With the holiday season quickly approaching, it is important for divorced parents to get their holiday parenting schedules in order.
The earlier you and your spouse begin holiday considerations, the more leverage both parties have during discussions. This year Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s all fall within a nine week period, which leaves divorced parents with the task of fairly negotiating multiple holidays at once. Planning in advance will give your exspouse more opportunities to compromise. For example, you may want more time at Christmas with your children while your ex would like more time at Thanksgiving. Planning in advance allows both parties to come to a fair agreement. If you wait until the day of holiday to come up with a plan, negotiating becomes drastically harder.
Setting a holiday schedule in advance will help to ease everyone’s anxiety. You will have a clear plan and schedule which will make coordinating events with extended family much easier. The children will also have a much easier time adjusting if they know where they will be for the holidays in advance. Bouncing between households can be stressful for kids on a normal day, but not knowing where they will be on their favorite holiday can be even harder. The sooner you make holiday arrangements, the sooner the entire family will be able to relax and the holiday season will become much more enjoyable!
If you and your spouse are unable to reach an amicable holiday agreement and you seek your lawyer’s assistance, it is important to remember that courts are busy this time of year. Getting a motion filed and heard by a judge can take weeks depending on where you live, and at that point the holidays may end up passing without a clear resolution. If you think it is ok to wait because you can bring forth your motion as “an emergency,” you may want to rethink your strategy. There is a judge in Cook County, Illinois who is infamous for telling lawyers with last minute holiday motions, “Counsel, Christmas is December 25th every year. This is not an emergency. Motion denied.”
The bottom line is this: get your holiday parenting issues resolved as early and as peaceful as possible to ensure a happy holiday for all.
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John Schutz
Partner at John F. Schutz, P.L.
Representing clients exclusively in family law cases for the past 24 years, Mr. Schutz is widely regarded as a marital and family law expert. He is Board Certified in marital and family law by The Florida Bar. As a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), Mr. Schutz is committed to elevating the standards and improving the practice of family law.
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