If you’re about to celebrate Christmas for the first time since you and your partner have gotten a divorce, you may feel like you don’t have anything worth celebrating on Christmas Day. Even so, it’s important to move on with your life, and finding time to enjoy the holidays, even if hard, can be an important step in your own healing process. Even if you’re still paying for your family law solicitors in Brisbane, here are a few strategies to have a successful holiday.
Do It For The Kids
Sometimes for the first few Christmases as a divorced couple, you may want to come back together just to make things simpler on the kids. While that may be hard for you to stomach, it may be equally difficult for your children to reconcile having to split their Christmas between two parents. If you and your ex left on amicable terms, it may be possible to come together to celebrate the holiday for the sake of the kids. After all, child custody and child support can be tricky enough to juggle without making things more difficult for the children during the holidays.
Start New Traditions
If you prefer to make a cleaner break, it can be a good idea to start some new traditions. Doing so will help you disassociate the holidays with your ex, and can give you a new Christmas tradition to look forward to each year, too. For example, you might want to buy new candles for Advent if you didn’t celebrate the Advent season before your divorce. Finding ways to center Jesus Christ in your celebration and reframing new traditions around the birth of Jesus and the week of advent can help bring you peace of mind, too.
Do Something You’ve Always Wanted
If you feel like your previous partner was always holding you back when it came to celebrating the holidays, it may be worth taking time for yourself if you don’t have child custody this year. This could be going out to a nice dinner at a high-end restaurant on Christmas Eve to treat yourself or even going to midnight mass. Especially if the Christmas season is a difficult time for you, it can be helpful to prioritize your own needs and do something you’d never have been able to do with your ex around. While this sort of behavior doesn’t change the reality of your divorce, it can help bring you some joy during the holiday season.
Lean Into Friends and Family
Just because you’ve lost your husband or wife doesn’t mean that you need to be alone for the holidays. Remember to connect with your other friends and family members who appreciate you and would love the opportunity to celebrate the holidays with you. This may even mean you get to travel to visit family in another state, which can be a much-needed break from living in the same city you started out life with your ex in. Being around your siblings, nieces, nephews, and parents can help remind you that you still have a lot to be grateful for whether it’s a specific day of December or any other day of the year.
Keep Up With Your Self-Care
If you’ve been seeing a therapist following your recent divorce, make sure that you continue that habit during the holidays, too. Even otherwise happily married individuals may feel an uptick in stress and depression during the holidays due to additional familial and financial pressures. It’s a good idea to continue talking to someone who knows you and can help you navigate your emotions during such a fraught time of the year so that you can maintain a positive outlook during the season.