Holiday Mantra for Stepparents: Don’t Take it Personally

As we head into the last week of the Christmas holiday, life gets dicey. Emotions are heightened as we try to find the perfect gift for our stepchild or negotiate that last-minute schedule change with our ex.

And if we, as stepparents, are carrying emotions too closely to our heart, we can easily take flippant comments and haphazard looks personally.

But that’s a recipe for disaster.

When my stepdaughter was younger, I was overly sensitive to everything she said to me. One day we were talking about how she liked her mom to French-braid her hair and she said, “Why can’t you French-braid my hair? I think it’s weird that you don’t know how.”

Well, that was enough to hurt my feelings. I couldn’t recognize the fact that she wanted me to be more involved in her life and this was something we could do together. Instead, I took it as a personal attack.

The stepmom role is a complicated one but sometimes we make it harder because of our insecurities. We think we’ll never measure up to their biological mom and we compete with her and compare ourselves constantly, always coming up short.

If we learn to spend more time improving upon who we are already, we’ll be a better stepparent. And if our stepchild can’t accept us that way, that’s okay. God created each of us as a unique person.

We might be criticized for being someone different than our stepchild understands. Perhaps she can’t accept our short hair because her mom wears her hair long. Or maybe our stepchild doesn’t understand why we work from home when her mom leaves the house every day at 6:00 a.m. for a corporate job.

But, if we’re secure in who we are, it won’t bother us when our stepchild questions our choices. Our natural reaction becomes: I won’t take that comment personally or get defensive. I will accept her thoughts as her own, even if they’re different from mine.

Stepfamily authority Ron L. Deal says it best in his book, The Smart Stepfamily: “Stepparents cannot afford to be insecure. Stepfamilies were not made for the emotionally fragile.”

It’s easy to be overly sensitive to our stepchildren’s comments, particularly through the holidays. But as we become more confident and at peace with ourselves, we’re better equipped to foster a healthy stepparenting relationship, allowing critical or judgmental comments to slide right past us.

Will you adopt the holiday mantra: don’t take it personally? How might that influence your step-relationships?

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Offering the Gift of Prayer

Our three college children have been taking semester finals last week and this week. I’ve been praying for them diligently as I remember how overwhelming final exams can be.

As I was finishing my Christmas shopping this week, I ran across a merchant inside the mall who was selling hand-made gifts from Bethlehem. It was intriguing to look at the beautiful hand-carved pieces. When I spotted one of praying hands, I knew immediately I would purchase it. And not only did I purchase one, I purchased six of them.

My idea is to place one of the praying hands inside each of our children’s stockings and my husband’s stocking. I want each of them to keep it as a reminder that I will be praying for them daily in the upcoming year and if they have a specific need, they can always ask me to pray about it.

Four of our children are young adults, ages 18 – 26, and are making life-changing decisions at this juncture. I’m vividly aware of the mistake I made at 23 years old when I married a man that was a complete mistake, ending in divorce after years of heartache and pain. My hope is that none of our children make a dreadful decision like mine.

So I’m offering the gift of prayer to my family this year. It may not seem like a big gift and I know some of our children will appreciate the gift more than others, but it’s a gift I feel is important.

What do you think? Will you consider offering the gift of prayer for your family?

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Coping with Difficult Emotions Through the Holidays

If you’ve stopped by from Tricia Goyer’s blog today: Welcome!

Today’s post is an excerpt from our e-book, Thriving at the Holidays: A Stepparent’s Guide to Success – Unwrapping the Gift of Peace 

“My stepson and stepdaughter lost their mother after a short battle with cancer several years after my husband and I married. Because of their loss, the holidays have never been the same for them. She died in August and naturally the first Christmas season was very difficult. But I didn’t anticipate how difficult every holiday after that would be also.

I’ll never forget the second season after thier mother’s death. My adolescent children were having a wonderful time decorating the tree, singing Christmas carols, and reminiscing of Christmas’ past. Without warning, my stepson abruptly uttered some angry words and retreated to his room. His sour mood dampened the atmosphere for the girls – momentarily for all of us!
…

Difficult emotions present themselves with every holiday season. And in blended families, complicated circumstances compound them. But we can make a choice to refuse to let them consume us.

