Celebrating Christmas with a blended family

• If the two sets of children don't normally live together, try and find a bed for each or have all the kids camp out on sleeping bags in the family room. It's hard to be the kid who has to give up his or her bed, and it's hard to be the kid whose "visitor status" is made very apparent because he or she doesn't have one. Bunk beds and rollaway cots may help.

• If you hang stockings, make sure there is one for each child.

• If everyone will be biking or skating, borrow or rent some equipment for the children coming for the holiday.

• Help the children make or buy small gifts for each other.

• If you are going to be including a family letter in your cards this year, ask all of the children to contribute a paragraph to it. If you send a picture, choose a photo that has all of you in it.

• Make sure there are photos of both sets of children in your home. (Especially on the fridge.)

• If your children get along well, consider some joint gifts like board games. If you are just getting to know one another this year, find books or craft kits that will allow each child some private time during the holidays.

• Be sensitive when choosing Christmas movies the first year. Find funny ones neither set of children has seen before.

• If your "in-house" children are very young, sharing toys can be difficult. Help them decide ahead of time which toys they feel they can share. Find a box with a lid to put the other toys in and put the box away in their closet to keep safe until after the holiday.

Many of us bear the scars of divorced parents and difficult holidays ourselves. You have the opportunity to change that for your own children.

"You can't change your own past, but you can build a good past for someone else. That's not a bad way to repair the damage."

-- Andra Medea, author of Conflict Unraveled

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Excerpted from Gifts from the Heart: Simple Ways to Make Your Family's Christmas More Meaningful by Virginia Brucker. Copyright 2006 by Virginia Brucker. Book sales support cancer research. To date, over $98,500 has been raised for the Canadian Cancer Society. A newly revised and expanded edition of Gifts from the Heart is available at bookstores across Canada.

 

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