Institute of Step-Family Dynamics

Tag: step-family dynamics

  • Goal Setting That Works

    Goal Setting That Works

    This article was first published in Stepparentmagazine.com

    How many times have you set New Year’s Resolutions? How many have lasted beyond the first week in January? How many of them were building on celebrating your wins? How many were based around correcting your perceived faults?

    If you’re like most of us – the majority of your New Year resolutions did not last till the end of the year, and the bulk of them would have been to fix your ‘bad’ habits.

    What if we switched that up?

    What if we decided this year, this decade, we are going to base our goals on building on our strengths, on celebrating our skills and talents; on stepping into our most powerful selves…?

    So often our goals are based on comparison with others. They have more money, better stuff, nicer kids, happier families, better bodies…the list goes on and on. We see ourselves from a place of lack, of ‘could do better’, from a list of never-ending shoulds that we use to find ourselves wanting. Let’s make 2020 the year we kick that nonsense to the kerb. Let’s make 2020 the year we set ourselves up for feeling good about who we are and the journey we are on.

    Life is not a destination. We don’t have a perfect life once we achieve x, or buy y, or have z relationship. The only constant in life is change. Life is in a constant state of flux, unless we accept that the messy, imperfect state we are in right at this moment is actually ‘life’, we can miss it. We can get so caught up in trying to become something or someone, we forget to be.

    Being is all we have.

    We can aspire to make our ‘being’ more in alignment with our values. We can aspire to make our ‘being’ more joyful, productive, prosperous, healthy etc. What we need to remember is that that ‘more’ comes in increments, it sneaks up on us as we go about our lives. If we are active in pursuing our goals, the changes are small, gradual, sometimes almost imperceptible. Then BOOM – wow! We realise we are now going to the gym and enjoying it, or we have changed our eating habits and no longer think about how hard it is to give up the soda.

    It’s about being in the now, the small choices, the moments.

    So this year, choose to be you. Step into you. Embrace the being and be more of who and how you want to be in the world.

    I originally wrote this at the beginning of 2020, well before any of us realised what a shit show this year would turn out to be. The best laid plans were left as ashes as the global pandemic took hold. I’m publishing this towards the end of 2020 on my own blog. Everything I said back at the beginning of the year holds true now. We can start wherever and whenever we are. Deciding to step into ourselves without judgement may be the best gift we give ourselves in 2020. Or you might want to take this approach as you plan for 2021.

  • Step-Families in a Pandemic – Coping with Covid-19

    Step-Families in a Pandemic – Coping with Covid-19

    This article was first published in Stepparentmagazine.com at the beginning of the pandemic.

    Covid-19, or the Corona virus, is big news around the world. Schools are closing, borders are closing, toilet paper stocks are at all time lows. This is the perfect storm for step-family conflict. The support groups I am part of our blowing up with stories of parents wanting trips cancelled and being called unreasonable and parents bitterly disappointed at being asked to cancel plans and interpreting this as scaremongering and ways to create disconnects with the children.

    So let’s set aside the emotions and get practical.

    This is not a drill.

    This is not a hoax.

    This is not some political ploy created to make lots of money or get anyone voted out of office.

    This is the real deal.

    A pandemic.

    The World Health Organisation, who are not known for being panicked, have declared this is a world wide problem that needs proactive handling. The measures with which it will be handled are up to each country, so if countries are struggling to find approaches that work, how are families split over several houses going to manage?

    Here are some tips and guidelines:

    Follow the official directives.

    Crazy as it sounds, the official directives are there for a reason. It’s not about protecting your family, or whether you will be safe. It’s about the entire population and trying to ‘flatten the curve’. Without these measures the health system will be inundated with Covid-19 cases requiring hospitalisations. Think about how much stress the health systems are under just coping with existing health conditions, so imagine how impossible it will be if demand for services doubles, triples, quadruples. If you’re sceptical – have a read of this and check out the information about how the health system in Italy has been overrun.

    Be smart about resources.

