With the holiday season upon us, you likely look forward to added time away from work to spend with your family. Yet getting the most out of that time can be difficult if you share custody of your kids with your ex-spouse. Coming up with a holiday visitation schedule that both you and your ex-spouse agree upon can be difficult due to each of you wanting as much time as possible with your kids.
Yet you both should have the incentive to come up with such an agreement, as the possibility exists (at least according to the website for the Supreme Court of Virginia) of the court determining such a schedule if the two of you cannot make a determination on your own. Thus, you and your ex-spouse may want to look to set aside any contentions and come up with your own amicable agreement.
Splitting up time equitably with the kids during the holidays
There are different options available to you when coming up with a holiday custody schedule. Yet whichever one you settle upon, it must also take into account your kids’ extended holiday break from school. A possible solution, then, would be for one of you to keep the kids for half of the break (starting on the day schools dismiss students), with the other keeping the kids for the other half (up until the day before classes resume).
As for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, you may want to consider allowing your ex-spouse to have the kids for Christmas Eve and Christmas (and then you subsequently having the kids on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day) on odd-numbered years, and then swapping holidays on even-numbered years.
Taking other important dates into account
Birthdays also present the potential for custody issues. One way to get around them might be to follow a similar agreement as the aforementioned holiday schedule.
