Some days, I wonder if Angelina Jolie is actually employing some kind of long-term strategy with her neverending divorce from Brad Pitt. It’s been more than three years, and they’ve yet to come up with a financial agreement on their divorce, and I believe they do not have a permanent custody/visitation agreement worked out. The custody arrangement they have right now is the “temporary” one they agreed to back in 2018, and it seems to be working out okay. But my theory is that Angelina wants to drag it out so that the kids will get older and begin to make their own decisions about whether they want to see Brad. Originally, Maddox was the only one old enough to refuse to see Brad. Then Pax refused too. And now it sounds like Zahara has zero interest in spending time with her dad over Christmas. Still, Brad’s people are happy that he’ll get to see the three youngest kids on Christmas Eve… without a monitor. For the first time.

Brad Pitt is getting into the holiday spirit! The actor is expected to celebrate Christmas Eve with some of his kids without a monitor, a source exclusively reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly.

“Brad’s planning on having the younger kids on Christmas Eve,” the source tells Us about Shiloh, 13, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 11, noting that this will be the first Christmas since his divorce with Angelina Jolie in which a monitor won’t be present at Pitt’s house. (The actress filed for divorce in 2016 after two years of marriage and 10 years together.)

While his daughter, Zahara, 14, was present last year, the Ad Astra star, 55, is “not expecting her this year,” says the source. And certainly not son Maddox, 18, and Pax, 16, either as Pitt is not on good terms with them. In the meantime, the producer can at least take comfort in being with his youngest kids to celebrate the holiday. “He’s hoping they’ll want to spend the night,” says the source, “but he’s really just looking forward to Christmas Eve with them.”

[From Us Weekly]

Is Zahara just old enough to make her own choices? Or did she tell Brad that she had other stuff to do and he was fine with it? I don’t know. We’ll probably never know. Oh well… I’m glad that Brad will get to see three of his six children on Christmas Eve. He better do the proper divorced-dad thing and buy them lots of presents and make sure the fridge is stocked with their favorite food. He might even want to prepare a proper meal.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.