Christmas for Single Dads: How to Make It Magical (Not Miserable)

00:00 Christmas for single dads. It doesn't have to be a difficult, painful time of the year. In fact, it can be magical. Five things that every single dad needs to know to have an awesome Christmas. Roll theme. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships and results they deserve. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com. Let's go. Hello dads, men around the world. Welcome back to the Johnny Jensen show.

00:40 It's great to have you here. If it's your first time, then bloody brilliant. What brought you here? How did you find us? I actually know the answer to that because I can see from my stats where everybody comes from. But especially those people who've been recommended this show by a mate, credit to those guys. Acknowledge them, thank them and welcome. If you are a first time listener, in fact, if you've been listening for ages and you're not subscribed, then make sure you blooming well go and do that. The more subscribers we have, the more the algorithm kicks in and it shares the podcast or the video on YouTube, wherever you're, you know, wherever you're taking this on board, then be sure to connect with us.

01:20 So subscribe to the podcast, subscribe on YouTube, and then leave a review, particularly on Spotify and Apple podcasts. That's where that's possible. You do it inside the app on Spotify. You just click the three dots, says leave a review. It'd be mega. And of course, share this with other men in your life. What are we up to? We are talking about Christmas and it's been on my mind. There's been a few things going on. If you follow me on the socials, you'll see I've been cranking up the content, part of the Super 7 Fitness Challenge, putting out more content, which has been part of the challenge for me in itself.

01:56 But this week, the subject of Christmas came up for a variety of reasons, primarily to do with my life, my planning for Christmas, and what it's really like. And of course, in all the men's groups, dads groups that I'm part of on Facebook or even those men inside the High Value Man project, this topic has started to come up. It is that time of year, right? And it's a struggle for men. It's a struggle for all parents, single parents, right? If you are not a single parent, then you're probably going to be thinking, fast forward, skip the episode.

02:32 Well, okay, you can do that. But I also promise you that there is information in here, knowledge for you in here that will give you insight. It'll have you see something for yourself about Christmas, about this holiday season. Too many families have rows. Too many, I don't know, there's too much stress around it. You know, it's like that big financial splurge. Everybody opens presents in two seconds flat and it's just done. And, you know, you wonder what the hell it was all bloody worth. You know, weeks of planning, worrying about what presents to get, ordering, like so much pressure and bollocks that goes around it.

05:18 Don't get hung up. Number one, don't get hung up on the specific dates, you know, the 25th, 26th, or the 24th, 25th, depending on what part of the world you're in. Don't let that, like the significance of those dates pull you under. If your relationship with your ex is still quite fraught, still a certain degree of tension, and there is pressure, argument, frustration going on about who has them, like whether I want them, I want them. That's not what Christmas is about. Now, here's the thing about contact: ideally, you want to have a family court, a child arrangement order in the UK that states exactly what happens at Christmas.

06:01 No matter how well you get on, at certain points in the journey, particularly the first one to five years, bullshit comes up. Now, all that bullshit can be pushed to one side, or a high percentage of it can when you've got a court-provided order. If you haven't got one of those, then running into Christmas right now, there's not enough time. So, you might need, as a high-value man, to take the higher road. Where's the win? What's the win that's available for me? How can I go into this with as much joy and excitement as possible and the least amount of tension, argument, and aggravation, that negative pressure that's pushing on the side of your of your head, let alone kicking you in the bollocks?

06:48 The way you do that is to realize that those two days are just days selected by some. And I realize it feels weird to say random if you're talking about Christian faith and stuff. But do you know what? Some parts of the world go big on Christmas Eve, other parts of the world go big on Christmas Day. In the UK, we have Boxing Day. In America, everyone goes back to work on the 26th. You've got to realize that a large part of this stuff is all made up. So, if it is all made up, then you get to pick the dates that you decide are Christmas. So, if there's a big ding-dong going on around, I want to be at mine, like being a flipping asshole to you and say, Okay, do you know what?

07:30 You have them Christmas, I will have them New Year. Get them back on the 28th, and this is the magic of it: roll into New Year, okay, with your Christmas. So, this is point number two: the 28th to the 1st is actually a distinct part of the Christmas festive holiday experience. There is generally parties and fun to be had on New Year. Your ability to recreate Christmas Day is completely on you. It's and I've done it myself. That's how I can speak about this.

