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Holiday time w/ families?!
This will be our 1st Christmas. We live a plane ride (or 15 hr car ride thru possible snow) from my family and 3 hrs away from his family. Our last 2 Christmas' while we were dating, we would each go to be with our family and meet up after to spend New Years together. We are trying to decide what to do for our 1st Christmas as newlyweds.
I am really leaning towards staying HOME for Christmas. Christmas Day is a Friday...I don't have a probably leaving in the afternoon to go to his parents, but I'd like to have OUR time together to exchange gifts and be around our tree and start our own traditions. Plus, I look into the future when we have children...I'd like Santa to come to OUR house (unless it's an extreme situation) and at home with our kids on Christmas Eve and Day.
We briefly talked about it today and he's really torn with what to do. Maybe I'm more "okay" with not being at my parents b/c I have siblings who have careers that require them to work on Christmas so we've had to adjust our family celebration in the past, but he hasn't always been able to go home either.
What do you do? How did you begin your own couple traditions? Was it hard?
Re: Holiday time w/ families?!
Wow. We got married in July. DH's family is 17 hours by car (so more like, a plane ride) away, and my family is three hours away. We also have spent all of our previous holidays apart (we did the whole, "You go to yours, I'll go to mine, we'll worry about the rest when we're married," thing...) and have had to decide how we are going to handle the holidays. Like you (if I am reading your post right) we feel like we need to establish a "tradition" for what we'll do in the future as well. Here's what we've come up with.
We are going to spend Thanksgiving at our place (we just did this!) and if one year one of our families wants to come visit we are open to that. For Christmas we are going to alternate years, and be there for the holiday as time permits. (Mostly we're saying, "If Christmas is on a Tuesday, there's a good chance we'll be there the weekend before," because we don't really know how our vacation time will work in the future, you know?) This year we are going to my family's Christmas and then next year we will go to his. We had to start somewhere, and after the year we had, I was not really up for spending Christmas with the ILs.
We've decided that Christmas is the only holiday we are making plans to travel for (not Thanksgiving, NY, Easter, etc) and that this plan we have made is only the plan until we have children. Then we'll reevaluate as needed.
Also, we tried to check with our siblings (my B&SIL also live out of state from my M&FIL) to see what their tradition would be. We thought if they were going to do an every other year thing we would try to get on the same rotation as them.
Since I we haven't done it yet (though we did spend Thanksgiving at our own home and my family was fine, his family was N-O-T as fine), I can't tell you how hard it was. In my opinion the worst part was telling MIL that we wouldn't/won't be there this year, for either holiday. Once she knew it was pretty much like, "This is the decision we've come to." End of discussion. My parents were pretty ok with it--I think once I married somebody not from my home state they saw it coming.
GL to you--let us know what you & DH decide!
You're not wrong to want to create new traditions. I'm totally behind you on that, and it sounds like your DH isn't adverse to it. But yet- he isn't entirely ready to not see his family either.
I don't think anything is wrong w/ this.
My take.... you can really go either way. Insist on starting your new traditions this year. Or, break yourselves in gently. Get a tree, perhaps have your special time x-mas Eve, or... whatever works, then be w/ his family starting earlier in the day. But w/ the expectation that next year, more focus on creating your traditions.
However, another thing to think about - while your family is so far away, will you NEVER go to see them? If your response to that is "Of course we'll go see them some years!" - then be careful about how hard you push for starting these new traditions, at least THIS year. Because be realistic- if you go to see your family, you probably won't be leaving ON x-mas. If you want to celebrate the actual holiday w/ them, that will mean NOT being at your home for the holiday.. So..... if when you see your family, these new traditions get thrown out the window, but yet you insist on them when its time to see his family- he might push back a little on that.
Just food for thought!
