Mediate Michigan

Many divorced parents look forward to the holiday season as much as a trip to the dentist’s office for a root canal. That’s because child custody tug of wars during the holidays are as inevitable as your tax bill. The high-stakes, often warrior-like jockeying between exes over who’s going to get the kids for which holiday, where they’ll eat their turkey and Christmas dinner, and who gets to take them out of town on vacation on the most coveted days, typically heats up the weeks before Thanksgiving and melts down by New Year’s Day into bitterness and tears.

The reality is, it’s not easy to share holiday cheer when you are forced to share child custody with a former spouse who you wish had been relocated under the Witness Protection Program after your divorce. But it doesn’t have to get ugly every time we get close to winter solstice. Divorced couples can turn a holiday blitzkrieg into holiday bliss with some simple guidelines for creating a custody share plan where both sides can feel like winners.

via Stacy Schneider: Avoiding Holiday Custody Tug of Wars.