After the Divorce, What to Do for Holidays

    Tears crept up on Charlotte Bloom as she and her two daughters unpacked their holiday decorations the year after her divorce. "I was extremely sad going through the ornaments," says Bloom, 42, of Palatine, Ill., as she came across those she had bought for her ex-husband for special occasions.    

She says her oldest daughter, now 14, got emotional as well and the youngest, now 11, tried to calm them down. "We ended up turning off the lights and turning on just the Christmas tree lights. We sat on the couch and ended up talking about what was going to be the same this Christmas and what would be different," says Bloom, who separated from her husband of 15 years in 2004. "We got a box of tissues and cried."  

With new divorces involving a million children each year, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis, each holiday season presents a new set of parents with the struggle of how to make happy holiday memories out of a family situation that is forever changed.    

Focusing on your children's needs can help, says Suzy Yehl Marta, founder of Rainbows International, a not-for-profit organization based in Rolling Meadows, Ill. Her program, uses peer-support groups and other services to address the social and emotional well-being of children dealing with loss due to divorce, death or incarceration of a family member or a catastrophic community crisis.    

"Parents really need to appreciate the holiday from the child's perspective," says Marta. Something, she says, that is often difficult to do when the parents themselves are still dealing with so much pain.

She urges parents to ask their children what would make the holiday rewarding for them. "It might be to see both parents. It might be not going to Dad's girlfriend's," says Marta, author of "Healing the Hurt, Restoring the Hope" (SawRobin Press, 2003).  It may be difficult to grant their wishes. "There is a huge disconnect between what the kids want and what the parents are able to do," says Marta.     

However, she says, "It matters more to the kids that parents care and listen to what they're feeling and say, 'I hear what you said and we can't do it this year, maybe next year.'"    

Marta, whose Rainbows program is now in 17 countries, says divorcing parents often ask whether they should get together to open holiday presents with their children. She thinks it can work for families who get along well. Bloom, who is the director of administration for Rainbows International, says her family has done this successfully for several years. She says her ex-husband, a commercial pilot, joins them Christmas morning to open gifts and have brunch with mutual friends, if he isn't working that day.   

“They like that they are able to have Mom time,” Bloom says of her girls, “then the things that are the same together, like brunch, and then open presents together, and then they spend time with the other side of the family.”