With the holidays, come lots of planning and family time. Either you are traveling, or family is traveling to see you. This can always get complicated, especially when you are divorced with a child custody agreement. Splitting time between the houses can be stressful and cause less-than-jolly sentiments between you and your ex. Here are some tips to keep the holiday spirit intact this season, and make sure everyone in your family has a happy holiday.

Most divorcing couples forget to include holidays in their custody agreement plans, and at best there is a line in the agreement to the tune of "Vacations/Holidays to alternate based on agreement." The biggest flaw is waiting until the last minute to let your ex know about your plans, and figuring things out on the fly. Having a pre-determined plan, even months in advance if you can, will save you the headache of sorting out conflicted schedules with the person you probably don't get along with more often than not. This is a recipe for disaster that you will want to avoid, especially when added on to the already long list of stressors that come with the holiday season.

Not only should you map out the holiday beforehand, it doesn't hurt to put it down in writing just so that you have something to fall back on if it turns out that the two of you cannot agree closer to the holiday break. Not only does this cement things for you and for your ex, so that you can let extended family know how and when to travel, but it ensures that your child will not have to suffer disappointment when plans get changed. Ideally, you and your ex would work out a very solid schedule to adhere to that is either a yearly tradition, or that swaps each year, for example, have Christmas morning one year at your house, the next year at your ex's house, and vice versa. The same applies with Thanksgiving dinner.

These rules are not reserved for the winter holidays, but all holidays and vacations. The first thing to do is figure out between you and your ex which holidays or planned vacations are the most important to you. It may be the case that seeing fireworks on the fourth of July is a huge priority for you and not so much for your ex, which means it's easy to decide who is going to take the child. Knowing this about each other will open up a lot of possibilities, and even bargaining chips. In the previous scenario, you would like to take your child for fireworks but maybe you know you have to work on Labor Day, you can negotiate with your ex that they will get the child Labor Day in return. It may seem strange to plan things out so far in advance, but it is the best way to go about doing things when it comes to child possession laws; surprises are not encouraged, and can be detrimental to your child.

Another thing to keep in mind to make your life easier is to always be detail-oriented when planning these things out, down to the exact pick-up and drop-off times. Take into account travel time between your house, your ex's house, and possible relatives' (grandma's) houses. Decide who is going to be driving or flying with the child, and make sure you have copies of each others' work schedules as well as the child's school schedules. If you account for every detail, there's no way that things can go any way other than smoothly.