the feelings say that you don't have your child on the holiday and you down that bottle or five or court of wine, then don't go call on your ex
Elizabeth: and that backs down techs don't tell on Facebook, your friends don't do any of that.
That did sound good. What'd you just say that in the last episode?
[00:10:00]
Not your friends, text your ex in a nice way. I think, definitely
Sarah: don't leave any mean
Elizabeth: voicemail. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. And don't call your child on new year on Christmas Eve.
Oh, I missed you. Wish you were here. Look what I got you
Sarah: don't do that. We're giving you some bad advice here. Really departmentalized those feelings.
Classify them into different departments and compartmentalize
Elizabeth: them for three longs. You ready?
Sarah: Yeah. So your sexy feelings put them over there. Yeah. But your feelings like through the holidays are valid and we have to be, I, I love the song blue Christmas. We're talking about what our favorite Christmas songs, blue Christmas by Elvis. I don't know that I'm not going to sing it on here.
It's a blue Christmas without you.
Yeah. Those feelings are [00:11:00] valid, whether you're single your divorce. Oh, I'm
Elizabeth: separated, but you gotta keep him in check for sure. To
Sarah: over the holidays, take care of yourself, self care, take hot bath. But, especially if you're going through the separation process and there's litigation even more so watch yourself and don't do anything that is caused by your emotions at the time to blow up everything.
Elizabeth: It gets remember two kids get over WellMed and overwork and they're stressed and they're wound up, which even makes it harder to
Sarah: keep it all together. All the holidays are the best happiest times. Other people it's the most depressing.
Elizabeth: And so that's why that's sometimes they cling to their children.
Make that up, to find another outlet for it.
Sarah: Yes, definitely. Some advice I thought of is if you're in a marriage you're not separated yet. Don't go by your girlfriend or boyfriend. Christmas gifts that the other person's gonna find or
Elizabeth: did her dog, first
Sarah: of all, don't cheat.
Elizabeth: good [00:12:00] advice to say.
It's okay to buy it
Sarah: cheap.
Elizabeth: Don't let your wife find out.
Sarah: She's going to say use cash. Sarah's very realistic and pragmatic Bitcoin. It's a
Elizabeth: new era.
Sarah: That's true. That's true. You got plenty of money. The one Bitcoin, these days it's like 600,
Elizabeth: [00:13:00] . Even if it's your first year and you have a significant other, I would say, take a breath, and don't bring that you can spend all the ha the first holiday , with that person.
But let it be about your child, and making them feel comfortable and secure the first
Sarah: go round, some dummies out there. Like I'll be my client sometimes too. And I'll, we look at their. Financials. And my client will be like, he bought something from Bailey's, jewelry and I didn't get that present, Lucy buying it for, and I'd be like, oh, that guy's a dumb, got you there.
And there's spousal support port involved, and they're going to say, okay, you've been spending money on your girlfriend. He could be given it to your wife.
Elizabeth: But let's separate those issues out from. You know the holidays. And I'm
Sarah: just saying, if it's the holidays, use cash, if you have to do it or just don't do it, wait until you're separated
Elizabeth: and don't [00:14:00] compensate by buying your kids.
I'm going to, dad gets you a pony and I don't have the money to do that, so I have to do just be mindful and kind is what I can say.
Sarah: Yeah. We'd love for you to be kind. That's not very realistic. Is it? No. So we just gotta, where your parents
Elizabeth: were divorced when you, when did they?
I was seven. W what were your holidays time? My dad
Sarah: moved up to Connecticut, so my mom pretty much got everything. He would come down here. Every so often, but it was in con it was, inconsistent at best, but he would always send gifts or, or whatever, but it, that was that thing.
Like he still does it now with my nephew. Like he comes down and he just buys the toys, obviously
Elizabeth: trying to, I got to keep, keep your tradition. Yeah. I remember
Sarah: there was mostly with my mom, but then, we had bringing in bonus parents.
So I felt like being remarried or whatnot that obviously then he brought his own family traditions that he wanted to, at first it was like rocking the boat for me, but now I love it, and we established our new ones and everything. And change takes time for people to [00:15:00] adapt and just be careful going through the holidays and recognizing that for your kids , you're gonna, one thing to think about too, is your extended family coming over and they just bash your acts in front of your kid.
Don't let that happen.
Elizabeth: Conversation about that
Sarah: first beforehand.
Elizabeth: And if it happened to participate.
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Just Reno, pull them aside, mother, we talked about this, that
Elizabeth: brings up into separation agreement. We put in, don't the sparrows talk bad and even third-parties within earshot of their child.
So just be mindful
Sarah: of that. I can't imagine if I went through a separation and I had a child, my mom. She bashed him right away, which is looking out for her kid. And I'd be like, I would have really have to tell her not to, if you don't think about that in your friends and anyone else that comes over for the holidays and don't let that ruin your holiday too, because they don't have to live that life.
They get to come and bash your ex and then leaving the home to their happy home or
Elizabeth: whatever. Then you're all drunk and you start texting and it's just the bad
Sarah: drunk on Thanksgiving. [00:16:00] And you're texting your friends to start digging up dirt that you've just started to discover in your own personal situation, but it's fine, but don't do that.
It's fine. Call them don't touch
Elizabeth: dirt. That's cool. But just do it on the sly.
Sarah: And I'll say, alcohol obviously exacerbates whatever emotion that you're feeling. So having been there.
Elizabeth: Wholeheartedly over the holidays. It's more acceptable to people in Bob Baltimore. I think of it,
Sarah: but you're also, if you're in a negative space mentally, emotionally, and you start drinking, that's going to make it worse.
