Short answer
There's no automatic rule for who gets the children at Christmas. Unless a court order covers it, separated parents agree it between them. The four common ways are alternating the whole of Christmas each year, splitting Christmas Day itself, splitting the school holidays in half, or keeping two Christmases on different days. Agree it three to four months ahead, and write down who has each day this year and next.
Who gets the children at Christmas?
Nothing hands Christmas to one parent by default. If a child arrangements order or a written parenting plan already says who has the children over Christmas, follow it. If not, it's for the two of you to agree, and GOV.UK's guide to making child arrangements if you divorce or separate starts there: with a plan you make between yourselves.
Christmas brings disagreements to a head for a lot of families. National Family Mediation says it typically handles more than 12,000 phone calls and 2,400 referrals between October and Christmas Day, and that the same disputes come up every year, including "who gets the kids on Christmas Eve" and "who goes to the nativity play".
The older figures show how often one parent misses the day. In a 2016 survey of 1,000 separated parents by the law firm Irwin Mitchell, reported by Legal Futures, 30% of parents with children from a previous relationship said they wouldn't see their child on Christmas Day, and 61% of children were expected to wake up at their mother's house on Christmas morning.
A plan agreed early, with the big days swapped each year, means neither parent is the one who always misses Christmas Day.
How we share Christmas
I've co-parented my two sons with their mum for eight years. The rest of the year runs on every other weekend, and Christmas has its own pattern that we swap each year.
One of us normally has the boys for the days before Christmas, including Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and then they go to the other parent after Christmas Day lunch. Sometimes they go back before lunch if the other family has a big gathering. It can change each year and we're flexible, but we try to make it even over the years. The following year we swap. We pair that with New Year's Eve: the boys are with one of us over Christmas and with the other on New Year's Eve, and that swaps each year too.
In the years the boys are with their mum over Christmas, they normally stay with me the week before and on New Year's Eve. So we try to have our own Christmas dinner when we're all together, which means they get two each year. They don't complain about that.
We've tried to keep it to a pattern. We also have a third household to fit around, so we try to sync plans across all three homes.
The four common ways to share Christmas
Most families use one of four patterns, or a blend of two. US court guidance is useful here because it sets the patterns out plainly. Arizona's Planning for Parenting Time guide treats Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as two separate holidays, which gives you more to share, and names three ways to handle any holiday:
- Alternating: one parent has the holiday in even years and the other in odd years.
- Dividing: you split the day or weekend, not necessarily equally.
- Substituting: one holiday always goes to one parent, and a different holiday always goes to the other.
Alternate years
The children spend the whole of Christmas in one home this year and the other home next year. There's no handover on the day, which suits families who travel to see relatives far away. The cost is that each parent spends every other Christmas without the children.
Split the day
Christmas Eve and Christmas morning are in one home, and the afternoon and Boxing Day are in the other, swapping each year. Delaware's Family Court, for example, divides it at noon: Christmas Eve runs from 18:00 on 24 December to 12:00 on Christmas Day, and Christmas Day from 12:00 to 18:00 on 26 December, alternating yearly. Both parents see the children on the day. It works best when the homes are close, because a long drive on Christmas Day uses up the time you have.
Split the holidays in half
One parent has the first half of the school holidays, including Christmas, and the other has the second half, including New Year, with the halves swapped the next year. Indiana's Parenting Time Guidelines use this as their default, and add that the parent who doesn't have Christmas Day that year has the children from 12:00 to 21:00 on the day. Each parent gets a proper block of time with the children.
Two Christmases
Each home keeps its own day every year. One home always has 25 December, for example, and the other always has a second Christmas on Boxing Day or another fixed date. Nobody has to renegotiate, and the children know what to expect. The catch is that one parent never has the 25th itself, which suits some families and not others.
| Way to share | Both see the children on the 25th? | Handover on Christmas Day? | Swaps each year? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alternate years | No | No | Yes |
| Split the day | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Split the holidays in half | Sometimes (with a few hours on the day) | Sometimes | Yes |
| Two Christmases | No | No | No |
Ours is a blend of splitting the day and alternating: the boys move after lunch on Christmas Day, and Christmas and New Year's Eve swap between the two homes each year. If one of these patterns nearly fits, adjust it until it suits your children instead of forcing them into one of the four.
Working out the dates for 2026
In the two English councils checked for this guide, one of them Suffolk County Council, schools break up on Friday 18 December 2026 and go back on Monday 4 January 2027. Dates vary by council, and academies and free schools can set their own, so look up yours with GOV.UK's school term and holiday dates finder.
