Navigating Holiday Visitation: Balancing Family Time
Holiday visitations. Let’s talk about it. I’m Tulsa family law attorney Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office in Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing law for about seven and a half years now, mainly doing family and criminal law. I want to help make law easy by talking a little bit about holiday visitation schedules and how they can play into your case.
Now that the holidays are behind us, I’m getting a lot of these questions right now. What does holiday visitation look like and how does that play into my visitation schedule? So if you already have an established visitation schedule, a court order, lay it all out, maybe it’s week on week off, maybe it’s every other weekend. There’s always going to be a holiday visitation schedule attached to it.
Navigating Conflicts with Regular Visitation
Sometimes it’s going to conflict with your regular visitation schedule. So let’s say, for Thanksgiving, it’s supposed to be dad’s weekend, but it’s an even year and it’s mom’s year on the even year to have visitation, have Thanksgiving break, or Thanksgiving holiday. The way that the law treats it is that the holiday schedule is going to trump the regular schedule.
So what that means is that yes, under a regular visitation schedule, it should have been Dad’s weekend. However, it’s mom’s week because it’s a holiday. Now, a lot of people don’t like that answer because the way that would play out then if you’re looking at a calendar is if it’s an every other weekend type deal, if it was supposed to be dad’s weekend on Thanksgiving, that means mom had the kid the weekend before and it also means the mom’s going to have the kid the weekend after on top of having Thanksgiving holiday, Thanksgiving break, Thanksgiving week, whatever.
Reaching Compromises in Holiday Scheduling
Some parties I’ve seen kind of split it up between them: they each get the child for half the break. Some parties don’t or some parties can’t and they have to just go by the court order and that’s it. If you’re in a situation where you can’t reach an agreement or a compromise to share the time with the child, then you’re going to get in a situation where like in the hypothetical I just posed, mom’s going to have the child three weekends in a row, regular holiday, regular visitation, holiday visitation, then regular visitation again.
With the idea that it all evens out in the wash because next year it’s going to be dad’s time and so theoretically one would think that it would be, dad’s weekend and holiday and then dad’s weekend again. It doesn’t always play out like that but the rationale basically with the law is in the grand scheme of things overall time will play out the way that it’s supposed to as evenly as possible regardless of how bad it looks in that particular year.
Keeping the Child’s Best Interests in Mind
I tell all of my clients that holidays are special, they’re precious. Do what you can to try to share that time with the other parent. You may hate the other parent but they’re still the parent of your child and even if you wouldn’t spit on them if they were on fire, they love your kid just like you love your kid and they want time just like you want time and so don’t even think about the other parent.
Take that completely out of the equation and just think about your child. What is going to make them happiest? What’s going to be best for them? And try to share that time as best as you can and if you can’t that’s why we have these schedules, that’s why we have these court orders just to eliminate any of the fighting or the bickering.
Schedule Your Low-Cost Initial Strategy Session
I’m Oklahoma family lawyer Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help make law easy. If you have questions about your holiday visitation schedule or need legal guidance, don’t hesitate to reach out. Call us today at 918-879-1681 to schedule a low-cost initial strategy session and take the first step toward resolving your visitation concerns.