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I don't see anything wrong with this. It seems very reasonable. You and your H got married and now you two are your own family! There is nothing required about seeing everyone on the holidays. DH and I are having both of our parents come to US this Christmas if they want to see us. Why does it always have to be us coming to them? Growing up, my family always travelled on xmas and that totally sucks as a little kid. You wake up on Christmas, get awesome toys, then pulled into a car for a long car drive 5-6 hrs away. I refuse to do that to my kids. So, we have made it clear that whenever we have children, if you want to see us, you can come to us. And since this Christmas is our first Christmas married, we decided that we were having it at our house and whoever wanted to come, can.
If not, their loss. Maybe see you next year.
I am all for starting new traditions! GL!
We started out by doing Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with another, then swapping the next year. My family is across the country, DH's family is 2 1/2 hours away.
Last year we decided that every 3rd year we would stay home and avoid the stress of traveling all over the place. If someone wants to come to us, great. If not, we'll miss them. We just had Thanksgiving to ourselves and it was divine.
Decide what works for you and go for it.
Good luck.
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.
I've been married almost twenty years; my best holiday advice? Start out how you mean to go on. Really. If you want to spend Xmas morning at home, do it now. If you spend the next five years going over to his mom's, or your mom's, there will be hell to pay when you decide to drop it, from at least one of these sources. Our tradition now is to argue for a few weeks over where we're going, with his mother making ugly remarks about how I tear the family apart (because I'd like to spend Xmas morning at home instead of at her house) and then we sometimes go to MILs, sometimes stay home, but we have no tradition.
And whatever your joint plan is, is fine. Just realize you are building expectations with your behavior that will be painful and difficult to break.
DH and I have a slightly more complicated dynamic because my parents are divorced, so instead of trying to appease two families, we get to work around three.
What has worked for us was doing a rotation. Luckily, none of our parents placed demands on us and have readily let us do what works for us. We made it abundantly clear (even when we were dating), that once we had kids, the holidays were at our house and anyone who wanted to come was welcome, but that we would not be on the road. Granted, we don't have kids yet, so I'm not sure how that will pan out, but so far so good.
We deal with something similar each year too. However since we've been dating we've always made Christmas work for us to be together.
The first year we were married we stayed home, but my parents came to visit. It has since turned into a tradition. We usually exchange gifts the day or two before my parents and brothers arrive and then spend the day of their arrival cleaning the house, and putting up whatever is remaining for the decorations. It's a lot of fun.
Since we're the ones that live far away it's easier for us to make that decision. Once we move back, it's going to be harder. I think once that decision is made we're going to spend Thanksgiving at one place on the day and then Christmas with the other family on the day. It doesn't mean that we can't see them during the weeks before or after, but that's just how we've seen it work and we like it.
H and I got married in March, and my parents live two hours away, while MIL lives in Atlanta.
We will be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family this year, and that'll probably be the way it goes from now on. MIL isn't big into holidays and is never around for them, so we don't make plans to go see her. We had talked about going to see her for Thanksgiving this year, but she decided to spend it with her husband and didn't invite us to come out - so we stayed with my parents for the long weekend. H is joining the Air Force in February, so I'm not sure how holidays will go...but we will always spend Christmas with my parents. Thanksgiving, we'll have to swing as vacation permits.
I agree with the starting traditions now - it'll be SO hard to break that as the years go by. My family, H and I are super close, so we don't mind spending Christmas with my parents and sister [especially now that we have a little one - Christmas may be the only time he gets to see his grandparents and aunt after this year]. Thanksgiving will probably be a switch-off affair, if we have vacation time - we'll bounce from family to family and host ourselves.
I feel you on this. It is also our first married X-mas. DH is in the military and has been gone since our wedding in October. He will be home for the holidays and, like you, I was looking forward to spending time with him alone and creating new traditions. Like you, we also live a plane ride from our families, and aren't looking to spend a fortune on airline tickets.
If you want to create your own couple traditions go for it. But, make sure you both relay your plans to your families. We didn't do this, and were up in the air for a while. So DH's mom surprised us with airline tickets to visit them for x-mas.......super-nice of her, but not my romantic idea of our first christmas as husband and wife.