All Are Welcome!
The holidays can be a stressful time of year for anyone, let alone children of divorce. They have the added stress of trying to make everyone happy and as they get older and develop relationships of their own, the number of people they are trying to keep happy multiplies.
When our boys were very young, just after their new brother Ja was born and before our daughter was born, my husband and I decided to extend an “olive branch” https://grammarist.com/usage/olive-branch/ to Big J, R and their extended families to join us for Christmas dinner.
The main reason behind it was that we were on a schedule that rotated on a yearly basis. One of us had the boys for Christmas Eve and the other Christmas day. The next year, it would be just the opposite. The boys were still very young at the time and it upset them to have to leave to go to the other parents house, just shortly after opening all their Christmas presents.
“We could see the signs of them being torn …”
We could see the signs of them being torn between parents and houses. Our thought was that it would take a lot of pressure off of all of them (and all of us,) if we could bring everyone together and show them that we all could get along and celebrate the holidays together. https://www.kainenlawgroup.com/can-you-and-your-ex-be-together-over-the-holidays-for-your-kids/
The invitation was excepted and much to our delight, it went so well that the next year, Big J and R extended the invite to C and me along with our extended family members. It started a tradition that continues to this day almost 21 years later.
Thanksgiving 2017 at Big J & R’s (even our even our International student guests were included)
Even though the boys are in their late 20’s and early 30’s, we still all get together for the different holidays every year. This allows them to be able to celebrate with all of us at one time. They are very thankful for this. As it makes their lives easier to divide their time with their spouses, fiance’s, and girlfriends families.