It’s vital that we allow ourselves to “feel” our feelings. That means we don’t stuff them, we don’t deny them, we don’t avoid them through busyness, and we don’t compensate for them by overeating, drinking, or using any sort of sedative. Feelings eventually pass if we give ourselves permission to “feel” them.

Seek out support during stressful periods. Talk with a friend, a pastor, or another stepparent as you process your feelings. Relay your concerns to your spouse and ask for his/her support on hard days. You don’t have to walk the stepparenting journey alone – a comforting friend or a godly prayer partner may offer the support you need to get through a difficult day.”

Read more on coping with difficult emotions when you purchase our e-book here.

Are you struggling with difficult emotions right now? How do you cope with them? Will you share with us in the comments?

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Immanuel – God is With Us

One of my favorite Christmas carols is “Immanuel.” As we sang it in church this past week-end, I thought about the words to the chorus:

                                Immanuel our God is with us
                And if God is with us who can stand against us
                                     Our God is with us
                                            Immanuel

In the madness of the holiday season, it’s easy to forget God is with us. As we frantically seek to meet every obligation, we begin to think only of ourselves and how to survive the craziness. But Immanuel still wants to be part of our lives as we search for the perfect gift for our stepchild, attend our child’s Christmas program, or negotiate the visitation schedule with our ex-spouse.

If we remember to include God in our interactions with others, He will “stand against us” as the song says. He will fight for what we want and work on our behalf to meet our needs in the midst of challenging circumstances.

But if we try to do everything in our own strength, we will make self-centered decisions, we will have brash interactions with others, and we will run out of energy before our tasks are accomplished. 

So the choice is ours. Will we make it a priority to include God in our holiday schedule or will we choose to walk our own path and miss the blessing God offers when we choose to walk with Him?

I encourage you to listen to the entire song of Immanuel here. It’s words will speak meaning to an empty heart or a burdened soul.

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)

What choice will you make? Will you share how you make it a priority to include God in your everyday schedule despite the distractions of the season?

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Keep Christ in Christmas
 
*”Immanuel” is written and sung by Michael Card

 
 

        

If It’s Not Working, Do Something Different

Have you ever become so stuck in your way of doing things that you can’t realize there’s a better way? Do you insist on doing things the way they’ve always been done?

Could it be time for a change at your house?

From our Thriving at the Holidays:A Stepparent’s Guide to Success e-book:

“From my early years, I had wonderful childhood memories of my parents and three sisters picking out a tree together and decorating it while engaged in lively conversation, enjoying Christmas music in the background. I was determined to carry out that blissful tradition with our blended family. But I soon discovered … that wasn’t possible.

Every year, my husband and I would gather our four children together and hit the streets for the best looking tree we could find within our budget. But every year we ended the evening with grumpy kids who were fighting over what tree looked the best. And we noticed the kids were competing with each other over what sized tree they had at their other parent’s home, creating further tension and division among themselves.

So, after several years, my husband and I finally decided to forego the stress-filled tree-shopping excursion and buy an artificial tree.

It was sad for me at first to admit that our family couldn’t enjoy the same blissful tree-shopping experience my family of origin had. I wanted our family traditions to be a way of uniting our family, though, and I knew this tradition wasn’t working for us. I soon discovered that the new tradition of retrieving the artificial tree from the attic, putting its branches in place, carefully arranging each string of lights and actually enjoying our time together was worth the change.”

What about your traditions? Are they working for you or do you need to consider a change?

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Seven Tips for Finding Balance in the Midst of Holiday Chaos

Our family leaves on an extended holiday trip in just over 2 weeks and I keep wondering how I’m going to get everything done. So, here are a few tips I’ve created to help myself maintain balance during this busy time of year - I hope you find them helpful also.

1. Prioritze your schedule to include activities most important to you. Say no to everything else and to obligations someone else can manage.
For me, that includes attending my son’s Christmas party at school, special church services, a holiday piano performance in our hometown, a few Christmas parties, and various other events. However, it doesn’t include ladies bunko night, the symphony performance, or lunch with each of my girlfriends to exchange gifts – there simply isn’t time for all that. 

2. Start each day with a spiritual act – prayer, devotional, Bible reading, listening to songs of praise, etc. to center your mind and soul for the day.
When we start our day with God in control, it allows for a God-centered day instead of a  man-centered one.  

