With the holidays come reunions with extended family, exchanging gifts, great food, music and time away from school and work. Unfortunately, for many of us, it also brings the uninvited guests of depression and stress.
Is this really a surprise considering the many demands of the season – shopping in crowded malls, parties, decorating, cooking, eating and entertaining the holidays has on us?
Avoiding these three mistakes will guarantee your holidays are happy and less stressful for your blended family.
Mistake #1 – Buying Gifts out of Guilt and Overspending
- Even in the best remarriages, this can be a critical issue in stepfamilies because of the guilt carried by the biological parents. The parent’s behavior will be driven by the remorse about the end of the first marriage and the trauma it put their children through. This guilt motivates the parent to give their children an enormous amount of gifts in hopes of healing the wounds of the past. Excessive gift-giving will only contribute to your children’s selfishness and greediness in the long run.
- Solution. Jointly establish a gift budget with your spouse and commit to following it. Avoid the use of credit if at all possible. If impulse overspending is a problem agree to meet or talk with your spouse before making the purchase. Remember you can’t buy happiness with a mountain of gifts.
Mistake #2 – Keeping Up with the Biological Dad
- As a stepdad, you may feel the need to keep up with your stepchildren’s dad especially if he’s always showering his children with gifts. Regardless of what you do or how much you get for your stepchildren, this is one contest you don’t want to get into. It’s always rigged in their dad’s favor. Trying to compete with him will only set you up for hurt and disappointment.
- Solution. Don’t allow what others are doing to drive your behavior. There’s no such thing as the perfect holiday. Also, be careful, jealousy isn’t motivating you to keep up. Be content with the plans you’ve made and don’t allow others to make you feel inadequate. Take your children shopping and help them buy a gift for them to give to the other parent. This will teach your child to be generous and show them their feelings are important to you.
Mistake #3 – Making Plans without Considering/Involving the Children
- Making holiday plans without considering the custody schedule for your children especially if your children live in two homes. Not making sure your children know the schedule in advance or allowing for their feedback. Creating a hectic schedule for your children.
- Solution. My stepchildren’s custody schedule for holidays were on alternating years. The Pretty Lady had them for all the holidays during the even-numbered years and their dad would have them during the odd-numbered years. On the odd-numbered years, we would delay opening the gifts until the entire family was together.
- To her credit, the Pretty Lady was flexible with her ex allowing the kids to visit their dad if he had out of town relatives visiting or a special event was planned. The holidays are about being together as a family. There’s no law requiring Christmas gifts to be opened on the 25th and turkeys don’t mind waiting a day or two to be carved up. Holidays can be celebrated at any time convenient for the family.
- The holidays can be a bag of mixed emotions for your children. If your children have to be away from their other parent during a holiday, they will naturally miss that parent. Make sure your children know their feelings are normal and it’s okay to express any negative feelings they may have. Your child’s feelings are real and should always be validated.
Be flexible don’t allow the unexpected to ruin your attitude. Take care of yourself. Be careful of the toxic people you may interact with who give Ebenezer Scrooge a run for his money during the holidays. Focus on people and having quality experiences. Also, look for ways to deliberately spend time with your family and build traditions together. Creating new holiday traditions will help your blended family build strong bonds. You can avoid stress and have a joyous and memorable holiday season.
Along with joining in already established traditions, a new stepfather can be part of his stepfamily’s holiday activities by starting new holiday traditions. Click here to learn more.
