Have you ever felt pressured to celebrate a holiday? What happens when you adopt older children who have already celebrated holidays? Obviously, they are already aware that other families celebrate on that day. When the holiday is nearing, the children new to your family may begin to get excited in anticipation. That is when you burst their bubble and tell them that, “Our family doesn’t celebrate that holiday.” Then you try to explain why your family doesn’t celebrate that holiday. Will your newly adopted children be angry, or feel resentment towards you?

If you have an open relationship with their first family members, you may also need to explain it to them. First family members may want to send gifts or treats for the holiday, or they may want to include your newly adopted children in their celebration. That puts you in the uncomfortable position of denying their request and asking them to support your decision not to celebrate.

If your children attend public school or other extracurricular activities their friends may inquire about the gifts they received for the holiday. Their friends may share information with your child about their holiday celebration and gifts they received. This leaves your child in an uncomfortable situation.

Does your child explain to the friend that they don’t celebrate that holiday? Does your child make up a story about imaginary gifts received? This is something you may want to prepare your child for, perhaps even role-play your child’s response.

We have had a few difficult situations over the years. We celebrate Easter as a Christian holiday. We don’t feel it is appropriate to give gifts to children to celebrate the risen Christ. We have had numerous people ask the children what they received for Easter over the years. These people usually give us odd looks when they find out the children didn’t receive gifts.

About 20 years ago, when my oldest son was a young, I remember feeling somewhat embarrassed and struggling with, “I must be a bad mom,” syndrome during questioning. Luckily, I’m over that now.

When we adopted our first sibling group, we maintained regular contact with first family members. The girls were older, one was a teenager, and the relatives lived in the same town. They wanted us to attend Easter egg hunts every year with their family, which we actually did for a couple of years. The first family members were not Christians so it was all about the candy and prizes, which is why we eventually stopped.

Most families we know, including those in our church, celebrate Halloween. Super Dad feels very strongly about not celebrating Halloween. Halloween originated in South America as a celebration of the dead. The candles and decorations were to attract the dead spirits of relatives. Therefore, Super Dad feels that we as Christians should not celebrate an obviously pagan holiday.

The children want to do what their friends are doing so this is causing some household dissension. We also foster older children who have celebrated Halloween for years with their first families and want to continue to do so. If the child has a return home plan, we usually avoid confrontation of these issues by having the child spend holidays with first family members.

I have friends who do not celebrate Christmas and their children attend public school. I imagine this causes mixed emotions among young children who hear stories from their friends after winter break.

How does your family handle these issues? How do you prepare your children?

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