Are you wondering about child custody over the Thanksgiving holiday? Do you have split, joint, no custody, want custody over Thanksgiving? Hi, I’m Marie Drake of The Drake Law Firm, and today, I’m going to talk to you a little bit about those issues.
Thanksgiving is an important holiday for a lot of families in the United States. And if you’re sharing custody, or you have limited custody, some kind of custody over this week, and you have Thursday off, and often, people have Friday off too, how do you split up this time? How do you make sure your children get to see the relatives who are coming in for the holiday?
One of the first and probably the most obvious things to do for this holiday is to look at what your parenting plan says. Look at what the court order says about the Thanksgiving holiday. That might seem obvious, but sometimes people just get emotional and stressed out about these holidays, and they don’t even look at the court order. So first, look at that. Second, if this is a special occasion where, I don’t know, Great Aunt Mildred is on her last legs, and this is her last holiday and she really wants to see the kids and it’s not your turn, then reach out to your ex and see if there’s some grace around the situation and about seeing a relative may not be around for the next Thanksgiving. Just try that first before you get all interventionist, scorched earth, litigation because nothing says Thanksgiving like a giant modification lawsuit, which I don’t recommend.
What we most often recommend and write into our parenting plans for our clients is to alternate the holidays. Meaning, one year, mom gets a holiday, one year, dad gets the holiday, and the reason is because even though the children in Colorado often have the full week off, it’s really hard to try to negotiate and figure out when to drop the kids off, when to exchange the kids, and nobody really wants to get off the couch after eating seven pounds of turkey. Come on, so I recommend alternating the holiday. And maybe that’s obvious to you, but for lots of people, it’s not.
Thanksgiving and other holidays can be really stressful for people. And try to remember, if you’re stressed out about Thanksgiving, your ex might be stressed out too and probably is. So don’t compound it by making demands that are unreasonable. This will spill over into stressing out your children. And that’s about the last thing I’m sure you want to do, and remember, if you have any questions about holiday parenting time or upcoming Thanksgiving parenting time, give us a call here at The Drake Law Firm. We’re standing by and we’re ready to answer your questions and help you find the solution.