    Yes, I know everyone is worried about running out of toilet paper and hand sanitiser, but these things will not keep you safe or your family fed if you are quarantined for 14 days. Money is also a factor for some families. If you are struggling to put food on the table at the best of times, trying to shop for an extra week or two can be mission impossible. Check out budget meal planners, make a menu and a list. Don’t buy more than you will need, I have heard of stores in the US being stripped bare.

    We think of being quarantined, but how many of us think about if we are sick while in the quarantine. Tins of beans and tomatoes are a great pantry filler, but are they something you will be able to manage to prepare if you are ill? I’ve stocked up on some packet pancake mix because I know the kids can make those. I’m usually a from scratch cook, but I’ve bought some risotto and other things that are heat and eat.

    What about medication? Have you got meds in stock for you and the children? What about paracetamol? Vitamins, chest rub etc? The time to get those things is now, before you need them.

    Be smart about the schedule.

    Now is not the time to be rigid about custody schedules. Lots of kids are off school. Some workplaces are closed and there are parents working from home. I know there are a load of work from home/at home stepmums right now terrified they are going to be landed with home schooling a load of kids because they are supposedly available.

    So what do families do when kids are sick or need to go into quarantine? Do the kids go from home to home, and therefore put 2 or more homes into quarantine as well? Or do they stay in the home they were quarantined to? Each family will have to work this out. It needs to be something that all adult family members, including stepparents are consulted about.

    Some possible discussion points are: who has vulnerable people in their home? Should the people in that home be exposed to people who have been exposed to risk of the virus? Who still needs to be able to go out to work? Should kids go and put the people in that home under quarantine, or does it make sense to restrict the risk?

    These are unusual times. The world won’t end if the kids spend 2 weeks in a row in one home. School work is not the end of the world. Be understanding if the tasks set aren’t done in the other home, you don’t know what pressures they are trying to handle right now.

    The universal advice so far…

    Wash your hands. Wash your hands. Wash your hands.

    That means wash them with soap. Wash them for about 20 seconds. Dry them.

    Wash them before preparing food. Wash them before eating. Wash them on coming into the house. Wash them after using the bathroom. Wash them after blowing your nose or sneezing.

    Wear a mask.

    Stay away from other people if you feel unwell, and get a test.

    Sneeze into your elbow.

    Limit physical contact – stop hugging/shaking hands etc with people outside your immediate family.

    Stop unnecessary travel – pretty much all travel now is unnecessary.

    Don’t flush wet wipes down the drain – it creates blockages and sanitary issues.

    Be kind – to yourself, people out and about, and damnit yes, even your difficult ex!

    Postscript: We are now over 18 months into this pandemic. New Zealand is experiencing it’s first nationwide level 4 (strictest) lockdown for over a year. We have been incredibly lucky till now.

    People in other countries are not doing so well. They are fatigued from dealing with Covid stress. It’s wearing people down and taking a toll. Old anxiety and depression foes are ramping up, relationships are bearing a toll.

    Don’t be afraid to reach out for help. I can guarantee you that it’s not your lack of coping skills, it’s incredibly difficult coping with the pandemic.

  • What About Me? Step/mums and Family Holiday Traditions

    What About Me? Step/mums and Family Holiday Traditions

    It’s amping up to ‘that’ time of year.

    Holiday stress is a thing. It’s more often a thing for women. It’s often a very different kind of thing for step/mums.

    Traditionally women are the keepers of family traditions, the holiday planners, they are the ones to whom the responsibility for creating a celebration that brings joy to the family falls. Doing all of that in a step-family dynamic adds a whole other realm of stress. Bringing different family traditions and expectations into a day that works for everyone, even when there are different custody schedules going on is exhausting.

    I’m not going to go in to a whole diabtribe about how gendered this is and how unreasonable these expectations are…because they absolutely are, or encouraging a whole wave of feminist rejection of tradition social norms. That’s not because I don’t believe that’s exactly what should happen, it’s because as women we are too damn tired to stage a revolt this close to the silly season. Let’s start that in January or February to make sure there is a fairer division of tasks and responsibilities next year!

