The unit that used to be referred to as the nuclear family has changed greatly, in the past generation. With the divorce rate steady at about fifty percent, families today split, then form new families, more than ever before. Step-families are common, which means that families are constantly undergoing changes, including changes in their traditions.

The holiday season is the time of year when the changes and adaptations in family traditions can be most acute. And it can be especially hard on younger children, who have spent the first few years of their lives learning to celebrate Christmas in a particular way, and who now may be expected to adapt their habits to their new surroundings.

For instance, most children cling to the belief that Santa Claus makes his famous journey late on Christmas Eve, when everyone is tucked in bed. Some families choose to gather and open the presents they’ve given one another on the night before Christmas. Others, however, wait until Santa’s come and gone, and there’s a huge pile of goodies under the tree on Christmas morning, before opening any presents at all.

Parents can help their newly formed families get through the holidays with a minimum of tribulation, but they need to begin planning early, before the busiest days of the season are upon them.

Often, the best way to accomplish this is for parents to sit down with their children, well before Christmas, and allow everyone in the new family to talk about what they expect, and what traditions they’d like to continue to observe and bring to the new family.

It’s possible, with custody issues, that the entire new family can’t be together throughout the Christmas holidays, at least not every year. Whatever the circumstances are, parents on both sides need to remember that their children didn’t create the current situations, that their children didn’t mandate visitation rights. But kids can be the unwitting victims of adult conflicts, especially when the holidays mean being torn from one parent or the other.

Christmas and the holiday season are the times of year when family is the focus of our celebration. Newly-merged families are neither inherently better nor worse than the families from which they were formed. Whatever celebration tradition each member brings to the new family is something that can enhance everyone’s holiday. Eventually, the new family will develop its own unique way of celebrating Christmas, and these new traditions will then be passed on to the next generation.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Divorce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.