Another year nearly gone… and time to think about Christmas and the school holidays.
Separated parents have a lot to think about this time of year. When making arrangements for time spent with your children – do you each have half the school holidays, or a weekly arrangement throughout the break? What do you do about Christmas day?
What suits every family is different, but what is a very common arrangement is for one parent to have the children for the first half (which always includes Christmas day and New Year’s Eve) in one year and then it swaps the following year. This wouldn’t be suitable for very young children however.
Some parents agree that the Christmas day period, which is commonly considered to run from Christmas Eve through to Boxing Day, will stay with the parent who has the children for the first half of the holidays; which means you only spend Christmas with the children every second year.
The other way to do it is to split up the Christmas period so each parent sees the children on Christmas day. Whatever arrangements you make, it’s good to remember that Christmas is about the children not the parents. I am yet to meet a child who didn’t love having two Christmases!
What about holidays? Do you have to get the consent of the other parent if you want to take the kids on holidays during the Christmas period? I believe each parent should be able to have a holiday without the other parent being able to veto it by withholding consent, however, you must always let the other parent know of your plans; as you too would want to know.
It would be great to start working this out with the other parent as soon as you can.
Whatever your arrangements, here at Collier Family Law we wish you the very best for the Christmas season.If you still find yourself in dispute with the other parent about children or property then we can help you.
Book in for our very popular free 15 minute no obligation chat to find out more.