    So in the meantime, how do we deal with the layers and layers of stress this can bring?

    Here are 5 tips I find useful:

    Lower expectations

    Lower…lower…lower…and still lower

    Am I being a Debbie Downer? No, I’m being Samantha Survivor!

    So much of our hurt in this season comes from the disconnect between our hopes and expectations and the reality that comes to pass.

    Is the ex who is a grinch all year suddenly going to be overcome with festive cheer and become super generous about access and time over the holidays? Unlikely! They have shown you who they are during the rest of the year – believe them!!

    Are family members who struggle with each other going to put all their differences aside and sit round holding hands singing carols? Also unlikely! They have shown you how they feel about each other during the rest of the year – believe them!!

    Is a partner who is an expert ducker and weaver when it comes to dodging household management going to stage a miraculous conversion to Martha Stewart or even Martha Stewart’s assistant come the holiday season? Nope, not likely. They have shown you their engagement in the household management during the rest of the year – believe them!!

    Finally – if you are not a Martha Stewart clone from January to October, are you going to suddenly become someone who decorates like an Insta story and cooks like a Pinterest board? Trust me, this is also unlikely.

    This is a nice segue into tip #2

    Set yourself up for success

    I can’t tell you how many times I have had grand plans (my family might say delusions of grandeur) about the kind of Christmas I was going to create. I can tell you those plans didn’t come off exactly that number of times.

    Life gets super busy at the end of the year. The days of me thinking I can bake cute cookies, make homemade bath bombs, and create an elaborate menu are a dim, distant memory. I know I will be tired. I know getting drunk on Christmas Eve makes for a challenging Christmas Day. I know inviting 23 people for Christmas Dinner and getting over exuberant with the Christmas Eve celebrating/stress drinking is even worse.

    • Make realistic menu plans
    • Ask for help
    • Leave something in the tank for the big days
    • Up your self-care

    Here comes tip #3

    Be selfish rather than selfless

    Sure, it’s the season of goodwill and going out of our way for others, but a stressed out step/mama is not able to be the font of goodwill. She’s likely to be the fountain of stress and ill will.

    Take some time out to plan. Take some time out to reconnect with yourself. Have a list of go tos that you know help soothe you. Mine are lying on my shakti mat listening to binaural beats, having a good supply of herbal teas, and a secret stash of my favourite chocolate bars. I pop in some moments of focused breathing and nice candles too.

    More importantly, I know when to say no and when to ask for help which is tip #4

    You don’t need to carry this load alone. Even though tip#1 was all about not looking for help in the wrong place, we still need help.

    Asking what people are willing to do is a game changer.

    I find rather than telling my darling what I want him to do – laying out the list of things that need doing and then asking him what he can take on is really effective. Sometimes he has no idea of what’s required, let alone how to do the things that are required. Sometimes he will then proactively engage our kids to step up and help. Him just doing that takes a massive load off me. I don’t have to deal with the arguments and excuses, and since he asks them to help out far less than I do…he gets a more positive response.

    The final tip is be clear about what you need.

    Whether it is the gift you would like, the response to your efforts, or how the day is going to play out. Speak out and speak up. So often we aren’t clear in our expectations and end up feeling disappointed in how the day unfolds. People only let us down if they didn’t follow through on what they said they would, often it’s us letting ourselves down because we didn’t make clear what we needed.

  • Stepmums Stepping In for Happiness…

    Stepmums Stepping In for Happiness…

    One of the pieces of advice I often see given to stepmums is to step back.

    They’re not your kids, step back and leave the bio parents to do the parenting. It’s not bad advice, but it is advice I’ve seen leave stepmums feeling disconnected from their families and powerless in their own homes. I’ve seen it lead to stepmums feeling they quite literally hate their stepkids, and their relationship is doomed.

    Being a stepmum is like dancing the Hokey Tokey – step in, no not that far – you’re overstepping. Step back, no not that far – you don’t care about your stepkids, you’re an awful person. Love those kids like your own, no not that much, that’s their mother’s role – how dare you try and replace her!!

