Democrat and Chronicle - December 19, 2001

By Estalyn Walcoff

During the holiday season, stepfamilies often experience even more stress than usual.

Besides the normal challenges of finding the right gifts and spending the right amount of time with everyone’s relatives, there’s the added stress of blending two families, each with its own unique rituals and customs and maybe even different religions.

Added to this mix is the need to make sure the kids get time with both biological families, both extended families, and maybe even with the extended families of their stepparents. The whole thing sounds exhausting and bewildering, doesn’t it? How do we ever make it through?

Over the years, I’ve heard many different stories of how stepfamilies have learned to cope with the holidays and thought I’d share some of their solutions.

When “Bill” and “Carly” came to me for counseling, they had been married for just three months and were facing their first Christmas together.

According to their divorce decrees, his son and her two daughters spend each Christmas Day with the other parent.

Hence, Bill and Carly were both feeling abandoned by their kids and saddened at the prospect of being alone on the holiday. Neither relished the idea of making a big dinner for just themselves or going out to a restaurant for the meal which they’d find depressing, too.

The solution they came up with was very creative and has suited them well for five years now: They would have a big Christmas dinner on the Sunday before the 25th with all the children and allow each child to bring a friend. On Christmas Day, they would take out Chinese food, rent videos and hide out. Apparently, the kids really look forward to their extra holiday feast each year and Bill and Carly feel the same about their unique celebration.

Because “Ellen” is Jewish and “Ted” is Presbyterian, they decided to create a winter holiday ritual day unique to their blended family. So they now celebrate solstice, the first day of winter, every year. In this way, they are assured of one evening that week that they are all together. They light red candles, drink apple cider which is then poured over the logs in the fireplace for good luck and read The Gift of the Magi out loud. Presents are exchanged and the kids get to decide on the meal and participate in preparation and cleanup.

Besides solstice, Ellen and her daughter celebrate Hanukkah and whoever wants to join in, can. Because Ted has a very friendly relationship with his ex-wife, he and his sons and ex-wife spend Christmas morning opening gifts together at the ex-wife’s house. This was very difficult for Ellen, at first, but after a few years, she accepted this practice because she felt confident that Ted loved her very much and was keeping up with this ritual purely for the sake of his sons. She also decided to make a special ritual of having pancakes out with her daughter on Christmas morning.

“Mary Ellen’s” mother was having a very difficult time including Mary Ellen’s stepchildren, “Mike” and “Sara,” in her Christmas plans. Mary Ellen’s mother had been very close to “Jim,” Mary Ellen’s ex-husband, and was angry at her daughter for leaving him and was taking it out on the children. Mary Ellen’s new husband, “Bob,” said he’d rather stay home if his children weren’t welcome.

When she came to me, Mary Ellen was torn between her husband’s wishes to stay home and her own desire to spend the holidays with her parents and siblings. I asked her to prioritize. She realized that she really valued her new husband and that her mother was being mean-spirited and punishing and although it was very difficult, she told her mother she wouldn’t be coming this year unless her stepchildren would be welcomed. Fortunately, her mother was able to welcome the children rather than lose Mary Ellen’s presence. When they arrived Christmas morning, there were two new stockings over the fireplace with kids’ names on them.

When I counsel stepkids, a whole new set of issues arises during holiday time. No matter how amenable they are and how adaptable they seem, kids are usually hurting during this time because they are reminded of how the biological “intact” family used to be.

What’s the best way to handle this? Allow them the opportunity to talk about it, even offer them the time to talk about it. Nothing hurts as much if it’s allowed to come out in the open and be heard. If your kids aren’t talking, take them out for pizza, individually or together, and talk about what holidays were like when you were an intact family. “Remember what it was like when …,” you can say. Or take out the family albums and laugh together over how silly Dad looked dressed up as Santa. You can say, “I’ll bet you’re sad we can’t go to grandma’s altogether again” or “I wouldn’t blame you if you were mad at your dad and me for fighting all the time and getting divorced.”

Kids always are relieved to hear that the sadness and anger they have about the divorce and remarriage are normal and OK. It is only after grieving the demise of the “old” family that they can start being open to the benefits and joys of the new one.

Walcoff is president of the Stepfamily Association of Rochester and a stepmom. She has a private psychotherapy practice in Brighton.