08:12 I'll come back to something I'm just thinking about there. Like a lot of stuff from my childhood has me able to think like this. But being able, talking about my time with my kids after the breakup, being able to recreate Christmas. This is one of the benefits. You know, people don't talk about like the misery of divorce and our poor children and all this. That might be the case. There is some of that, but there are benefits to it. They get two birthdays, two Christmases, two holidays, two, like, and if you, as the divorced parents, can eventually come together and cooperate to some degree where the kids get the best of you and you can put all the arguments and the bullshit behind you, then

08:53 you'll see that these bonuses, that these benefits for your children can be turned into very real positives. And creating Christmas Day completely again. This is what I used to do. Because I said, I'm not splitting Christmas Day, which is actually point number three. Bollocks to the list, right? Because point number three is don't split Christmas Day. Don't split Christmas Day. You've got to think about this, right? And there is a caveat to this. Many people think that my point of view on this is nonsense and they make it work the other way. So, really, whatever works for you. But listen up to my view on it. You,

09:36 if you split Christmas Day in half, the person, the family that has them in the afternoon spends all morning waiting for them to arrive. So their mornings are a bit crap. The other way around is even worse. Because if you have them in the morning and don't have them in the afternoon, then your morning, woo, okay. up presents joy. But there's always that thought in the back of your mind, and it's there for the kids as well, is that at lunchtime, at some point during the day, this part of it's all going to come to an end and we've got to go off somewhere else. Now, I didn't like that. I didn't want to do that. I made it clear from the outset that we're not splitting the Christmas Day. I did it with my dad and my sister. She is technically my half-sister.

10:21 I would never call her that. But the kind of popping over on Christmas Day or meeting up in a lay-by at lunchtime, it's like, why would you put yourself through that? Give the other far outside of the family the opportunity to enjoy Christmas Day. And then you get to, back to point number two, you get to create Christmas Day all over again. And in fact, what I used to do, because the kids are a bit old now, it's not quite so relevant, but what I used to do was totally recreate the whole Christmas Eve. Now, I didn't say, oh, Santa's come in twice because that would be weird, but to have a laugh about it and to be like, yeah, let's do the Christmas. We had the Christmas Eve kind of routines and we did fireworks instead of the carrots.

11:05 And it was all sort of like, yeah, we're going to go to bed and in the morning we're going to wake up and there's going to be presents. It's yours to create. So splitting Christmas Day just so that each of you gets to say, oh, I had them for two hours on this sort of made-up day. It just doesn't, it's like, what's the point of that when you can have all the magic, all the joy. So yeah, those three points. Number one, you can recreate Christmas Day anytime you want. Number two, be tactical with the dates. Make the most of the time that you've got. If you don't get to have them on Christmas Day, then make it like the 28th on roll it into New Year's Eve and have a bloody brilliant five days. And then don't split Christmas Day is my view on it. Other people make it work.

11:50 That's entirely up to you. Whatever the normal is, it does become the new normal. But my encouragement is like, what's got the most amount of joy? Where do I get to have the most amount of fun? And if it's not your Christmas, times like when it's fresh and a bit raw, again, there's a part of the coaching inside the high value man project for single dads, for divorcing dads, is to explain this whole concept of the rational mind messing with the or in conflict with the emotional mind. And it's the emotional mind that messes with the rational side. Like the rational view on Christmas is, can we do it on any day we want and have just as much fun?

12:34 Of course you can. That's the rational explanation. Then the emotional side is, oh yeah, but I'm going to wake up on Christmas Day and it's going to be terrible and I'm going to miss them and it won't be the same. And then I haven't got a family anymore and my life's over. And it's all, it's like, it's the emotional stuff. It's like a load of grief and negativity that completely takes down the rational side of it. It's not that the emotional side won't come up, but you don't have to embrace it. Okay, which I guess is point number four really is about the mindset, your mindset around Christmas. You have to get control over it so that you see it as a two-week or a 10-day period.

13:17 And there's chunks within it you can make the most of. There's chunks within it where you're going to have the kids and have a great time. And there's chunks when you're going to be without the kids. And it's your opportunity. It's your responsibility to go and have a great time. Now, here we go then about making the most of it. If you don't have them, are you going to sit at home and be absolutely miserable and cry into a Tesco's ready, unmanned, ready-made Christmas meal? That is pitiful. Don't do that. As a baseline, on Christmas Day, you can go and volunteer at all number of places and actually be of value and support to people that need you.