    And round, and round, and round we go…Dizzy and exhausted with trying to contort ourselves into just the right amount of stepping in and stepping back to make everyone happy.

    There is our first mistake.

    There is no ‘making everyone happy’. It’s a mission in futility that most often ends in abject misery on our end.

    How about we start with the idea that it’s our job to make ourselves happy.

    *GASP*

    SAY WHAT NOW?!?! We are supposed to make our own happiness a priority? What about the kids? What about my partner? What will the mum think?

    Putting our happiness in the hands of someone else is such a dangerous game to play, for our own wellbeing and also for the wellbeing of our relationship. We are unconsciously setting our partners up to fail. We’re expecting them to know what we need, when we need it, and exactly how we need it.

    How on earth are they supposed to manage that?

    Yet, when we expect our partners to parent alone and to parent in the way we think the children should be parented, we are doing exactly that.

    I’ve seen so many stepmothers go from hating their stepkids to enjoying healthy, happy, loving relationships with their stepkids through stepping in.

    What do I mean when I say ‘stepping in’?

    Lots of times we talk about stepping up as part of becoming more of an active stepparent, but I prefer the idea of stepping in. It’s about moving into the family circle; it’s about creating a closer connection.

    Parenting is usually seen as how we mould kids to become functioning adults. We are teaching them who and how to be in the world and giving them skills to navigate life; that role is definitely the responsibility of the bioparents. As stepparents we can be co-pilots, but the main course setting and navigating needs to come from the bioparents.

    So, if the bioparents are in charge of that, what can stepparents be in charge of?

    Their own happiness in their homes.

    I correct the children for eating with their mouths open. I can hear a kid chew with an open mouth 2 rooms away. It is definitely in my top 10 triggers. My husband has a 50% hearing loss, he couldn’t care less, he can’t hear it. I am in charge of telling kids to close their mouths while eating. Not because I want them to have good manners, but because it drives me nuts when they don’t. I take responsibility for making sure my home environment works for me. The stepping back advice would be to eat separately. I’m not going to be pushed out of eating with my family because kids haven’t learned to eat with their mouth closed.

    See how that works?

    The priority is me ensuring that my home works for me. It’s an absolute bonus that the kids learn some basic table manners at the same time, but it’s not the end goal; my happiness and calm is.

    So often we expect our partners to care about the things that make us unhappy, when those things are not a priority for them. How would we feel if we kept being asked to tell kids off for things we don’t really care about, on top of telling them off for the things we do? How difficult would it be to catch them doing something we know upsets our partners, when we have become numb to it and have learned to tune it out? How frustrating and soul destroying to be in conflict with our partner because we just can’t parent how they think we should?

    It’s a double whammy. Our partners are caught in the middle, between an angry partner and resentful kids. Throw in an angry ex who is challenging why our partner is suddenly changing the rules…it’s a perfect storm of chaos and resentment.

    What does this mean in practical terms?

    It means it’s ok to ask kids to upskill their table manners, it’s ok to ask them to say please and thank you, it’s ok to ask them to pick up things and put them away. Exactly where this line starts and ends needs to be something you and your partner agree on. If your partner insists you can have no say in how things work in your home regarding the children and their behaviour, it is probably time to call in some expert help. Expecting you to live in a home where you have zero input in how it runs is not usually sustainable in my experience.

    While all of this might sound reasonable and doable, how do we prevent stepparent burnout while stepping in?

    I am very familiar with overextending myself when it comes to trying to make up for what I saw as deficits in the parenting of the children. For a long time I felt like I needed to make up for the things the children had not been taught or given by their bioparents. Finally – I got it.

    As stepparents we can’t be more invested than the bioparents are.

    Read that again.

    If it’s not a priority for the bioparents, we can’t expect to create sustainable change in our family. I’m talking big things here, like homework, chores, behaviour. The smaller things, like close your mouth or pick up your stuff, those things we can manage to a level that works for us. Being invested in kids getting a good education and being on task, those are the things where bioparents need to take the lead.

