Blended families, holiday schedules, parenting schedules, family traditions, grandparent visitation, emotional health, gift duplication, control pitfalls, holiday planning, flexibility, family dynamics, Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, family traditions.
What To Do When… Blended Families and the Holidays.
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The objective of the What To Do When… podcast is to discuss common legal scenarios faced by everyday citizens in Virginia. Critzer and Cardani practice law throughout Virginia and focus their practice around the state’s capital of Richmond, in the Piedmont region. Tune in and subscribe to learn about legal topics such as reckless driving by speeding, bad lawyers, bankruptcy, juvenile defense, juvenile sex crimes, reckless driving, Divorce, Marriage Separation, Child Support, There is Still Hope and others. Critzer Cardani PC serves Chesterfield, Richmond, Henrico, and all the surrounding areas here in Virginia from the Beach to the Blue Ridge.
What To Do When… Blended Families and the Holidays.
On this legal video podcast chat in Critzer Cardani’s What To Do When… podcast series, join our hosts Jackie Critzer and Scott Cardani as they chat about What To Do When… Blended Family and the Holidays. This video and audio podcast episode focuses on blended families navigating the holidays here in Virginia.
Tune in today for not only our top take-aways, but also some chat about the following subject matters and other helpful action items from a ‘legal chat slant’ from Critzer Cardani’s legal partners.
* Balancing Holiday Schedules and Family Traditions
* Navigating Grandparent Involvement and Family Dynamics
* Managing Gift Giving and Avoiding Conflicts
* Planning for Multiple Holidays and Cultural Differences
The objective of the What To Do When… podcast is to discuss common legal scenarios faced by everyday citizens in Virginia. Critzer and Cardani practice law throughout Virginia and focus their practice around the state’s capital of Richmond, in the Piedmont region. Tune in and subscribe to learn about legal topics such as reckless driving by speeding, bad lawyers, bankruptcy, juvenile defense, juvenile sex crimes, reckless driving, Divorce, Marriage Separation, Child Support, There is Still Hope and others. Critzer Cardani PC serves Chesterfield, Richmond, Henrico, and all the surrounding areas here in Virginia from the Beach to the Blue Ridge.
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Serving Chesterfield, Richmond, Henrico, and all the surrounding areas. From the VA Beach to the VA Blue Ridge. Thank you for sending us your feedback, questions, or topic suggestions for future #WTDW | What To Do When… episodes by emailing [email protected].
Transcript:
What To Do When… Intro 00:01
Welcome to What To Do When… A podcast from real lawyers with real perspective, where we explore a variety of legal issues and scenarios. Each week we focus on a new topic and discuss what to do when and if any of these legal scenarios ever happened to you or a loved one. With over 40 years of combined legal experience, our hosts offer their unique perspectives and insights on a range of real life legal situations.
Jackie Critzer 0:28
Hi. Welcome back to another episode of What To Do When… here at Critzer Cardani in Richmond, Virginia. I’m Jackie.
Scott Cardani 0:34
I’m Scott Jackie. What are we gonna talk about today?
Jackie Critzer 0:35
Today? How to Do blended families in the holidays.
Scott Cardani 0:41
You mean, like getting families in a blender?
Jackie Critzer 0:43
Yeah… Just like that, like in Gremlins, right? No, really, it’s about say, I mean exactly that blended family that that is also incorporating maybe some new, new kiddos into it. So I say a husband wife, just like in my situation, I had two kids, he had two kids, and we then had our first holiday after being married, right? And they were all middle school. And isn’t that fun when you have four middle schoolers all in the same place? Really? Here are some of the things that we found could potentially be problematic. Wasn’t in our families. But these are some of the roadblocks you’re going to hit when you have two sets of kids coming from two separate parenting schedules and holiday schedules, you’re in a great amount of blessing and luck if those holiday schedules already match. Okay? If they don’t look down the road. Don’t wait till Christmas Eve. Don’t wait till the middle of November for Thanksgiving. Look down the road when you know this is coming, and see which side is going to compromise. Maybe it’s your side, maybe it’s maybe it’s the other, the new parent side, whichever it’s going to be, do your best to avoid the conflicts that are already going to be coming and getting greater as the holidays approach. So find a way to make those schedules match. You want the kids. I mean, we did. We wanted all of our kids to be together. We wanted to spend Christmas Eve together, wake up Christmas morning together. And then in the years when we were very, very sad and our kids were away from us, and we waited till the middle of Christmas day for them to come home. We dealt with it, but we we knew, they knew it was predictable. And I’ll tell you a funny story of everybody knows. Now I have two older teenagers that are mine and two older teenagers that are my husband’s and which are also mine. And then we have a two and a half year old. So after, gosh, years and years of doing Christmas time, the way that we were, which was every we alternated Christmas Eve overnight, and it worked as well as it could. So I was sad when they left Christmas day. I was sad when they didn’t, when they weren’t there Christmas morning. I mean, not sad, like weepy, just you missed that.
Scott Cardani 2:57
Okay.
Jackie Critzer 2:57
So I said, Well, maybe we should do this different. So I asked them, How do you guys like that? Is there you think maybe you’d want to do it differently? I’m thinking for sure they’re going to tell me they want to do it differently. No, we love it. We love it. Okay, enough said. I dropped it. I never brought it up again, because it’s not about me when I when we severed that marriage and we became divorced. Those kids were the ones who we needed to prioritize as far as their their mental health, their emotional health, not what I want, not what is best for me necessarily, but what’s really going to do best for them. They loved it. We left it. We were still doing it the exact same way, and they’re 17 and almost 19.
