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Blended Families
la79al
member
If you don't have SK for holiday....
la79al
member
Do you still 'celebrate' with them? For example, if you don't have your SK for Easter, do they still get an Easter basket at your house? If you don't have them for Valentine's Day but you get your DC a box of chocolates (or whatever) does SK get a box of chocolates too? Does it matter how old they are? Does it matter when you will next see them? Just trying to see what everyone else does here...
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Re: If you don't have SK for holiday....
My question is why wouldn't you get your stepchildren something if you are getting your DC something?
They don't magically disappear when they are not at your house?
Pas for the age thing, I still get cards from my parents for all Hallmark Holidays.
If we don't see them for the holiday we celebrate at the closest time we have them. It is the same with birthdays. I still do Easter baskets and a Valentine's small gift for the kids and the oldest is 16.
4th of July is always our holiday and one you can't "make up".
The kids don't dress up or trick or treat anymore so we don't do halloween. When they were younger we would go with them trick or treating because you can't really make that up either.
We only celebrate New Years with them if we have them.
We always have them for time around Thanksgiving and Christmas so we celebrate those holidays on the day we have them (not always the real day).
wendilea - apparently our BM and your DINK would've made great Exs and DH and I would have loved to have you as the BM - since you try to facilitate a good healthy relationship between the kids and their dad. DINK is such a SD (super douche) from what I read here. God Bless you for trying so hard with him for the kids sake.
I don't have any DC's yet, just SD6 and SS4. We alternate all major holidays with BM. For Christmas though, she has them on the Eve and we have them on the Day. For Easter and Valentine's, it just depends; this year we didn't have them on Valentine's but I talked to BM and we split things - we did the Valentine's cards for school and she did them for daycare. We don't have them for Easter this year either, but will probably still color eggs or something. I'm not going to spend money on baskets or anything though.
My thought is if they're getting the full celebration at their mom's house, they don't need it twice. I get that they have it rough because their parents are divorced, but I'm not going to spoil them because of it! On the other hand, if their mom didn't celebrate any holidays with them I would definately make up for it!
You do understand what a celebration is, right? 1. To observe (a day or event) with ceremonies of respect, festivity, or rejoicing.
The horrors of having two full "celebrations", one with each parent, to celebrate a day or event.
I love having a chance to celebrate with my SS! Before DH and I were married and going to our separate families for Christmas/Easter/Thanksgiving (our families were not close to one another), I STILL insisted we do those holidays together with SS. DH isn't one for holiday celebrations but I am - so poo on him!
I couldn't imagine taking the chance to celebrate a holiday with his SON away because "he [was] already getting a full celebration at [his] mom's house, [he doesn't] need it twice." Who cares. I celebrated Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving with my parents AND extended family - I got two celebrations... When I moved out, I celebrated with my coworkers, friends, family, then extended family. Now, we celebrate with coworkers, friends, EACH set of parents, EACH extended family, AND as our own little family... Horrible, I know.
we didn't see SD for valentines day and didn't do anything for her. money is tight this year as we have lawyer fees out the ears trying to go back to court with BM. all I did for DS was a card and DH got me flowers.
on the same hand if SD made valentines day cards at school we never saw one, so either she only made one and BM kept it or she made one for us and BM threw it away before we saw it.
our current CO says we split easter 50/50 so we will get to spend some time with her. we don't have a ton of money so we will probably just do little baskets and maybe color some eggs.
she is at the age where if she colors eggs at school and at BM's house she is bored with it by the time she comes to our house, which sucks for DS bc then I either need to do it when SD isn't there so DS gets the opportunity (which then makes me feel like a crappy SM for leaving SD out) or we do it with SD here and she is a brat and 'doesn't want to do it'
thanksgiving and xmas we have set times that we see her, we are currently going back to court to modify our CO anyway and all the holidays are being re-adressed.
I wouldn't say that we celebrate each holiday twice, but if we do not have SD on Easter or Valentine's day - there is always a basket or or box of chocolates/goodie bag waiting for her on her next visit. FWIW, she will be 14 soon. I STILL get Easter baskets from my Grandma. I don't think age should ever matter - it just changes the contents! LOL
As far as Christmas - we usually end up celebrating it a minimum of 3 times. My grandma's family - DH's family - and a celebration with my dad and brother's family. Thanksgiving is not recreated, however we celebrate on the day and an alternate day with Dad/brother. With any luck, SD is there for at least one of the meals.
"My thought is if they're getting the full celebration at their mom's house, they don't need it twice. I get that they have it rough because their parents are divorced, but I'm not going to spoil them because of it! On the other hand, if their mom didn't celebrate any holidays with them I would definately make up for it!"
I hope their dad feels differently. Those celebrations are a big part of the fun of childhood...how sad not to bother.
We only do that for Christmas, our visitations are too far apart (1 week every 3 mo) and birthdays.
We don't celebrate Valentines with the kids. With Easter, typically we only do Easter baskets when they are at our house, that being said DD is gone to her dad's when my SKs are with BM for the weekend so they were all just told that the Easter bunny didn't visit our house because there were no kids here that night. Last year was the first year with DS and we had all the kids, so we all colored easter eggs and they all got baskets. This will be the first time DS is with us while none of the other kids are. I haven't really thought about Easter yet, but I am guessing we will do baskets for everyone because there is a kid here now.
We don't celebrate the "Hallmark" holidays like Valentine's or St. Patrick's with SD, but when I'm buying something for DS, I'll buy her something as well (usually the same/similar thing). When DS wakes up, he sees that there's something for him on his placemat, and something for her on her placemat. It will stay there until her next visit and DS will tell her as soon as she walks in "look at what you got from the Easter bunny/Mum & Dad", etc.
I have to say that if she's not with us during Thanksgiving, we don't celebrate it afterwards. Definitely birthdays and Christmas get celebrated though, even if a bit late/early.
For Easter, no, my DD will get a basket but SD and SS won't this year (they are not with us on Easter this year).
For Halloween, they aren't with us, but I will make up little treat bags for them the same way I do for DD.
For Valentines day, I don't really do much for DD either, but i might buy them each a little bit of candy or something like that.
Basically, I look at it like this: An Easter Basket and all the fixin's/gifts to go in it might cost me $40-$50 per kid. That is a big gift and is supposed to be given in celebration of a specific day. I feel like to give that gift later or earlier makes the holiday seem like it's JUST about that gift. Easter isn't just about the basket to me. It's about specific religious things. For me, I celebrate Easter ON the day and that's it. For other holidays the gifts are smaller, and the purpose of the holiday isn't as religiously important so I feel ok about celebrating those holidays on a different day with Skids.