3. Don’t allow someone else power over your emotions (i.e. ex-spouses, children/stepchildren).
Commit to staying in control of your emotions instead of allowing someone else to take that power from you. Walk away from volatile emotions or heated conversations. Engage in communication via e-mail or texting if necessary.

4. Stay faithful to healthy eating patterns and a regular exercise routine.
Get up earlier than usual if you need to, but don’t skimp on exercise and sensible eating. You will feel better and manage your demanding schedule more competently if you maintain healthy habits through the season.

5. Break down consuming tasks into chunk-size actions that can be completed a little at a time.
For instance, I easily become overwhelmed when I think about shopping for our five children in addition to parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, etc. However, if  I choose one child to focus on until I’m finished and then move to the next child or a parent or whatever, the task seems less daunting.

6. Commit to making each day positive.
We have so much to be thankful for and if we choose to focus on the positives in our life, we will manage our schedule with greater ease. If we have a bump in the road one day, we can choose to pick ourselves up and keep moving forward instead of allowing negative thoughts to set in.

7. Read Thriving at the Holidays: A Stepparent’s Guide to Success – Unwrapping the Gift of Peace (an easy-to-read e-book) to find additional tips on maintaing balance and creating a peaceful season.  

There they are - 7 tips for finding balance during holiday chaos.

Do you another tip to add? Would you please share it with us?

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Your Holiday Doesn’t Have to be Perfect to be Meaningful

I’ll never forget the first holiday season our family celebrated together. My husband and I had married in mid-October and the holidays descended upon us before we could get settled in our new surroundings. My expectations of a joyous holiday season quickly faded as the reality of chaos and heartache took over.

Blending four young children, managing a harried schedule with two uncooperative ex-spouses while grappling with my expectations of a perfect, first holiday ignited a simmering blaze that burned throughout the season, leaving behind a trail of hurt feelings and defeat.

How could I expect it to be perfect? Because I’m a perfectionist. I wanted to prove to myself and others that, despite the odds of our new marriage and complexities, we could have a perfect, delightful holiday season. I was wrong.

In her book, Set Free to Live Free: Breaking through the 7 Lies Women Tell Themselves, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith writes, “Perfection is not the goal on earth. … Your life is a progressive journey. There will be times of success and times of failure. There will be times of faith and times of doubt. There will be moments of joy and moments of fear. You cannot maneuver this obstacle course we call life and expect to finish the race perfectly.”

I’ve given up the idea of a perfect holiday season. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be meaningful. There may be squabbles among the kids, or sour attitudes while shopping, or a less-than-perfect decorated tree by my children, but that doesn’t mean I won’t cherish the memories of time together as a family.

You see, our time as a family isn’t the same anymore. We only have one of our five children still living at home and we will only all be together briefly on Christmas day. So, I choose to value how small or large our family gathering is and enjoy every moment we have together as an imperfect family.

In our book, Thriving at the Holidays,  Heather writes, “Life rarely goes  as planned and the tighter we hold onto expectations of the perfect Thanksgiving or Christmas, the tighter, tenser and more stressed we are likely to feel. Let the strands of Christmas tree lights, not our emotions, be the only thing that gets tangled up this holiday season. Peace in the heart leads to peace in the home.”

Have you experienced lesss-than-perfect holidays in the past? How did you cope?

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Are You Prepared for the Unexpected this Holiday?

 ”I took a fall tonight and I’m at the hospital. I’ll be okay but I need you to pick me up when you get to town. Please hurry – I don’t know if my house is secure because the paramedic broke the window to get in.”

Those were the words spoken to my husband this past week-end as we were driving to Austin, TX for a visit with his mom and step-dad. We knew his step-dad had been in the hospital for several days due to complications from his diabetes but we were shocked to hear the news from his mom, and concerned about the urgency of the situation. But once we heard the story, we spoke with her about being prepared for an unexpected event in the future.

When my mother-in-law fell she was home alone. She hit the floor hard and couldn’t get up but managed to reach a nearby phone. However, when the ambulance came to pick her up, she couldn’t get to the front door and the paramedics had to break a window to enter the house. It was an added stress to the situation that could have been prevented if there had been an extra key hidden outside, as the paramedics requested in case of another unexpected accident.

