Holiday Survival Tips for Step-Moms

Because you may not know me, I would like to give you a little background info and explain my experience in this subject. My husband and I met a little over 10 years ago and fell in love. He has 4 children - two from one relationship and two from a second relationship. When we met, the younger two were 2- and 4-years-old. His older two were in junior high school, so they were already busy with sports and other activities.

It was not easy. I was 23 and for lack of a better way to put it, wasn’t a huge fan of kids. I had 2 nieces that I adored and spent a lot of time with, but it’s been well-known in our family since I was about 10 and helping take care of my little brothers and sister that I had no desire to be a full-time momma. It just really wasn’t my thing. I think there are “kid people” and there are aunties and I just happened to find myself in the second category.

**Disclaimer needed here. Please don’t tell me that if I had children of my own that I might feel differently. I won’t. I promise. I should also say that I absolutely love and adore my step-children and treat them as if they are my own and always have. I just never wanted to be solely responsible for another tiny human.

So, let me get to the point of the post. Holidays can be tough when you have your kids full-time, but when you have step-kids, schedules can be a real challenge. We have to schedule around two other moms, not just one, and at times, that can create some friction (if we let it).

I am big on Christmas traditions. Like, crazy. We’ve done the same things in my family for as long as I can remember. Christmas decorations went up the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas at my aunts was always the Saturday before Christmas, Christmas Eve was with my dad and step-mom and Christmas Day was with my mom and step-dad. We were really rooted in traditions.

And then I met George. And some of my traditions had to be modified or I had to accept that they would look a little different. That’s normal. But instead of getting angry about that or trying to mold lots of other people to fit my expectations, I learned how to make it work.

So, this holiday season, here are some things I would suggest. As the step-mom, you aren’t the most important person in the equation. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. I have to remind myself of this once in a while, too.

• Talk about schedules in advance. We are planning to take our girls to see The Christmas Carol at the Fox Theater in a couple of weeks and before I bought the tickets, I double-checked schedules with their mom. If you haven’t already done this with the other parent, start now. You have about a month to get things figured out for the holiday season. Kid concerts, plays, church services, who wants Santa to come when - the whole deal. It’s going to make things so much easier and more pleasant when you have the whole timeline.

• Plan. Communicate how your schedule is going to look with other members of your family. If extended family is involved in any way, make sure they are looped in as well. You’ll know plenty in advance if you need to adjust anything to make it work.

• Have an open mind. My husband and my oldest step-son both work non-traditional schedules, so sometimes we have to be open to switching things up a little. What I’ve learned is that you can adapt some of your traditions to still work for you, they may just look a little different. What I mean is that some years Santa has come while we were at my aunt’s Christmas party, so we opened gifts when we got home that evening. Other times, Santa comes a few days before Christmas, so we open gifts the morning he arrives. And last year, I think Santa came in the middle of the afternoon and we opened gifts before we went to church. Having all four of our kiddos together is really important to us and that’s one thing that we can be a little flexible with.

• Delegate travel schedules. It’s about an hour each way to pick up and drop off our girls and that is with their mom meeting us half-way. My husband works midnights, so it’s not safe for him to drive that much right after a night at work. I take those shifts. But when I’m cooking for Christmas, he will go get them so that I have plenty of time to finish prepping. We always have these things figured out in advance so there’s no frustration trying to figure out who is going where and when.

• Be nice. This is really a good step-mom rule in general, not just at the holidays. We are all different, but even during the early days when we could have had a lot of conflict, I chose to let my husband be the point of contact with his ex and when I did see her, I was nice. For the last few years, she and I talk a lot more because I genuinely like and appreciate her and what she does for our girls. We’ve developed a friendship and I am grateful for that. You have to remember that the other parent is the actual parent and that she wants to have time and traditions with the kids, too. You want them to have happy memories, so don’t use this as a time to start conflict or put stress on the kids to choose which parent they want to spend time with.

• Enjoy the time you do have with your step-kids. They grow up fast. Every year, I love looking at my TimeHop app because I see the pictures of all four of the kids and how much they grown up and changed since I first came into their lives. Kids really do make the holidays fun and we have ours as much as we can.

• Schedule alone time with your spouse. Because there are so many events and so much time picking up and dropping off kids during this time of year, make sure you’re spending quality time with your spouse. You don’t want to just “get through” the holidays, you want to enjoy the people who mean the most to you. And it’s easy to focus on the step-kids and their needs during this time, but that makes it easy to disconnect.

Above all, have a wonderful holiday season with those you love! No one wants to spend the month of December with a Grinch...