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If you live near family, do you do your "own thing" for Christmas or Thanksgiving?
We live 20minutes away from my parents, and MIL and DH's aunt.
They are all the family we have living nearby.
So generally we alternate who we will have Christmas dinner with, and visit the other people at some point during the day.
I'm happy visiting both sets, but part of me would like to start doing our own Christmas at home, especially now we have children.
The obvious solution seems to be to invite everyone to us for Christmas day, except both sides don't socialise very well together and really it makes the day awkward and tense.
Because we live so close it's a bit hard to pull the, 'we're staying home this year" card, and it feels churlish not to share a Christmas meal with someone.
Last year, we had MIL and aunt over for Christmas breakfast and then went to my parents for Christmas lunch. I loved how relaxed and easy the day felt.
My parents always do the same Christmas meal every year (Turkey with all the trimmings) and so would never agree to a breakfast. DH thinks that relegating MIL to breakfast every year is unfair. (I do see his point)
Anyway, I guess I want to see every one and share Christmas, but at the same time start our own family traditions and ways of doing things.
Any thoughts?
Re: If you live near family, do you do your "own thing" for Christmas or Thanksgiving?
Simple.
Christmas morning is home so your kids get to enjoy their Christmas.
Then you alternate Christmas Dinner and Boxing Day (you guys do celebrate BD like the rest of the commonwealth righ?).
I wish the US celebrated BD. That would open up a whole other day for these crazy holiday fights.
Relegate???
Most grandparents prefer Christmas morning with the wonder of present opening and kids who aren't over tired.
I'd alternate dinner and breakfast, if your folks are too rigid to compromise (and that is entirely their right) then they "lose out" every other year.
This. We were dragged between family members and then my divorced parents for all of our childhood on Christmas day. And all I wanted to do was stay home and play with my toys.
Invite one side over for the day, then do a follow on celebration with the other side the next week. Next year, switch who gets what days.
Once you have kids, all under your roof are a priority in terms of holidays. If you have found a system that works well for you (bfast with one, lunch with another), go with it!
You could also consider X-Mas Eve with your ILs and lunch with your family. The Eve is often overlooked, but full of excitement and anticipation. We used to spend it with family when I was you, and I loved it! You get an early gift or two and are so happy thinking of what is to come!
We're 10 minutes from DH's parents and we do our own thing on Christmas.
From the first year we were married, we said that our Christmas was at our house. Both sets of parents say we're always welcome to come see them, but there's no pressure.
We have dinner and celebrate on Christmas Eve with DH's parents; we spend Christmas day at our house (usually host my best friend and her DH for dinner); and we do something with my family in the week between Christmas and New Year. Once or twice, my family has come for Christmas, which is fine with us.
Before we had kids, MIL and FIL pretty much left us alone except for a phone call on Christmas day; now they come over for snacks or a buffet brunch so they can see the kids' Christmas presents. It's all very relaxed and casual.
We have my family 10 minutes away and DH's family 30 minutes away.
When we were speaking to DH's dad, we spent Xmas eve with his family, Christmas morning just us, and Christmas dinner with my family. It worked out perfectly since DH's family did not get together on Christmas day.
Now, we have Christmas eve to ourselves. We spend Christmas morning with just us and the kids, and go to my parents home for Christmas dinner.
We see DH's brother, his kids (grown) and girlfriend sometime during the week between Christmas and NY. Usually BILs girlfriend invites us to her home for a pasta dinner.
My parents are pretty ridgid and like to assume that since they won't bend I will always do it their way. This has worked to a degree and I don't make every little thing a fight - but I have gotten much better at saying "that doesn't wok for us" and sticking to it.
It's harldy an imposition for them to be invited for the breakfast meal. They can say "no" if it is so horrible for them to be the tiniest bit flexible to your home and children's best interests.
In my experience, they will give you all kinds of pressure to change your mind, then they'll miss a year, and then they'll do it your way the next time it comes up.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
yep!
we do Christmas morning just the 2 of us and then we go to one of our parents house's for dinner that evening, we see the other side of the family a different day and every year we switch whose family we see on the actual christmas day. We refuse to jump from house to house on Christmas and it's important for us to develop our own traditions for the morning.
We have a similar situation in our household, but have been able to work it out over the last few years. Here's what we do: Christmas Eve is reserved for the in-laws. Christmas morning is at home so the kids can enjoy their gifts. At noon on Christmas day, we go to DH's grandpa's house (he's aging quite a bit and we'll do whatever we can to accommodate him no matter what).