    So if you’re feeling powerless in your home, or as if the stepkids will be the death or you or at least your relationship, what can you do to take back your power and make your needs and happiness your priority?

  • Beyond Repair?

    Beyond Repair?

    We have some dining chairs that have seen better days. I’ve spent months trying to justify replacing them with something new and fancy. Between my scrooge-like and greenie tendencies, buying new chairs when we have perfectly serviceable ones is a hard sell. Too hard, it seems.

    So I decided that I would repair the 17 year old chairs. They are plywood and some of the laminate had begun to lift. Between that and the varnish that was very patchy, some wood putty and a paint job seemed like the solution. They may well last another 17 years and the trials of 7 children and associated family and friends.

    Yesterday I broke out the wood putty I’d purchased the day before. I didn’t get the tiny tin because I knew there were quite a few of the 6 chairs needing repairs. I puttied up the first chair. Easy! I then went looking for the next one.

    Nope, not that one. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Wait what? I went round again inspecting more slowly.

    Oh my goodness! The falling apart dining chairs was in fact a single chair. I have spent the last couple of years solid in the belief my set of dining room chairs were on their last legs. This was absolutely a false belief.

    One single chair had 2 areas of peeling laminate. A quick run over with wood putty sorted it out. I have put this off for so long because it seemed like such a daunting job! The sanding and painting will take some time, for sure. But the repairing of the broken chair…quite literally took a couple of minutes.

    It set me to musing.

    How often do we feel something is very broken, or will take a huge amount to repair, or needs replacing, when it is actually a simple fix. I was sorting clothes with one of my daughters, her favourite top had a pull in the fabric, she was about to get rid of it. I said I could fix it. I pulled the threads back through. It was fiddly. I swore a bit, but in the end, she had her top back. A top that previously she had thought was lost to her.

    These simple repair jobs remind me of my work, especially relationship work. People usually wait to seek help when the wheels are falling off. Things are so bad they have come to the realisation they need help. Often the first session is filled with expressions of hopelessness and fear the relationship can’t be repaired. There seems to be so much wrong.

    As we work together and unpack what the issues are, the number of chairs that are damaged lessens. We begin to see the problem is often the same issue, it just wears lots of outfits and manifests itself in different ways. Fixing it is not the huge job it seems, because it is a single problem, not a whole dining suite.

    Focusing on what is broken or what is wrong can lead us to believe things are hopeless or broken beyond repair. Someone with the ability to see the larger picture than the everyday disconnects can see a pattern and identify the common thread. They can see it can be a relatively simple fix. A relationship that seems broken can be mended with the right skills, knowledge, and tools.

    Relationships can be hard work, they can feel unfixable. Just like the top and the chair, very often they can be repaired. If you are wondering how you can repair your relationship, contact me on [email protected] and we can discuss a repair or maintenance plan for you and your partner.

  • New Year’s Revolution – or how not to fail at doing all of the things

    New Year’s Revolution – or how not to fail at doing all of the things

    Years ago one of the kids asked about New Year’s Revolutions. I thought it was cute and kind of accurate. As I thought on it again this year, I realised just how accurate it is. So often our New Year’s resolution are like a revolution in our lives. Out with the old, in with the new, get rid of everything we don’t like and we will live happily ever after in the new republic.

    Except we don’t.

    And then we do it again. Year after year. Decade after decade.

    All we are doing is reinforcing a sense of failure and helplessness.

    I gave up New Year’s resolutions quite a few years ago. I just couldn’t stand setting myself up for failure any more. My theme song when I tell myself I am going to do something goes something like F*ck you I won’t do what you told me! Honestly, the best way to get me not to do something, is for me to tell myself I should or it’s good for me.

    So I had to get off that merry go round. I had to start tricking myself into doing life enhancing things. Obviously the life span of that was short – I’m pretty smart, and I know myself rather well!

