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.
Who's House?
How do you decide who's families house you go to for Christmas and Thanksgiving?....
First Time Mom To Be
Re: Who's House?
H and I discuss what we want to do and then tell the families.
ETA: Every year we've done something different for the holidays. We have no established pattern/ routine. It's been whatever we feel like doing.
whose
One year one family gets us for Thanksgiving, and the other for Christmas. We swap the next year. And year 3 we stay home and they can come to us.
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.
This.
We rotate. When we go to the IL's we split between MIL and FIL who are divorced.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it
) DH is unemployed this year and we can't afford tickets to go visit them for T-day. I don't feel bad bc we have paid for both his parents to visit us at different times, and they could have kicked in a little money to help us afford it this year and chose not to. So we are going to my parents for both holidays (they always give us gas money, LOL, even when DH is working- they would be hurt if we refused since they can easily afford it).
For Thanksgiving we go to both. Lunch with my family dinner with his.
Christmas Eve is spent with my family and Christmas day with his.
Our families live in the same hometown, so we see them both when we travel for holidays, but it's an 8 1/2 hour trip, so we don't always travel.
We have discussed what we would do if they moved away from each other. We would spend Christmas one year with one set, one year with the other, one year at our house, and repeat. We would not travel for Thanksgiving at all.
This might sound funny, but we live in a college town (where we both went to school) so if the game on Thanksgiving is a home game, we stay home and his parents come up to visit. If the game on Thanksgiving is an away game, we go visit my family.
For Christmas, we do Christmas Eve with his family. Wake up on Christmas morning in our house. Then go see my family for lunch/dinner. My mom lives a little further away, so we go see her sometime in the weeks before or after Christmas.
Ok for Thanksgiving we goto my Grandmaw's(Dad's Mom) for lunch, then to DH's Maw-Maw's(DH's Dad's Mom) for dessert, then we head to my Maw-Maw's(Mom's Mom) for dinner again.
We actually spend Christmas with each family. It may not be on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but we do spend time with everyone. I have a rather large family, over 50 of us, so we usually end up meeting the weekend before or after Christmas. Christmas Day is set aside for DH's family functions, we do 3 parties that day.
It's always a busy time for us, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
We live close to our family so it's easy enough to just decide what we like to do and tell them. My parents are divorced and at this moment, they are not speaking to one another (they've been divorced 20 years now and always got along until this past year. Parents
) It does make it a little tricky especially since my Father doesn't like to commit to plans.
We usually go to his Brother's house for Turkey day and then Xmas is at our house. His brother is quite wishy washy some days and this year he's been difficult about he and his family's plans this year.
The last few years we have done Thanksgiving at our house. Everyone's invited and whoever is in town comes by. My family all comes from upstate NY. We alternate years for Christmas. When Christmas falls on a weekend we will often do a couple of years in a row with my family since we have to travel a distance to get there and it's easier on the weekends.
Everyone is very laid back and there are no hurt feelings if someone can't be around for a holiday one year. I'm always amazed when I read the family matters board around the holidays. If my family acted like some of the families I read about I would never go to any of their places for the holidays!
For Thanksgiving, we try to alternate but it's always difficult. We haven't talked about this year yet, but I'm thinking we really need to go to my mom's since my dad recently passed away. Or we could have Thanksgiving here at our house for the first time, but my mom has close friends who she likes to invite over so I'm guessing we'll go to her house.
For Christmas, DH's parents open presents on Christmas Eve so we go there for dinner and to open presents with them. We spend the night at our house and on Christmas morning we go to my parent's house (they live an hour away). That works out fine.... it's Thanksgiving that's always difficult.
Both sets of our parents live within an hour of each other and because we both have small families everyone gets together for both. This Thanksgiving my parents are hosting and his parents and sister will be coming over. Then Christmas dinner my parent's-in-law will host and my parents will go over to their house with us.
Crazy, but it works
My SO doesn't get every holiday off since hes a cop. My family all lives out of state, so we see them less. This year we are going to see my sister and her family for Thanksgiving.
His family is large, and split. His dad has remarried three times, and he still considers the second wife his step-mom since she helped raise him. As an adult (before me) he always did Christmas eve at his moms, and Christmas day at his step-moms; of course if hes off on the holidays. We see his dad, 3rd wife, and half siblings at some point, but don't "celebrate" with them.
However, last year his mom went nuts on us and demanded we see her Christmas day. We already had plans with his step mom, and it was an ugly fight with his mother who told us not to both coming at all then. Of course she changed her mind a few days before Christmas eve. Since then, we have cut his mother off for other reasons(alcohol). So this year we are going to start our own tradition. At least we won't be guilt tripped anymore. When we have kids, we want them opening gifts at our house Christmas morning.
TOO many! My mom, My dad, his mom, our house, etc.
Needless to say, we are exhaused at the end of the day!