Custody battles are already strenuous and adversarial in their nature. This can make custody battles during the holiday seasons especially daunting. When both parents want to spend Christmas with their children, but cannot get along with one another, what results often harms the children who are stuck in the middle of their parent’s inability to get along.
As Christmas quickly approaches, keep in mind one thing while considering who gets custody during the holidays: the best interest of your child. To put it bluntly, who your child spends Christmas with should not be about “you” in any way. Custody during the holidays should not be based solely on who spends more time with the child during the year or if one parent gets along with the other parent. If one parent did not pay child support on time this year, that is not a reason not to allow the child to see that parent for Christmas. Children are not prizes or possessions that should be withheld as a form of punishment when one parent acts in a way the other parent does not like.
Take a moment to look at Christmas through the child’s eyes.
Christmas can be a magical time of year if the conditions are right. Do not let your legal matters spill over into the magic of Christmas for your little ones. One day soon, they will be adults dealing with adult matters – however, right now they are just kids and they likely want to spend Christmas with both of their parents.
When parents go to court for custody, the Court considers “the best interest of the child.” If the Court sees that parents have made steps to get along with one another in order to consider the best interest of the child, the Court will look upon those actions favorably.
There are a multitude of ways you can share custody of your child for Christmas. Here are a few examples:
- Split Christmas Eve/Christmas: One parent gets the child(ren) for Christmas Eve and the other gets the child (ren) for Christmas Day.
- Split Christmas Day: One parent has the child(ren) Christmas morning for opening presents and breakfast/lunch, then the other parent picks up the child for a holiday meal and sleepover Christmas afternoon/evening.
- Periods around Christmas: if parents live further apart from one another, it may be simpler to create a time period where the long distant parent can come pick up the child(ren) for a few days right before or right after Christmas.
When faced with custodial decisions, Ley Law attorneys are prepared to think ahead to the holidays. If you are having difficulty reaching a decision on how to address custody this holiday season, give one of our attorneys a call at 252-612-0007 today.
LeAnne Goss Author
LeAnne M. Goss is an Associate Attorney at Ley Law, dedicated to Family Law, Juvenile Law, Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency Court (DSS court), as well as Appellate Law. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2019 with a Bachelor’s in Liberal Studies focused on Humanities and earned her Juris Doctor from Campbell Law School in 2023.