Scott Cardani 3:41
Well, I remember this too. The other issue that you run into is, in my family, we’re blended too. But you know that maybe there’s a grandmother that’s your kid’s grandmother, but not my kid’s grandmother, and maybe that grandmother isn’t that accepting of the blend. I t happens. So there’s traditions that happen, like every year this daughter went to see grandma on certain days, yeah. So you got to, kind of, my only point of this is you got to be flexible. You got to think through those things. Like she said, be proactive. You know, if you don’t, maybe this is the first holiday you’re coming together as a new family. You got, Hey, what are some traditions your kids did. Because sometimes guys, especially, don’t really think that way. Say it’ll help processing that longer term. Hey, you know, Jamie went to her grandmother’s every Christmas night and spent the night, right? She’s done that for, you know, five years. It’s a big deal to Jamie, sure it is. So, you know, you got to just make those things, try to work them out. I remember the first, first blended holiday we had. Three of my kids weren’t there. They were at their grandma’s, their other grandma’s. And I was like, at first, I was kind of like, Oh, that sucks. But then I was like, You know what they’re that’s what they did every year. Why would they change that? That’s what they did. That’s. What they did that was their holiday. That was the way they celebrated Christmas. So you gotta, when you’re blending a family, you gotta take in all the different elements of that. And you know, grandparent visitation and baby aunts and uncles, everybody does it differently. When I was growing up, we had every Christmas Eve, everybody. My mom had eight brothers and sisters, and I think there was somewhere in the 90s of grandkids. So, you know, obviously that grew over years. But, you know, when we were little, we all went to Grandma’s house on Christmas Eve, and that was, I would have hated not to go there. It was so much fun. You know, we just had a blast. So, you know, maybe you get blended and, you know, they have, they’re going to their grandma’s, and you’re it’s got kind of a work a little bit. Sometimes it takes a little effort to make that work. But, you know, I wouldn’t hate to rob a kid of a tradition that they love and, you know, makes them celebrate the season. And that’s how they’ve always celebrated all all of a sudden. And as Jackie said, you always stay open. Hey, is there anything else we can do different next year? Is there anything you want to change? Sometimes that kid may say, I hate going to grandma. Thank God, I’m out of that, you know, whatever.
Jackie Critzer 6:05
At the end of the day, you know, we’re going to leave our kids with baggage. We just hope it’s a carry on, not like a, you know, checked back, right? We just want just a little bit…
Scott Cardani 6:12
Backpack…
Jackie Critzer 6:13
um, maybe even just a backpack, or whatever it is. There are some pitfalls when it comes to the holidays and blended families and and even just separated families. But think about gifts and whether, you know, I don’t know about you, but our kids typically gave the same list to both. So I mean, and I didn’t tell them not to do that. That’s not that’s putting a burden on them. That’s not fair. So I went around and said, Hey, Dad, um, can we talk about the list? What are you planning? I was thinking I was going to do this. This isn’t about permission. Don’t get wrapped up into I want, can I? Can I? Can’t I? Oh, I told them I was going to buy this, but they went and bought it. It was going to be their Christmas morning, and they got to open at their house. I’ll tell you what. We’ve encountered this exact situation when the parents didn’t talk, and the same present was under both Christmas trees, and it was a big one, all right? And then both parents were upset, because they wanted the kid to be excited about this one. The kid wanted the other parent wouldn’t be upset. Let me tell you something. Kid was excited that they got two and one was at dad’s house and one was at mom’s house, and that worked out great. Now you would think, you would want to budget the Christmas gifts differently. What does it matter at the end of the day, the kid was happy? So just keep those things. Stay away from some of those pitfalls too. Yeah, I
Scott Cardani 7:33
think control can be a really pitfall that we don’t even realize we’re controlling when we’re controlling, and the other side can be controlling too. And so I’m not saying be controlled. I’m not saying that. But again, pick the hill you’re going to die on, as the old saying goes, sometimes it’s not worth the fight, you know, why? You know, if you know the other parents set on getting him the bike and you want to get it, you know, think of a way to maybe get an accessory for the bike, or something cool, for sure, or something you can do all kinds of things that are really creative and cool, that really that really match the energy, so to speak, and your kids are just as happy. I’ll tell you what a year from Christmas, they don’t remember who bought them that bike well.
Jackie Critzer 8:11
And then, right? And then you’ve got blended it’s not just holidays, but you’ve got less not just Thanksgiving and Christmas. There’s there’s certainly other other holidays, there’s Hanukkah, there’s quant there’s so many different holidays. Still, the point is to be considerate, and especially if you’re a parent who doesn’t particularly celebrate Thanksgiving, or doesn’t particularly celebrate Christmas, don’t be Aunt hogatha and try to take, take the time from the other parent, just to be spiteful, let that kid is still enjoy the time, even though, even though that new family is blended, and there’s more traditions and there’s and there’s new stuff going on over there, we would just really encourage you to take the time as a blended family to try and map out the what you want the holidays to look like, and see what makes sense for your family without waiting to the last minute to Do it. These are not last minute conversations or plans you want to be having.
Scott Cardani 9:04
Because then they become dictations and then it’s just a fight. So thank you all for joining.
What To Do When… Outro 09:18
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of What To Do When… For more episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and we encourage you to check archives to listen to previous topics. Tune in next week for a new episode and some fresh perspective from Critzer Cardani.
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We look forward to helping you in this venture and Good Luck!
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