14:02 You can rock up to any church, regardless of whether you've got a religion or not, and be part of an active group of people. Experience the joy. Hear something for yourself that might actually make a difference. Have to believe in it to be there. It's just about feeling the love of people, being around other people. And the thing about this is, which is kind of point number six, is that this is just one year. The Christmas that you're having this year, it's not a reflection on the rest of your life.

14:44 It might be a reflection on where you're at right now, which in itself is. the rational and the emotional mind playing up against each other. If you've just been through a breakup, then the reality is this Christmas is probably going to be a bit shit. It's your job to do whatever you can to get through it to make it okay. You don't sit there and be depressed for the whole period. You go and get amongst family. You speak to and see old friends. You know, the idea that being around other people would be horrific and miserable. Oh, I'll be sad if I'm not around my own family. Talk to an old mate and say, bit awkward, bit tricky, but I've not really got anywhere else to go Christmas Day.

15:29 What if I could come to yours? Imagine if an old mate asked you that. Now, don't get all hung up and take it personally if one of them or some of them say no. And if you don't feel like you've got enough mates to be able to do that right now, then you go back to my previous point about there is plenty of places you can go and volunteer, plenty of places you can go and be amongst people. Then you have to decide that this is the baseline. This is the rock bottom, if you like, where from this moment forth, every Christmas is going to be more like the one that I want to create.

16:08 You get to, if this is a bad Christmas, like not the ideal, then actually use it to say, like, what did what does future Christmases look like? It's a bit of the old Christmas Carol story. Is it Christmas Carol? Yes. With flipping. Come on. It's a miserable kit. Ebenezer Scrooge. There we go. And the little fella. You know the story I'm talking about. And you know those characters. The ghost of Christmas future comes to haunt you. Well, like, don't think that every Christmas is going to be shit. You get to say, like, right, this wasn't what I wanted, but this is what I'm creating next year.

16:48 Okay, back to some more practical points. I think I've just covered point number seven there about having fun. But going back to another practical point, right, and a little story from my history of Christmases is don't let money ruin your Christmas. If you're going through a breakup or if it's relatively fresh, or even me, I'm 10 years on from the breakup and finances are really the only area of my life that I'm yet to really fully break through. And obviously this business, the high value man project, the school community, the one-on-one coaching, it has to keep growing.

17:26 And I need to get it to a level where financial pressures aren't there anymore. It's literally the only area of my life yet to crack, yet to transform. As a single dad, though, the amount of money you've got is the amount of money you've got. You can't, don't go around borrowing money to pay for Christmas presents. Don't go around feeling like you're a less of a man because you can't give your kids the Christmas they want. I, as a kid, had, you know, the story goes from Concord to Council House. That is very literally the spectrum of experiences that I had as a nine to 18 year old lad.

18:12 One of the most is it memorable? It sticks in my mind, that's for sure. And I think the reason it's so front of mind around this time of year is obviously because it's a story about Christmas, but it's what my dad shared probably when he was pissed, probably with a few swear words not that long ago about how that Christmas actually was. We would have been about 14 and 12, maybe 13 and 11, something like that. My dad and stepmom had split up. We were living in pretty much like I shared the council house thing, this sort of pretty run-down house.

18:55 Only way you could cook stuff in the oven was to wedge a broom against the wall and the oven door. And that's what kept the oven door shut. And my dad took us to a shopping mall, big shopping mall called Lakeside. Basically, a couple of days before Christmas, might even have been Christmas Eve. And we went up there and we spent all afternoon there. We bought a bunch of clothes. We had dinner. We basically had a laugh. My dad, my brother and I, we had a laugh. Focused quality time. Ho ho ho Christmas spirit. And I don't know, I imagine Christmas Day looked like church, then Christmas lunch, and then probably some sort of movie.

19:36 That's probably the basics of what happened on Christmas Day. The Christmas Eve part of it and that lakeside story, my dad shared with me a couple of years, probably. probably five, six years ago, around the divorce, right? Ten years ago, I've been divorced. He paid for that Christmas by selling or hawking my mum's engagement ring, basically. She died when I was nine years old, so don't worry, she wasn't. He didn't rip it off her finger and sell it. He'd been keeping those, he broke the ring up, the ring up into three pieces. And he had two pieces left because he gave one to my sister. He'd been keeping the other two pieces to give to me and my brother when inevitably we ended up getting married.

