Senior Anna Carlson wakes up on Christmas morning to find that the joy of Christmas brought her parents together, “just for Christmas.”

Divorced families don’t have the luxury of following their past holiday routines as they did prior to parental separation. “Before my parents divorced we used to visit my relatives in other states,” said Carlson. It is important to remember that families do not divorce, only the parents. “We stopped visiting family and having dinner together,” said Carlson.

“What we usually do is switch off every other year for Thanksgiving and Easter, and then I split Christmas in half and spend half of the day with my mom and half with my dad. Having two households results in around five-ish Christmas celebrations,” senior Sela Patterson said.

Freshman Weston Lambard has a similar situation,“For Christmas I would be with my mom and then for Christmas Eve I would be with my dad. Then I would flip flop every year.”

These are the decisions that divorced families have to make during the holiday season.

“The holidays can be kind of chaotic with two households and finding presents for 4 parents and everyone else, but it’s also really exciting to have so many people that I get to see” Patterson said.

The most popular and common method according to Today’s Parenting magazine is for the children to alternate parents every other year. “In my family for each holiday we switch back and forth every year with which parent we spend the holiday with,” sophomore Lexi Hilton said.

Another popular way for families to get together over the holidays are for parents that are living in the same area is to divide the holiday, splitting up the days equally

The third way is to join together and form new traditions. Larger extended families can lead to more and better memories. “On Christmas morning my parents–both my parents–open presents together,” said Carlson

Regardless of the way the families choose to celebrate, planning seems to be crucial. This can be as mundane as trying to avoid double gifts for the little ones to the complexity of older children spending time with friends.

Even though the divorce can be a hard event and the holiday season can make it more difficult, good things can emerge. “We still have a Christmas morning where we open up presents” Carlson said.

“When we miss spending Christmas, for example with one parent, they usually do a ‘make up Christmas’ a week or two later where we open presents, eat yummy food and have family time to make up for not being with them that year,” Hilton said.

Carlson remembers the years before her parents’ divorce, “We used to go visit my family in other states [during the holidays] but once they got divorced we stopped visiting them because then we switched off [and couldn’t travel].”

Despite having a divorced family, students are able to bring the spirit of Christmas to their celebrations.