    So I started thinking about who I wanted to be, and what resources and actions I might need in order to be that person. Notice I used the word BE rather than BECOME. It’s kind of key here.

    This morning is a great example. For nearly a year now, I have wanted to be a person who walked their dog when they got up in the morning. For nearly a year now, I have been a person who wanted to walk the dog in the morning. Today I am a person who walks the dog in the morning. What changed? What is my magic formula? Which affirmations did I use?

    The only thing that changed was that I got up and walked the dog this morning.

    That’s it. No magic, no preparations, or incantations. Today I got so sick of not being a person who walks their dog in the mornings, I decided to change it.

    I’m not going to pretend I am now a person who walks their dog every morning. I’m not that attached to setting myself up for failure any more. I am now a person who knows walking their dog in the morning is as easy as getting up and walking the dog. I am pretty sure I can do this again. If I don’t do it one day, it will be because my higher value is not being a person who walks the dog in the morning. It might be because my higher value is resting because I am unwell, or getting somewhere early in the morning, or a myriad of other reasons that take precedence over being a person who walks the dog in the morning.

    I have tried so many different ways to become a person who exercises regularly. I have had lots of pain and injury issues, so the process used to start with me being active. It would progress to me getting out of relationship with my body in the eagerness of being active, from there it would turn to injury. The final chapter would be me being too scared to return to that activity in case I injured myself.

    I decided I wanted to become a person who could stay in relationship with body and keep my activity levels in line with my current physical capacity. This capacity is not static, so it meant checking in with my body as I did things. It meant taking rests. It meant realising it’s ok not to finish something I start if I get too tired or my body gets sore.

    Living this way means I know that some days I will be a person who walks the dog in the morning, and some days I will be a person who knows today is not a dog walking day.

    When we start to ponder the coming year, as we inevitably do around this time, rather than making a laundry list of all the things you are going to not do/do, what about instead pondering what kind of person you want to be.

    If you want to be a person who eats healthily, that might mean first being a person who stops buying unhealthy food. You might also need to be a person who replaces the unhealthy snacks and foods with healthy ones. You might want to consider being a person who notices when they crave unhealthy foods or habits and figure out how to avoid those moments.

    I stopped drinking alcohol about 18 months ago. It had just become a habit that wasn’t working for me anymore. I was sick of feeling subpar and having our social life revolve around alcohol. It was interesting watching when I craved a drink. It became really clear it was when I was very depleted and had pushed myself beyond the point of exhaustion. I knew then I needed to be a person who was aware of her available energy and did her best to not reach that point of exhaustion. If I had told myself my resolution was to stop drinking, my inner rebel would have had a huge tantrum and sabotaged within days. I know this, I’ve done it before. Deciding to be a person who didn’t drink alcohol, rather than stopping drinking is such a subtle difference, but for me it made all the difference.

    The photo above is my breakfast this morning. Today I am a person who wanted to fuel her body well. Tomorrow, I may not be that person, but I know that I feel better when I do this, so I will be a person who fuels her body well more often than not.

    The bottom line is – trying to stop or start things doesn’t seem to be very effective, instead focus on who you want to be. Give yourself grace for the days when you don’t want to be that person. It’s ok, we aren’t machines. We ebb and flow, we have days of high function and lower function.

    There is no magic to making change – be the person who does the thing you want to do, then you will be the person doing the thing you want to do.

  • The Ghosts of Christmases Past

    The Ghosts of Christmases Past

    We laid a few ghosts from Christmases past to rest this year. Christmas #9 for our blended family was a resounding success. It was not always that way. A time of joy and celebration for my children and I became a nightmarish stress that we all began to dread. It was a big wake up call for me. My kids quite rightly pointed out that Christmas was the one thing their father and I had got right. They loved it. It was the highlight of the year, and something they dragged friends along to so that they too could experience the Christmas joy.