So if you could really, and it's hard. We're sitting here talking about it saying it, but it is so much harder to do than Tinder practice. But if you really can try to shift focus and just say, you know what, we're just not going to talk about this situation. If you're newly separated or maybe it is your first holiday without your kids.
Focused on what you do still have on that day. You still got other people that you're spending time with, or the opportunity to renew some things for yourself or whatever it is to really try to do that. And sometimes alcohol doesn't help them in accomplishing that. But sometimes it does sometimes it's absolutely needed.
If you don't have your children and maybe some people don't [00:17:00] have extended family, like I just have my parents, we don't really ever see our extended family. Go to the Caribbean for Christmas. If you can afford it, if you sold the house or something, go on vacation, go to New York and see the church tree.
What did the big one Rockefeller center? Yes. Thank you. No, I've never traveled
Elizabeth: by myself really.
Sarah: I guess that would be
Elizabeth: really depressing. Cause, cause you're out at Rockefeller center and all these couples are falling and dropping. All right. That's when you calling you to come get me out of jail,
Sarah: you ice skate to someone he fall down and he picks you up and it's just like a wrong
Elizabeth: God, a hallmark, but that work that way.
It might be good. Watch
Sarah: hallmark movies. That one's
Elizabeth: tough. I've watched one in my whole life. Then
Sarah: I think the point of this is people, celebrate and grieve and they do things for themselves in different ways. So you just find what works for you and you go and do that. Whether that is watching lots of hallmark movies or going on a vacation.
Elizabeth: I think the overarching thing is if there are kids involved, Take [00:18:00] care of yourself, but your main focus is to take care of them. Yeah. And keep them safe and be mindful, as best
Sarah: you can let them have their holiday.
Elizabeth: If they're gonna get there, like elephants, I remember after,
Sarah: yeah. Just like Jen can recall how her holidays were and can look back at it now as an adult and see things for what they are.
I tell a lot of my clients that you're your child's going to grow up in there. They're smart. They're going to realize why things were the way they are were. And don't stress so much about it because you can't change it.
Elizabeth: Great advice, but it's, but having lived it, it's really hard, , as the years go on, you finally it'll click and
Sarah: you'll get it.
Yeah. I found out fresh market yesterday, they sell precooked turkeys. Dues, win-win go get yourself. Pre-cooked Turkey for Thanksgiving, whether you're going to have your family and your children over or not make your life easier. Think about things in advance and how you can coordinate things, not just for yourself, but for your
Elizabeth: children rituals, think about it now, there are all sorts of creative ways to do that.
Yes.
Sarah: That's it. That's all we [00:19:00] have. We run out of holidays. We were talking about our favorite Christmas carols before. So find those, put them on a good day and say, I have a dance party. Put your Christmas decorations up early on like on Thanksgiving, if you're by yourself or something.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And that's one ritual that I call him my Christmas tree whisperer, because he could go to any lot. Am I the most beautiful tree in, 15 years later, that's what we all get excited about the day after Thanksgiving. There's just something stupid and little like that. I love it. I didn't have to be
Sarah: lavish for it.
Doesn't it's all about.
Elizabeth: I think making memories is what it's all about.
Sarah: I will say for me personally, having been separated, divorced now for a couple of years for the holidays, the last two years, the week between Christmas and new year's, I've been down at the beach for a week by myself and it is glorious.
. It's not super busy, but now it's I was like what do you do when you're down there? And I'm like, whatever that, and that's another thing for our married listeners that if you have both sides and it's so crazy having to please all your extended family, just say no, Don't do it.
Just take some [00:20:00] time for yourself, spend it with your spouse. And you guys just have boundaries with these extended families that make you feel guilty about not showing up or whatever. You're doing, traveling a lot around the place. Yeah. That's a lot.
Elizabeth: That's a lot. I agree. Yeah, it brings, it makes it more stressful.
That's why that
Sarah: for Christmas, his movies. And so funny, we've all been there. Have you seen that a little with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn and they do, they decided that they're not doing any of the family stuff and they're going to go to Bora or somewhere it's a heat, but they get caught on the news because there's a storm comes in and they see the family sees them on the news and they end up having to go to every Christmas.
Yeah. I will lose my mind. We went to the Dominican Republic once when I was younger. I really, yeah, it's a family, just my parents, my sister. Let me say that Caribbean
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Sarah: yeah. If you're in your feelings, watch the alcohol don't drink and drive around the holidays. They're looking for you. Oh like my advice with the gifts [00:21:00] don't get caught and we're just getting don't ever do it.
Elizabeth: No, that's good advice. Don't get caught if you're doing it. Don't get caught
Sarah: back to it.
Also, I just want to mention last month, October was domestic violence month and there is an uptick in domestic violence around the holidays. If you're in a relationship that is, has domestic violence in it, whether it's physical or. Maybe it's time for you to consider your plans for the holidays, making sure you're in a safe location and Toronto.
Right.
Elizabeth: And that brings up something to a lot of Devin, maybe going a little long, but a lot of people will come see us maybe in August or September and . And a lot of people just want to get through the holidays, and I understand that and that's fine. And then we get an uptick in January, but again, like you said, Especially if it's an, a relationship that you feel like isn't going to work or is ending, it could be more stressful
Sarah: during that time.
So take some money out of the account and go ahead and plan your secret trip to the Caribbean
Elizabeth: and peace out. Yeah.
Sarah: But do you take the kids with you in that incident now? [00:22:00] Depends on how much you like, maybe with grandma. Yeah. Anyways, I hope everyone has a happy holiday season. And answer shit.