Holiday Custody Schedule Colorado: How to Split Holidays, Summer, and School Breaks

Your regular parenting-time schedule works fine most weeks. Then Thanksgiving arrives, and you realize nobody planned for it. Colorado's JDF 1113 parenting plan requires a specific holiday rotation that overrides your regular schedule, and judges reject plans that leave holiday logistics vague.

Here is how to build a holiday schedule that works for your family and satisfies court expectations.

What JDF 1113 Requires for Holidays

Colorado's official parenting plan form, JDF 1113, includes a dedicated holiday and vacation section. Every plan submitted to the court must specify which parent has the child on each major holiday and how those assignments alternate year to year. The most common approach is an odd-year/even-year rotation.

Holidays the court expects you to address include:

• Thanksgiving (Wednesday evening through Sunday evening)
• Christmas/Winter Break (typically split into two blocks: December 23-25 and December 26 through January 1)
• Spring Break (full week)
• Summer vacation (extended blocks, usually 2-4 weeks)
• Mother's Day and Father's Day (always with that parent)
• Child's birthday and each parent's birthday
• Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekends

The holiday schedule always takes priority over the regular weekly rotation. When a holiday ends, the regular schedule resumes as written.

How to Split Christmas and Winter Break

Christmas is the most contested holiday in Colorado custody cases. Most parents use one of two approaches:

The two-block split divides winter break at December 25. In even years, Parent A has December 23 at 6 PM through December 25 at 1 PM, and Parent B has December 25 at 1 PM through January 1. The blocks flip in odd years. This gives each parent Christmas Eve or Christmas Day in alternating years.

The full-break alternation gives one parent the entire winter break in even years and the other parent the full break in odd years. This works better for families where the parents live far apart and mid-break exchanges are impractical.

Whichever approach you choose, specify exact pickup and drop-off times. "Christmas" is not precise enough for a court order. "December 25 at 1:00 PM at the child's school" is.

Summer Parenting Time in Colorado

Colorado does not have a default summer schedule. Your parenting plan must define it. Most plans give the non-primary parent extended summer parenting time, commonly two to four consecutive weeks.

Key provisions to include:

• Notice deadline: Most plans require the parent exercising summer time to notify the other parent by April 1 or May 1 with specific dates.
• Priority over regular schedule: Summer blocks override the weekly rotation entirely.
• Camp and activity conflicts: Specify whether the exercising parent can enroll the child in camps or activities during their summer block, or whether those decisions require mutual agreement.
• Non-exercised time reverts: If summer time is not requested by the notice deadline, it typically reverts to the regular schedule.

For parents with roughly equal parenting time under a 2-2-3 or 5-2-2-5 rotation, summer often continues the regular schedule with each parent getting one or two uninterrupted vacation weeks by agreement.

School Break Schedules

Beyond summer and winter, Colorado school calendars include fall break, spring break, and various three-day weekends. Your plan should address each:

Spring break typically alternates yearly. The parent who does not have the child for spring break in a given year often receives an extra weekend or a compensating block.

Three-day weekends (MLK Day, Presidents' Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day) usually extend the regular schedule. If the holiday Monday falls during Parent A's regular time, Parent A keeps the child through Monday evening.

Teacher planning days and early releases follow the regular schedule unless your plan specifies otherwise.

Common Mistakes That Lead to Conflict

Vague language: "Parents will share holidays" gives neither parent enforceable rights. Use specific dates, times, and locations.

Forgetting travel time: A Christmas exchange at 6 AM on December 25 does not work if the parents live three hours apart. Build travel into your timeline.

Ignoring the child's age: A two-week summer block away from the primary parent works for a twelve-year-old but can cause significant distress for a three-year-old. Colorado courts consider developmental appropriateness when evaluating proposed schedules.

Skipping the "what if" clauses: What happens if a parent's flight is delayed? If the child is sick on an exchange day? Include a makeup-time provision and a protocol for schedule disruptions.

Building Your Holiday Schedule

The Colorado Child Custody & Parenting Plan Guide includes a holiday rotation planner that maps directly to JDF 1113's holiday section. It walks through each holiday with fill-in fields for times, locations, and alternation rules so nothing gets left to a future argument.

A holiday schedule that works is one that is detailed enough to follow without interpretation. The time you invest in specifics now prevents the motions, mediations, and emergency calls that vague plans inevitably produce.

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