Being a blended family has always been complicated around Christmas time with the kids spending time with the other parent.
Peter and I have always been very accommodating as to where the children have spent Christmas and most Christmases they opted to spend the time with the other parent.
It's never stopped us having Christmas. Peter and I have spent Christmas Day on our own, with my gran, with friends, gone out for lunch and during covid, spent Christmas on our own in different countries.
While the children lived at home, we had the added complication of contact with the biological mother of children 1 & 2. She would want them for Christmas and would let them down on Christmas Eve or cut their stay short, so it meant Peter and I would always have to be on stand by, when that happened we'd still have a Christmas on the Day with the full dinner and Santa stocking and presents and we'd do it all over again when the children 3, 4 & 5 returned from their fathers around the New Year.
In later years with child 1 living in residential care, her biological mother would book to have home for Christmas and every year on Christmas Eve we'd get a call from the care staff with some reason why she'd cancelled and we'd drive over to collect Stephanie. Eventually we told the care home they needed to ensure they had staff booked for the Christmas period or overrule her, or just let us have her for Christmas, but those who shout the loudest tend to get their own way and suffer no consequences.
We just carried on having our own Christmas on a day that suited us, when the majority of the children could be around.
2000
When we moved to South Africa for the first year the children went back to the UK to their father. Peter and I spent the morning in the pool and had a BBQ with friends in the afternoon. Christmas in the sun felt a bit strange, but we got used to it. Cooking a full roast was hard work.
Then we moved to Dubai and we had our first Christmas in a hotel, morning on the beach, the kids had a subway for lunch, we had sandwiches from a deli next door. We followed that up with Brunches in hotels, joined by kids, my mum one year on the QEII and finally our last year in Dubai, me in a hotel on the beach on my own, while Peter spent it with work colleagues behind closed borders in Saudi during covid.
The family has grown since this photo was taken and since coming back to the UK in 2021 our Christmases have become bigger with our children's families joining us.
2021
Pre Christmas fun with friends.
Christmas for blended families can be so difficult especially is the other parent isn't committed to following through with plans. We had a couple of challening years with my eldests biological dad many, many years ago.
ReplyDeleteIt must be so strange celebrating Christmas in the sunshine and hot weather.
I hope you are having a nice time in Las Vegas. xx