Resources Co-parenting
By Charles Brown November 10, 2026 • 5 min read
Whatever your custody order says, and the holiday schedule almost always beats the regular weekly one. The one line settles most December standoffs before they start: the holiday parenting time schedule supersedes the regular schedule. With the holidays bearing down on us, co-parenting advice is everywhere right now.
The order is what’s binding. It’s the fall back when you can’t agree upon deviation. So, this is about reading yours, using it, and knowing what to do when the other parent won’t.
Here’s how holiday parenting time actually works, and how to keep this year from turning into a fight at the front door.
It’s the part of your custody order that says who has the kids on specific holidays, sometimes summers, school breaks, and it overrides the normal week-to-week rotation. Thanksgiving, winter break, and the rest get their own rules precisely because the regular calendar can’t handle them fairly.
Often these schedules rotate by year. One parent gets Thanksgiving in even years, the other in odd years, and they swap. Winter break often splits in two, with a handoff around Christmas Day. What a holiday schedule can’t do is enforce itself or change itself. It sits there in your order doing exactly what it says, no more and no less, until a court changes it or both of you agree in writing to something different.
Read the actual order, not your memory of it. Sometimes people argue for weeks over holidays their own paperwork already decided! Take a look at the written order.
Pull the custody order or parenting plan and find the holiday section. Note the exact pickup and drop-off times, the exact dates, and which parent is “even year” and which is “odd year” so you know who’s up this time. The specific language controls, and vague language is where fights are born. “They split Christmas” means nothing at 2 p.m. on the 25th when nobody wrote down who drives. If the wording is fuzzy, that’s a problem to fix now, in October, not to discover on the doorstep in December.
Picture two parents whose plan says they “alternate major holidays” but never defines the hours. One assumes Christmas runs overnight. The other shows up at noon expecting the kids back by dinner. Nobody’s lying. The order just left a hole, and a holiday morning is the worst possible time to find it.
A big caveat to this line of thinking about specificity of dates, hours, transportation, and the like is that a divorce is not a single issue problem. Divorces are complex where there are children, real properties, businesses, trusts, investments, vesting schedules, tax implications, mental health issues, public scrutiny, and similar. Sometimes, if two parties are getting along, communicating, and coparenting well, but are far from an agreement on complex property issues, a simple solution that lacks otherwise helpful specifics may be the answer. If a problem then arises in the future, address it then, after the divorce and property division are complete.
This is an important strategy decision. Throughout a divorce people face many battles. If you do not, from the outset, choose your priorities and envision the outcome you want, you will never get there. Getting “there” starts with seeing it.
Once you make the strategic decision about where you want to end up, every battle along the way becomes instantly clear: it is either important or unimportant, aligned with your vision or misaligned with it.
Yes, again, almost always. The idea is the same everywhere, but the rules and the remedies vary.
Many states require a parenting plan to spell out holidays and exchange logistics in the first place, so a bare-bones order may not meet the standard. Enforcement differs more. Colorado, for example, lets a shortchanged parent file a motion over a parenting-time dispute and ask the court to order make-up time. Florida courts can order make-up time-sharing, fees, and in serious cases hold a parent in contempt.
The parents who have smooth holidays aren’t luckier. They read the order early and nailed down the details while everyone was calm. That is generally ideal, but there can be reasons to do it differently.
Confirm the dates, the times, and the exchange spots in writing with the other parent, even if you think you both know. A short confirming message beats a confident assumption. If the other parent is signaling they won’t follow the schedule, don’t wait and hope. A denied holiday is hard to give back once it’s gone, and courts move faster when you raise it before the date than when you show up afterward asking for a do-over. If your order is vague or just doesn’t fit your lives anymore, a small fix made in the late summer or fall is worth far more than an emergency fight in the third week of December.
Whether yours needs a tune-up or real enforcement is the kind of thing worth sorting before the season, which is exactly the call we help parents make all the time. The goal isn’t to win the holiday. It’s to let the kids enjoy it.
If your parenting plan needs a tune-up or the other parent isn’t honoring it, this is the season to deal with it. Brown Carrington helps families across Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Georgia, and Florida.
This article is general information, not legal advice about your situation.
Last updated: October 29, 2026
Sources: WJLA, co-parenting holiday tips (October 29, 2026) [Add link before publishing.] ; Divorce.law, “Holiday Custody Schedules in Colorado,” https://divorce.law/guides/holiday-custody-schedule/colorado/ ; Divorce.law, “Holiday Custody Schedules in Florida,” https://divorce.law/guides/holiday-custody-schedule/florida/
Document it and act quickly. Depending on your state, you can ask a court to enforce the order, order make-up time, or in repeated cases hold the other parent in contempt. Courts respond better when you raise it before the holiday than after it’s passed.
Yes. If both parents agree, you can trade or adjust holidays. Put it in writing, keep a calendar throughout the year, be specific about dates and times, and keep the message. A verbal “sure, that’s fine” is hard to rely on if things sour later.
Then the regular schedule usually controls for that day, which is often not what either parent expects. Gaps like this are worth fixing before they cause a standoff. If you can’t agree, a court can clarify or modify the plan.
It depends on your order. Many plans require notice or the other parent’s consent for travel, especially out of state or overnight. Check the language before you book anything, and get any needed sign-off in writing.
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