20:16 But what he actually did was sold them and used the money to give us that Christmas Day experience. So I said it wasn't about the money. Granted, he went and found some money and spent it on us. But at the point of when I was a kid, what I really remembered about that was we went there, we spent some money, we bought a few things. I couldn't tell you how much it was, but it was really the afternoon of the time that we spent together. I might have dragged that story on a little bit, but the real message is that when you're going through a breakup and it is difficult for your kids, what they really want is to be with you.

20:54 So be real about it. Do what you can. Buy what presents you've got and then make it special. Like you create the memories. Okay, a bit heavy. Let's step it up, right? The final point, really, because I made the case for this is just one year. Plan to make the next Christmases better. Create that vision for your life. Live into your future. The point number seven, the last point about single dads having an awesome Christmas is make it fun. Do what it takes to have a laugh. Do speak to old friends.

21:34 Find out what's going on in your community. Where is a santa run? Where is a cold water dip? What kind of community events are happening? What churches are open? What if it's like Boxing Day we call it in the UK? What football matches are being played? Where can you go and do something to put yourself around other people? Can you visit old friends? Can you call up members of the family and start, you know, conjure something up that hasn't been done for a while? It's the complete opposite of sitting there and being bloody miserable. Too much of the emotional struggle that single dads go through is self-inflicted.

22:17 Now, that's quite a shocking thing to hear, quite an incendiary comment to make. Of course, we miss our kids. Of course, time is precious. That is real. But the degree that you let it take you down is up to you. When you can be really, when you can reframe it like, okay, this is a difficult time. This is not what I wanted. But here's my commitment to the future. When your ex is making a fuss about what days, say, okay, what days would work? How about this? How about I have them over New Year and you get to go and have some fun and I'll spend five days with them over New Year. Doesn't that sound like a great plan? You know, let's not split Christmas Day.

23:02 We're not going to, you know, let money upset me and get all confused and try and borrow or get into debt and feel like the kids don't have anything. Like we're going to make it about love and fun. We're going to build for the future. We're going to talk to old friends and go and do things that make it a laugh. That is really the true spirit of Christmas. And it's the true spirit of being the dad that your kids want. Kids spell love. You've probably heard this before. Kids spell love, T-I-M-E. Particularly if they're little. Okay. If they're slightly bigger, you get to have the conversation with them. You get to be like, right, what should we do that's bloody fun? What can we do to make this enjoyable?

23:45 And then you get on it. So if any of this has really triggered you or you're struggling with it, then by all means, message me. Okay. You can come and join the free level of the High Value Man project and you can start a conversation in the group. You can ask these questions there. There are hundreds, if not thousands of dad groups all across Facebook and whatnot. But inside the High Value Man project, we have fixed sessions on single dad coaching, single dad support and direction. There's the single dad advantage, which is our program, the sort of the bolt on to the high value man system for living, which is so many of these principles that I've just shared with you here.

24:25 As a dad, as a man, your mission is to get past this as quick as possible with as few mistakes possible and whilst having as much fun. When your ex looks at you and sees you a crumble, crumpled mess. mess, she's either going to pity you, which isn't really what you want either, because that's not good for your self-esteem, or she's going to flip and dig the knife in more because she wanted to crush you. It gives her some level of joy and satisfaction to see you utterly broken. So don't be that man. Get excited, get committed about rebuilding, about being the best version of yourself, about being the dad that your kids look up to and need, so that in their future they get to tell a story about my shopping mall lakeside experience.

25:16 That's the memories that you're going to give them. That's what stuck with me all these years later. And that's what will stick with your kids. So men, like I said, feel free to come and ask me any questions. You can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. It's Johnny Jensen, J-O-N-N-I-E, J-E-N-S-E-N. The best way, though, is to get yourself into highvalue manproject.com forward slash group. Be part of this mission that we are living, that we're creating around the world to see dads thrive, to give kids the fathers they need. Get the outro lined up and all there is left to say is share this, leave a review, and I'll see you next week.

25:59 Let's go. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow dads. Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.