We can’t always anticipate what kind of events are going to invade our home at the holidays, particularly in a stepfamily. But we can prepare ourselves for unexpected events by managing our expectations throughout the season. Here’s a snippet of what we included in our new e-book, “Thriving at the Holidays: A Stepparent’s Guide to Success:”  in regards to expectations.

“At the holidays, we manage our lists, our schedules and our budgets. Yet the most important items to manage during the holiday season are our expectations! As stepparents, we are committed to our families and because we want to give our blended family the gift of a joyous and peaceful holiday, we often take it upon ourselves to bring that joy and peace.

While holidays seem like the perfect opportunity to show your stepkids how much you care about them, this time of year can easily become a source of disappointment and frustration. The problem lies in the fact that we have little-to-no control over those around us. When we attach expectations to those in our stepfamily with whom we have little to no influence over, we set ourselves up for potential heartache.

…Whatever expectations you allow to enter your head also enter your heart and your home. It is important to manage expectations so they don’t manage us.”

How do you manage your expectations during the holidays? Will you share what works for you?

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Managing Your Holiday Schedule – Define Your Date to Celebrate

Many blended families are beginning to make visitation schedules for the holidays and I hear co-parents grumbling about the stress of making it work. I love what Heather Hetchler shared in our e-book, “Thriving at the Holidays: A Stepparent’s Guide to Success,” about her Thanksgiving routine.

“In my family, we have all the kids every other year for Thanksgiving. On the years when my four children are with their father, we make a special Thanksgiving breakfast before they go. We make turkey shaped pancakes and decorate with a chocolate chip eyeball, turkey bacon feathers and maple syrup for dressing.

In addition, when they return home on Saturday, we have a Thanksgiving celebration ‘Peanuts’ style. We watch ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’ while snacking on toast, popcorn, and jelly beans.”

Holidays don’t have to be on a certain date to be meaningful. If we get hung up on wanting things our way, including always celebrating on Thanksgiving day or Christmas day, we will end up with  a tension-filled holiday.

The important thing to remember is the celebration of being together with loved ones and offering thanks for our relationships and the blessings God freely offers us.

Here’s another suggestion from our e-book about creating a meaningful and peaceful holiday, even if the kids aren’t with you on the actual date:

“You can always tuck a small gift and/or note in your stepkids’ belongings when they head back to their other home. Mark it to be opened on the actual holiday. While they won’t be with you and their parent, they’ll have something from both of you to open that day.”

The holiday season has enough stress of its own without adding an inflexible attiutude surrounding the schedule. Commit to creating a peaceful holiday season this year – your kids will thank you for it.

Are you comfortable with defining your date to celebrate other than the actual holiday? If you have done this in the past, will you share your experience?

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The Holidays Are Upon Us – How Will Your Blended Family Manage?

As we turn the calendar to November next week, we begin to think about the holidays. As a blended family, holidays bring additional stress: heightened expectations, scheduling conflicts with the ex and children or stepchildren, financial burdens, increased communication with ex and ex-in-laws, and time constraints, just to name a few.

So, how do you cope? How do you find peace through a stress-filled holiday season?

I have a resource to help you. I have teamed up with a fellow stepmom, Heather Hetchler, and we have written an e-book titled, “Thriving at the Holidays: A Stepparent’s Guide To Success – Unwrapping the Gift of Peace.

We are excited to offer this new resource for less than the cost of a Startbucks! It will be available October 31st for $2.99 through Amazon and other retailers. I will give you more information once it’s officially launched.

Heather and I have 11 children between our two families and understand the dynamics of blended family holidays. In our book, we offer eight tips for blended families to not just survive the holidays, but thrive through them.

It includes a foreword by stepfamily authority, Ron Deal, that says, “Heather and Gayla want to help your family unwrap familial peace. From stepparent’s living in the trenches, this booklet is packed  full of practical advice, encouragement, and perspective for your holiday challenges.”

I will include thoughts from the e-book on my blog during the holiday season but I hope you’ll consider reading the complete e-book to help you unwrap the gift of peace this holiday season.

More details to follow…

What are you concerned about this holiday season? Do you need some encouragement for your journey?

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