Holidays
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Anyone else NOT doing the holiday thing this year??
This year has been pretty crappy for my family... the first half of the year (Jan-June) was running my dad back and forth to the hospital. Then we lost him in July to congestive heart failure
... The week before my dad passed, DH and I decided to seperate and are now working on getting a divorce... So this year my mom and I decided to skip the whole Thanksgiving thing and we are going away for the weekend.... havent decided about Christmas yet but Im sure we will go away also...
Anyone else skipping the whole holiday thing this year?
Re: Anyone else NOT doing the holiday thing this year??
Just a supportive hug. We lost my dad earlier this year too (also cardiac related) and the holidays are unbelievably hard. I completely understand not wanting to do anything holiday related - sometimes it's hard to fathom there is anything to celebrate. Your divorce, is another major loss in your life (even if your husband was the world's biggest douchebag) and so you've got double the grieving to do.
We're kind of doing the exact opposite with holidays - for Thanksgiving ALL our relatives are coming from whereever in the country they are to my mom's house. It's more about them being there for her.
Since we're Jewish, my brother and I have always spent Christmas with our SO's families. My mom and dad used to go away together during that time period. Rather than being home alone by herself, my mom is coming with DH and I and spending Christmas with his family. And then we're going to end up ditching them most of the time and spending it just the two of us.
I'm sorry to hear about your year. That's rough.
After running all over God's creation to see family each year, we decided that every 3rd year we're staying put. We'll still celebrate the holidays, but if anyone wants to see us, they have to make the trip to OUR house.
Thanksgiving will be very low-key, and likely Christmas as well. We don't need any more crap in our house, so we won't be doing much in the way of gifts. Just the way I like it.
ETA: Because of us, my parents have realized they run themselves ragged trying to see their far-flung children over the holidays, so they're going to New Orleans just the 2 of them. My BFF would rather see her family in October or February when things are less stressful. I think it's a fabulous plan.
Our little Irish rose came to us on March 5, 2010
Don't drink the water.
Disclaimer: I am not an MD. Please don't PM me with pregnancy-related questions. Ask your doctor.
Sorry to hear about your rough year!
We have thought about going away but havent done it quite yet. Could be soon though!!!
Big, major hugs to you! For Thanksgiving, so a vacation to somewhere that doesn't celebrate it and won't make any efforts to do so. I went to London one year over that weekend and it was business as usual. And the museums were MUCH less crowded. If you are into that sort of thing.
Christmas will be harder to "escape." We went on a cruise over Christmas one year and they did minimize the celebrating and it may be nice to just be in a nice tropical place having people wait on you hand and foot.
sorry about your year. at least you have your mama to go away with.
sometimes i wish i could skip the holidays, but we have kids and cant be doing that to them
DH and I live too far away from our family to make the trip for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Last year and this year, we are staying home for Thanksgiving and having a small dinner at our house just like any other night.
This year for Christmas we may not make it in to see our families. If we don', we plan on making our own traditions, but we'll still be celebrating the holiday.
I am sorry to hear about this too. I have been through hell and back this past year. My mom took a turn for the worst in March and passed away in April from early onset Alzheimer's. Then three weeks later, my soon to be ex-SIL left my brother and all the drama associated with that. Then my sister got married (again) and moved away. Then finally, my father had a stroke on October 4th.
I am ready for 2009 to be OVER.
As for the Thanksgiving, DH & I plan to spend time with my father and brother. We can not afford to take time off but family is important to me so I am going to surround myself with the ppl I love.
Sorry about your craptastic year. I hope 2010 is way better for you.
We are not doing the holidays. My family is scattered all over the US and beyond. Not sure about Thanksgiving yet, I would like to do something different since it is just 3 of us.
For Christmas, all of my scattered family decided to adopt a soldier ( http://adoptaussoldier.org/ ) instead of buying gifts for one another. My DH, son and I decided to do an activity rather than gifts so we rented a cabin in the mountains and are going skiing and such.
DO IT.
We have each lived overseas in the other spouse's country and for literally YEARS and YEARS our vacation time has been mostly dedicated to visiting family and friends in each other's hometowns. Last year we put our foot down about spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our own house. Christmas Eve we spent alone, I made a nice dinner and Christmas Day my family was all invited over for brunch and present opening, come if you like, or don't come, but we'll be staying RIGHT HERE, TYVM.
It was SO WORTH IT. And no one died of misery or disowned anyone and everyone was happy. Maybe not every year but definitely take a year for yourselves every couple of years or so and do WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.
::hugs::
We spent last xmas in Hawaii for a destination wedding, and while that had been a trip we planned for months, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was so great to get away from the snow and the cold and the over-stimulation of everything and go to somewhere more relaxed where the holidays aren't flung into over-drive starting November 1st. If you can and want to get away, I definitely suggest it.
I'm so sorry for your loss and your divorce.
I've skipped Xmas before, twice actually, and really didn't miss it a lot.
You certainly don't have to celebrate if you don't feel like it.
I've never really gotten into Thanksgiving that much, so most years I could go either way.
Aww I can totally understand you feelin! I would do the same!
H and I aren't gonna do a big thing this year either. We are too poor and we've both had very stressful years. The past 12 months have been hard on us, especially me with health stuff and being laid off.
We're thinking we'll hang with my mom and her hubby for T-day, but not all day, just a little bit for dinner.
Then we'll be going to see H's family for Christmas, but we are traveling ON Christmas day so I have a feeling we'll not be doing a whole lot that day. I'm more interested in hanging out with my book club and college friends than doing the big family thing. My year's been too rough, I need relax time.
I hope your next year is much much much better!
We have not celebrated Thankgiving in years and this will be the second year in a row for no Christmas. DH has to work Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day and I have no idea if I will have any of those holidays off from my regular job. Since DH works in SFO and we live in SAN it makes celebrating the holidays a bit difficult especially since its very hard for him to fly standby to get home
We will probably celebrate Hannukah though
Our Jewish friends spend Christmas with my family and we go spend at least one night of Hannukah with them.
I'm so sorry for your bad year - I'll join you in that pity party. We lost both our beloved pets, our boat caught fire, I had a horrible car accident with injuries, husband laid off, etc.....it's been a year of loss (and renewal) for us too.
I am actually in the process of drafting an email to my friends and family, letting everyone know that we just can't afford gifts this year. We will probably do one small gift for each family instead of GCs for each niece/nephew, etc.... I'm counting pennies and this is one of those years that we have to be realistic about the holidays. I will celebrate Thanksgiving but our Christmas celebration will be about non-material things.
The holidays can be so hard, especially after a loss, that I'm all for doing whatever makes you comfortable. My grandfather, who was the patriarch of our family and my father figure, died on Christmas Day. It's been 10 years, but I still have a hard time getting through the "holiday" season, which at this point seems to start some time in September. It gets better every year but for a long time, we had to bascially rewrite our holidays, because every event felt empty without him and many Christmasy things brought that day back to our memory. I lived in Florida for several years and found it was so nice to have those days go past on the beach or somewhere where I could have some solitude with no expectations about what Thanksgiving or Christmas was supposed to be. Sometimes your mind just needs some time to heal, and if taking those days "off" is the best way for you and your mom, I say do it.
Thank you everyone for the kind words,,, this year has sucked so bad and now we were hit with anothe whammy this morning.. just found out my 30 yr old handicapped nephew has leukemia!.. will the bad news ever end!!
Im glad mom and I are going away for Thanksgiving and I am trying to talk her into going to see my sister for Christmas. We havent seen her and her family in a few years and we were saddened that due to their own money issues, they were unable to make it home for my dads funeral.
"If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane" -- Jimmy Buffett