    I started our blended family journey filled with dreams and optimism about a wonderful big family who all got on as well as the children did. That was my first mistake. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, just that there was a very large gap in the family cultures. The way we celebrated Christmas was very different, and me trying to make something that fitted with everyone’s wishes left me a stressed, disappointed mess, and everyone else feeling like they had been cheated of the Christmas they wanted and expected.

    It was my mother who made the brave call and set a boundary. She told me she wasn’t going to come to Christmas with my darling’s family any more. She explained it wasn’t about them, or not liking them. It was about her and my step-father being unwilling to embrace creating a new set of family traditions and cultures. They liked the ones we had just fine and were simply not on board with having to feel uncomfortable about someone else’s.

    My family are very focused on Christmas being about the food and hanging out. Presents are a very small part of the whole thing. My darling’s family was all about the gifts, and the food, but the food was very different to the food my family prepared. My parents found the amount of gifts exchanged too much. My in-laws hated my cooking, finding it too rich and fancy, to the point of them bringing their own Christmas lunch one year.

    I was stuck in the middle trying to find a way to make everyone happy, and failing.

    So the boundary set by my mother was a start to a new way of doing family and Christmas. It was awkward, my in-laws were hurt. It didn’t matter how much I tried to explain it wasn’t personal, it was about safeguarding their family traditions, it still felt like a rejection. I get it. It’s not nice to be excluded. The older kids then became more vocal about wanting to retain their traditions from their childhood and it became apparent that my dream of a big happy blended extended family was not the dream of everyone else.

    We tried several different incarnations of Christmas, none of them really felt right, until this year.

    This year the adult children came down on Christmas Eve eve. Santa came on Christmas Eve morning, so we had a relaxed time to enjoy opening presents. We had Christmas dinner with my parents and all of the 7 children on Christmas Eve. It was a nice relaxed day. We then had Christmas breakfast on Christmas Day with my parents and the 7 children. This was slightly less relaxed, with me losing my shit momentarily about showers, as we tried to get ready for a 9am start. This will need a little fine tuning for next time.

    After breakfast, we headed off to the in-laws and had a lovely afternoon and evening with them. My in-laws prepared a lovely meal, in the way they like to do Christmas. Having 7 people in their home was manageable and worked well. Today, Boxing Day, as I reflect on the previous couple of days, I feel as if we all had a good time and finally we have the recipe right.

    Creating new traditions is not an easy thing. Expecting people to give up their roles and traditions to accommodate yours doesn’t always work either. I love doing the hosting, but so do my in-laws. This way, we both get to host and shape a Christmas that fits our traditions and family cultures. My kids get their family traditions and also then get to go and spend the rest of the day with their paternal grandparents on what is traditionally their Christmas day with me. They get to experience their whole family, this is something many kids lose over the holidays.

    It took my mother stepping up and saying this is not working. It took my kids being miserable and threatening to boycott Christmas. It took me being sick of being disappointed and exhausted from the juggling of competing wants and needs, and failing. From the ashes of Christmases past, we have found a way to celebrate with our step-family dynamics. We have found a way to meet the competing wants and needs, without anyone feeling like they have been disregarded or missed.

    We only have the children every second year, we have chosen to do year about. It means I get a year off every second year and we do a mid-Winter Christmas instead. I used to try and do a special Kids Christmas before the actual one on the years the children are with their other parents. It become another obligation and stress for people to try and fit in around an already busy time of year. Doing something mid-Winter means it’s easier to find a time that works.

    We do a Secret Santa gift exchange, and Santa comes for all 7 of the children. It cuts down the costs for everyone, but I’m especially mindful of the costs for people as my parents approach retirement and the adult children are responsible for purchasing their own gifts. We each purchase one gift and sit round while each person unwraps. It’s fun, no-one feels like they are missing out and the joy each person gets from one single gift seems to be more than they get from a mound of presents.

    I encourage you to reflect on your celebration this year. Look at what worked and what didn’t. Decided whether some brave calls need to be made, and start designing a Christmas that will bring joy and peace for next year. Christmas is not about a single day in the calendar year, it’s about tradition and rituals that create memories of what family is. Let’s make them good ones.