With those dates, the children have 17 nights off school, from Friday 18 December to Sunday 3 January. An odd number can't be split evenly, so decide which half gets the extra night and swap that too.
Here's one way the split-in-half pattern could look this year, with Blake as the other parent:
- You: from school pickup on Friday 18 December to 12:00 on Saturday 26 December, which is 8 nights including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
- Blake: from 12:00 on Saturday 26 December to the school run on Monday 4 January, which is 9 nights including New Year's Eve.
- Next year: the halves swap, so Blake has Christmas and you have New Year.
Plan two years at once.
When you agree this year, write down next year's swap in the same conversation. It saves having the same talk next autumn, and nobody has to remember whose turn it is.
When to agree it
We usually talk about Christmas three to four months in advance, and no later than that. For Christmas, that means late August or September.
Agreeing early also leaves time to get help if you can't agree. If it ends up in the family court, a case started in the autumn is unlikely to be finished by Christmas. In the Family Court Statistics Quarterly for April to June 2026, private law cases took an average of 33 weeks. Before applying, you usually have to attend a mediation information meeting (a MIAM), and you may be able to get a government voucher worth up to £500 towards mediation. GOV.UK's page on applying for a court order has the details. This guide is general information, not legal advice.
If you're putting your plan in writing, Cafcass's parenting plan, Our Child's Plan, has a section on school holidays and special occasions you can fill in together.
Planning ahead has always meant both parents and children know the plans.
George Pritchard
Presents and the other things to agree
Presents mostly stay in each home, although the boys like to bring some of them when they move between houses. Talk about the bigger presents before December, especially anything that won't fit in a bag.
The planner's third page has a checklist of what to settle alongside the dates. It includes:
- who buys which presents, and whether any come from both of you
- a rough budget each, so presents feel even
- handover times and places, with extra time for traffic and weather
- which grandparents and other family the children will see, and when
- a set time on the day for the children to call or video call the other parent
- what happens if someone is ill or travel is cancelled
When the pattern needs to bend
Even a settled pattern sometimes needs to change for a year. One year, when the boys had a new step-brother, they stayed with their mum for two Christmases in a row so they could spend his first Christmas with their new family member.
Communication and being fair and reasonable, with some give and take, can help in situations like that. If you need a one-off change, raise it as early as you would the usual plan, and write down:
- what changes this year, and why
- when the usual pattern starts again, and whose turn it is then
How the children find it
The boys seem to like the mixture. They get extra Christmases and a mixed Christmas break, and they do lots of things, compared with staying in the same house for the whole time.
Planning ahead has always meant both parents and children know the plans. Once yours is agreed, tell the children what's happening on each day, together if you can, so they hear the same plan from both homes.
We try to have our own Christmas dinner when we're all together, which means they get two each year.
George Pritchard
Your first Christmas apart
If this is your first Christmas without the children, my advice is:
- spend it with the rest of your family or good friends
- keep busy
- go on a trip
If it's hard, Family Lives runs a helpline for parents on 0808 800 2222 (Monday to Friday 09:00 to 21:00, weekends 10:00 to 15:00). You can also call Samaritans on 116 123.
Free Christmas planner
The free Christmas planner (PDF) is three printable pages you can fill in together, or fill in separately and compare:
- A day-by-day grid from Friday 18 December to Sunday 3 January, with a column for where the children sleep each night and one for handover times, places and who drives.
- The four ways to share Christmas, with a table of who has Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in 2026 and in 2027.
- A checklist of things to agree before December, including presents and calls on the day.
At the moment the boys' mum and I plan holidays on WhatsApp. We've tried other apps and none quite worked for us, so I've been building one we can use. In Two Front Doors, Christmas sits on top of your usual pattern, and any change to it is a request that only goes into the calendar when the other parent accepts.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Making child arrangements if you divorce or separate (updated 26 November 2024)
- GOV.UK, Making child arrangements: apply for a court order
- National Family Mediation, Mediation charity gears up for Christmas surge as separated couples tackle festive co-parenting challenges (14 October 2024)
- Legal Futures, Parents urged to put kids first as many face Christmas separated for first time (Irwin Mitchell survey, 9 December 2016)
- Arizona Supreme Court, Planning for Parenting Time: Arizona's Guide for Parents Living Apart
- Delaware Family Court, contact guidelines
- Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines (effective 1 January 2022)
- GOV.UK, School term and holiday dates
- Suffolk County Council, School term dates 2026 to 2027
- Ministry of Justice, Family Court Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2026 (published 24 September 2026)
- Cafcass, Our Child's Plan (Planning Together for Children)
- Family Lives, Confidential helpline
