Single  parents can plan ways to enjoy holidays even with no face-to-face contact with their children.

Single parents can enjoy holidays without their children if they plan ways to foster togetherness and memories!

Surviving Holidays Spent Without Your Kids.
By SOLO staff

It is very lonely when you can't be with your children during the holidays.

Although nothing will ever take the place of face-to-face contact, you can plan for ways to make holidays special to you both.

The following are a few projects that will help you and your children remember the holidays more fondly.

Plan an "ancestor" book for a Thanksgiving present. Don't give out all info and pictures at one time. Add to it each year for a Thanksgiving tradition.

Plan ways to make your children remember you at holidays.

If the child is very young, stop to talk about the pictures and tell him/her when to turn the page. Send the books and the tapes for a special time "together" whenever the child feels lonely or bored.

Ask your "new reader" to do the same for you. The reading practice will be an extra benefit.

Make an annual memory book with pictures and other items of your year together. A perfect New Year's Eve gift.

A stuffed stocking to arrive a week before Christmas "for immediate consumption."

The gift certificate (from a national retailer if necessary) for a new spring outfit for almost any age child older than a toddler.

Christmas or birthday presents that arrive in one big box to be opened EARLY so you will stand out in the crowd.

Mail, mail, mail. Preferably mail with pictures. In fact, the twelve days of Christmas can come by mail.