Work Out Who Gets Which Holiday For The Next Few Years
Alternating holidays only works if the pattern is written down far enough ahead that nobody has to negotiate in the moment. This takes the holidays you list, the number of years to plan, and who starts, then allocates each one across those years and counts what each parent gets. The imbalance shows up on the grid rather than in a December argument. Local only; nothing leaves the tab.
- Grid
- Each holiday allocated across the planned years
- local
- What it replaces
- Negotiating the same holiday every year
- $0.00
- Input
- Holiday list, years to plan, and who starts
- no card
- Output
- An allocation with per-parent counts
- recomputed
What you pay otherwise
| Route | What you get | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Family mediator session | To agree a pattern you could write down | $150+/hr |
| Annual renegotiation | The same conversation, with more at stake each time | recurring |
| Alternating everything identically | One parent ends up with every second holiday forever | imbalance |
| This page | The pattern written out, years ahead | $0 |
The workflow
List only the holidays you actually alternate
Birthdays, school holidays and regular weekends usually follow a different pattern. Mixing them into one alternation makes the grid meaningless — keep this list to the occasions that genuinely swap.
Offset the alternation between holidays
If the same parent gets Christmas and every other major holiday in the same years, the pattern is technically alternating and practically lopsided. Offsetting one holiday by a year spreads the good years out, and the grid makes that visible. Setting years-per-turn above 1 does the opposite — it hands one parent a run of years, which is sometimes what an arrangement actually says.
Plan at least four years, not two
A two-year view hides the runs. Over four or five years you can see whether one parent holds a holiday for three years straight, which is the thing that eventually causes the dispute.
Write the result down and date it
The value is in the record, not the calculation. A dated grid both parents have seen prevents the 'that's not what we agreed' conversation, which is where most of the conflict actually lives.
Worked example
Sample: 3 holidays over 6 years, Parent A starts Christmas 1yr/turn A B A B A B 3 each New Year 1yr/turn, offset 1 B A B A B A 3 each Summer break 2yr/turn A A B B A A 4 to A, 2 to B Totals 10 to 8 — flagged lopsided, longest run 2 years Uploaded nothing — allocated in the tab
Numbers above are sample data produced by the tool's own pre-loaded example, run in the browser — not averages or measured benchmarks.
What breaks this
Including birthdays and weekends that follow a different pattern makes the counts meaningless. Alternating every holiday identically gives one parent every good year — offset them. Setting years-per-turn above 1 without checking the totals quietly skews the split across the whole plan.
Try it now
Three holidays over six years are loaded, totalling 10 to 8 with the summer break flagged as lopsided. Set the summer break to 1 year per turn and the totals rebalance to 9 to 9.
Open the grid →Go deeper: the printable grid
The grid is free forever. The $4 one-time tier adds:
- Printable grid — the multi-year allocation on one sheet both parents can keep — estimate: ~15 min saved redrawing it each year.
- Saved arrangements — keep up to 4 arrangements in this browser — estimate: ~10 min saved when circumstances change.
- Year-by-year summary — each year's holidays listed under its parent — estimate: ~12 min saved writing it out.