Contempt Risk When a Parenting Plan Sets No Holiday Dates
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Reviewed & verified by A. Jason Velez, Esq.*
Managing Attorney, 1LAW · Last reviewed January 1, 2026
Legal Inquiry
Consumer Legal Issue
We have a parenting in place and he gets 7 to 10 days out of the month. And I also get her every holiday, but he has refused to meet me on a date prior to the holiday coming up just so he can have her on Christmas when I have asked him multiple times before Christmas came up if he would come and get her or meet Me or have one of his family members and he refused. Now he’s trying to get her two days before Christmas and is telling me that I am in contempt if I give our daughter to him after Christmas. I don’t know what to do here.
Attorney Answer
A parenting plan with no dates in it is very hard for either of you to violate — and that is exactly why you should stop arguing about what it means and ask the family court to put dates in it.
Start with who decides. Contempt is a finding a family court makes. Your child's father telling you that you are in contempt has no legal effect at all.
The parenting plan is the order that gets enforced under W. Va. Code § 48-9-501, and the family court's authority to sanction a party comes from W. Va. Code § 51-2A-9, its contempt-powers section, which allows remedial or coercive sanctions and provides that "[a] person who lacks the present ability to comply with the order of the court may not be confined for a civil contempt." The underlying allocation itself is governed by the best-interest objectives in W. Va. Code § 48-9-102.
As a practical matter, a judge cannot punish you for missing a date the order never set. Your plan says he gets seven to ten days a month and that you have the holidays; it names no exchange dates. If he refused every date you offered and you then offered the 26th, you are not the party who made compliance impossible. But the same vagueness protects him, which is why arguing about interpretation is a losing use of your time.
The more urgent problem is the one at the end of your message: you say he is now refusing to return your daughter. That is what to take to the court, today.
What you can do
1. If he has your daughter and will not return her, file a petition for enforcement and contempt in family court under W. Va. Code § 48-9-501 and W. Va. Code § 51-2A-9, and ask for her immediate return and make-up time. 2. In that same filing, ask the court to modify the plan to name specific holiday dates, exchange times, and an exchange location. 3. Put every date you offer in a text or email, and save his refusals. That written record is your case; a verbal offer is not. 4. Keep handing her over on any date the order or a judge directs, and fight about the rest in court. Withholding her turns you into the party facing sanctions. 5. Take a certified copy of the order with you to every exchange. If police tell you it is a civil matter, that is normal — the family court is the forum. 6. Ask for a written holiday schedule going forward: which parent has Christmas in which years, with times and place.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can he be jailed for refusing to return her?
A family court can use civil contempt sanctions under W. Va. Code § 51-2A-9, and those can be coercive. But that section also provides that a person who lacks the present ability to comply may not be confined for civil contempt. Courts usually start with make-up time, fees, and a tighter schedule.
Can I change the parenting plan without his agreement?
Yes — you ask the family court. His consent is not required. The court decides using the best-interest objectives in W. Va. Code § 48-9-102, and specific dates and times are exactly the kind of detail courts add when a vague plan keeps producing disputes.
I went to the police and to the court and nothing happened. What now?
Police generally will not enforce a parenting plan; the enforcement vehicle is a filed motion under W. Va. Code § 48-9-501 with a contempt request under W. Va. Code § 51-2A-9. Ask the family court clerk specifically for the enforcement or contempt petition form, get a stamped copy, and follow up on the hearing date.
