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.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Husbands that hate xmas?
Anyone out there that their husbands hate xmas and all the other holidays? Its been a tough few years to get him into the spirit of anything and I can see why, too much family at once can be awfully scary but my side of the family is big into the season and we do a lot of baking instead of gifts. I was going to try to start new traditions just us, start smasll. So far I have a 2 ft tree and a few stockings that we hang up and thats its. Any advice?
Re: Husbands that hate xmas?
DH is not a big Christmas person. He went from being the only grandchild and loving it to having major family upheaval that made the holidays traumatic for him.
I just took it very easy, and let him ease into it. It's a big deal with both of our families, but I let him check out and be alone when he wants some time to decompress.
He's seen how positively my family approaches the holidays, and that's helped him relax and enjoy the time a lot. And we spend some time talking about his past holidays and how things are so different now.
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I try to find seasonal things and events after Thanksgiving he might enjoy going to. And having it spread out throughout the month of December seems to be okay with him.
Going downtown after the city puts up Christmas decorations. There's a number of different neighborhoods that make it interesting and we take a few weekends to do it. Baking seasonal things at home. Going to different places to see Christmas lights and displays.
We also participate in a number of charities for the holidays. Buying toys or doing some gift wrapping to raise money. I think that really helps him focus on the spiritual aspect of the season. We are also active in our church, so we help out with anything that might be going on there also.
And we plan our own meal each year, we try something different each year so we aren't mired in a set tradition.
I'm the one that has a hard time with Christmas in our household. DH loves it though.
Basically, the best way to get along is to do whatever it is that you do and invite him along. Allow him to accept or decline either way without any guilt trips. Eventually he'll see that he can have fun too and that the holidays are not one big scary obligation. Make it fun and whatever you do, don't make it mandatory or pressure him in any way.
Make your own holiday tradition. Whatever it is, make it. If it's 'We always have chili on Xmas Eve' then that's what it is; if it's "We always have cinamon rolls on Xmas morning during our sit down brunch" or 'we go feed the homeless' then that's what it is. Make your tradition inviolate. Your family of origin stuff can all be done around this; but make what the two of you do together, as a family, be your tradition and don't let anyone interfere with it, ever. He won't hate the huge family of inlaws blob party all Xmas afternoon nearly so much if you and he have that special morning or whatever.
As for gifts? Dont make your family of origin gifts more important or expensive than what you get each other; dont'put your marital finances into a dither over gifts you buy others. It can be a source of enormous resentment and difficulty if you blow the budget on all kinds of gifts for everyone in your family and leave him no money to buy you what he wants to get you, or for you to buy him what you want. Set limits; abide by them; be respectful of your marital finances and the place your marriage has in your priorities.
dh and i have been married five years and he said he's going to be positive about xmas and make an effort to get into the spirit this year. his family is just nuts and the holidays had a lot of expectations around presents, hard feelings if they weren't met... that kind of b.s. we obviously did more presents in my family when i was a kid but since there are nine kids (and then husbands and wives) in my family when we got older (18+) we started doing a grab bag and just buying for one person. that really scaled back the whole consumer aspect of xmas in my family (except for the neices/nephews when they're little.)
not forcing it on him while enjoying myself is what i did and it's paying off. we don't do lots of presents; one main present, one little present (mayabe) and stocking stuffers. that's all we do... we don't buy for the extended family, nor do they for us. i've always put up a tree, decorated, baked cookies, played my charlie brown xmas cd, and basically done my festive xmas thing without forcing him to participate. we've always done xmas eve at my folks, that's when we did the grab bag exchange, and dinner on xmas day, but it's all very low key. dh spent a few years in germany and said he really liked how they celebrated over there, munich in particular, where there is less emphasis on things/consumption and more on people. knowing that made me feel like there might be hope he'd come around and doing my thing and not forcing it or getting mad at him gave him the space to decide for himself. i am super happy that he's going to make an effort to get into the xmas spirit this year because it'll be even more fun.