My uncle is probably getting ready to start his Christmas shopping right about now. From what he’s told me, it’s neither an avoidance nor a bargain-maximization thing.
It’s an immersion process for him that feeds his Christmas Spirit.
Divorced families will be adding miles to minivan odometers right alongside my dad’s brother, of course. I see from the Michigan Parenting Time Guideline, that nine o’clock tonight is recommended for these big holiday time parenting switches. [1]
With a statewide Friend of the Court caseload of 697,506 custody matters, that’s reason enough for me to walk Mrs. Poyndexter’s Samoyed this evening. [2-3]
Or you could confront this conundrum of Rubik’s-Cube-meets-Palm-Pilot by following advice from The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. They suggest multiple Christmas Days, per Scandinavian tradition (God bless Granny Reeves’ proud heritage and mine): Their “second Christmas Day” is called “Boxing Day.” [4]
Draw your own inferences from that.
As a mediator, what I would like to point out here is that you can truly create win/win situations if you’ll only expand your thinking just a little bit. We’ve sung “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as long as I can remember; and retailers have already established that “Christmas” began more than a month ago.
So why get hung up on exacting one’s legal share of a 24- or 48-hour period that, by it’s very splitting, becomes tarnished?
Think outside the box: That’s my Christmas wish for you — and for my uncle, who’s Rendezvous may move a little swifter without our baggage.
Off-Site References
“Twelve Days of Christmas Aren’t Enough” / December 24, 2004 / Divorce Balance (via Internet Archive, accessed August 8, 2024)
- “Michigan Parenting Time Guideline” / State Court Administrative Office (SCAO), Michigan Courts (via Internet Archive, accessed August 8, 2024)
- “Friend of the Court Statistics 2002” / State Court Administrative Office (SCAO), Michigan Courts (via Internet Archive, accessed August 8, 2024)
- Therapy Dogs International (accessed August 8, 2024)
- “It’s all relative” / December 24, 2004 / Yvette Alcott / The Sydney Morning Herald (via Internet Archive, accessed August 8, 2024)
- “2002 Buick Rendezvous CXL – MotorWeek Retro” / November 3, 2022 / Retro Car Reviews (via YouTube, accessed August 10, 2024)