[Imdamommy]

I am curious. What do other foster families plan to do with the birth parents/birth family for the Christmas holiday?

In the past, we have met in a public place for a visit and to exchange gifts. We brought our foster children and our birth children. The birth parents and close family members also came. We did this a few days before Christmas. This year we are considering Christmas Eve or Christmas day, out of respect to the birth parents. How common is this? What does your family do? Is the visit supervised or unsupervised?

[AlekseiGirl]

My fd starts overnight visits next week and is expected to move home in mid January. This will be her first Christmas. I would love to have her here with me, but when she gets older I think it would be beneficial for her to be able to see pictures of her birth family with her on her first Christmas. She is my first foster child, so I really have no idea if that is the "right" answer. But, that is what feels right to me. I am doing that for my fd, not her family.

[mommyto9]

Two of our fs's will be here the entire holiday season, as there is currently no bfamily to go see.

Our other two fs's will spend the night at their **'s on the 23 and then we'll pick them up on the 24th. She's only allowed to have them for a 24 hour period.

Last year was kind of sad, we had the same boys(except "baby" he wasn't born) and all of them were gone on Christmas. So this year will be very exciting. I just got all their Christmas shopping done last night. Had so much fun buying for them.

They are all so excited about Christmas, they can't wait to go sit on Santa's lap.

[leaabc123]

Our girls get supervised visits with parents and sibs once a week, they get another visits with sibs only also once a week.
The bio-parents have a history of unstable behaviors so wo won't be meeting them anywhere and they will get their usual visits.

Our previous fson, we met some relatives at the mall and took him to see santa and gave them a small packet of photos.

[radkat]

With some of my previous foster children I've taken them to their birthmother's house on Christmas Day. The kids had other siblings in other foster homes so it was great to get everyone together. Of course, I was the one who had to arrange everything. The kids (ages 7 and 13) didn't seem very comfortable there, but they liked seeing their sibs. We did Christmas visits both years they lived with me.

[evansmum]

Our fs had his Christmas visit with his Dad on Friday. His dad lives pretty far away so he wanted to make sure he got his presents and stuff before the holiday if he couldn't make it back into town again.

Mom will have her normal scheduled visit on the 23rd - if she shows up....

We are spending the holiday weekend at my in-laws with both bios and our fs.

[Tudu]

We try to include them as much as the child wants them. Some were invited to our home the morning of, some spent the night before, some we took to their Gparents house the night before for the entire family to see, some we went to their home to see parents and siblings, and some called on ther phone. We always video our holiday and send a copy with the child. We always developed a relationship with their parents and our kids have always been teens, I believe this makes a difference b/c they can say what they are comfortable with when a young child might not be able to. I also understand that we were different than most foster families b/c most of our children's visits were in our home at our request. I know most of ya'll have been worried about the other families finding your home or number with good reason. I say go with what you feel good with.

[Kate1129]

We have no contact with bfamily. The extended family is big on making plans but never follows through. The SW said this year, no plans will be made, she's tired of having to schedule the supervisor then the family doesn't show. So this year she said no. The bfamily said "that's fine, we are busy with our kids anyway". The bparents are all (1 bmom 2 bdads) are all in separate jails. There are no visits in jail. So we'll be doing nothing with them.

We are going to my IL's in Minnesota. We do every year. It's our vacation for the winter.

[AlekseiGirl]

Mommyfor9: This is off topic, but I was wondering what kind of car you have that holds all of your kids! I'm currently looking for a bigger vehichle, but I noticed that most mini vans only seat 7. Thanks!

[mommyto9]

We don't have a vehicle that holds all of us.

Our bdaughter is 17, so we take a mini van with me, dh,(other) dd, and all 4 fs's, while our dd drives her car with our two sons.

We have to drive 2 separate vehicles everytime we do something as a family. ie. church, zoo, visiting family...yep, it gets old. Maybe after we get our sons car paid for, our mini van paid off, we can get a 15 passenger. I wouldn't want to drive a 15 passenger all the time, but it sure would be nice, for church, vacations etc.

Our eyes are always open...for a deal....