Since I have a SD, we take her to her mom's right after dinner with Grandpa. Then, we enjoy Christmas evening at home. We visit my parents the next day in the evening, that way we can go after-Christmas shopping if we want to. That seems to work well for everyone. If anyone else wants to get together, like extended family or friends, we will either do it the weekend before or after the actual holiday. Good luck! I know it can be stressful!
I don't think it's necessary to see everyone on Christmas Day in order to be able to say you spent time with them at Christmas. A lot of families are surprisingly rigid about that, but I think that as families grow and change, it's only natural that what worked for everyone decades ago might not work now.
What if you spent Christmas Day at home with your H and your kids? And if you so wished, you could invite family to join you for a brunch, lunch or dinner on that day as well.
Or, you could spend Christmas Eve with one side of the family, and Boxing Day with the other, but still have Christmas Day at your house with just your H and the kids.
It might take time to figure out what works, but these are just a few suggestions/examples of how you could see everyone and still do your own thing.
Good Luck with whatever decision you make.
I grew up in a similar situation to yours. My parents live exactly 15 minutes from both sets of grandparents. We did Christmas Eve dinner with my mom's family; Christmas Morning at my parents' house; and Christmas Day with my dad's family. This worked great for many reasons:
1. My mom's family has always had their big meal on Christmas Eve. After eating, we open family gifts and go to the Christmas Eve service at church. My grandmother likes that on Christmas Day the adults can lounge and eat leftovers and the kids can run around hyped up on sugar/playing with toys from Santa.
2. By doing Christmas morning at our house, both sets of grandparents could come to the house and see what Santa brought. Every year, we would call them when we finished opening presents and invite them to come over and eat breakfast.
3. My dad's family is very strict about no gifts before Christmas morning, so they never did anything on Christmas Eve.
It's a solid 2 days of food, gifts, and festivities. I love it! Now, that my cousins and I are getting married, it's a little more difficult to work out. I'm fortunate that DH's family is very relaxed about holidays and they're willing to celebrate whenever works. Or not at all in the case of his crabby dad.
Ovulation Tracker
While Christmas may be one day, the holiday season goes on for at least two months. Stretch the family days out a little- have one the weekend before C-mas, one the weekend after and spend the actual Christmas Day with your own family in your own home. This way, instead of C-mas being one day that comes and goes, you can extend the celebrating a little.
An American Girl's Travels
Both my parents and ILs live within 30 minutes of us. Until we had kids, we went all-out trying to spend as much time as possible with both sets of parents, even though it meant that our time as a couple was minimal. For both DH and I, Christmas = Mom and Dad's House.
Once we had our first kid, we became Mom and Dad. Our parents became Grandma and Grandpa. We had to kind of shift things. The grandparents needed to let go of their expectation that the holiday would center around them, and we needed to let go of our guilt and embrace our role as parents. Fortunately, you have a few years, while the baby is tiny, to sort this stuff out so that everyone's happy.
Keep talking, be flexible, and you'll get through this natural shift in the way you do things.
FWIW, here's how we do it:
Christmas Eve: ILs at our house for dinner. Everyone who is old enough goes to Midnight Mass then back to DH's parents' for snacks and presents.
Christmas Morning: we unwrap presents at home and give the kids a chance to hang out with their loot.
Christmas Dinner: we head to my parents' for presents and dinner.
Weekend after Christmas: we make an effort to get together for dinner with any of DH's family who weren't able to be there for Christmas.
I usually just lurk, but have to chime in on this topic. The holidays always stress out me and DH. My family is very small..just my parents, grandma, and my aunt with her daughter, and they are very serious and proper. My husband's family is like that in "Big Fat Greek Wedding," and are loud and fun, but there are just too many of them. For the holidays, his dad will invite us over, as will his half-sister, and then his aunt, and his cousin. Then, if we go to DH's family, my family gives us a hard time because with fewer people around, it is very noticeable and not as entertaining for them (hence I get a guilt trip!). For the last 5+ years, we have been to 2 houses on X-mas Eve and 3 on X-mas day. It is super tiring, and makes it so that the holidays aren't even fun any more.
This year, we have enough and are going on vacation out of the country for the holidays! The family will get visits on random weekends in December and January, and THAT'S IT!!! Wow...I feel frustrated just writing about it.
TTC 17 months. Dx: MFI (morph=2,) LPD due to poor quality of ovulation because of mildly blocked fallopian tubes. B2B IUIs with injects were pending, but we had a surprise BFP after HSG!
When we live near family (right now we don't) our house becomes the location of family get togethers. Everyone is invited: FIL/step-MIL, my mom, step-MIL's exH and his wife, step-siblings, friends who have no place to go. Only person not invited is DH's mom because she and FIL cannot be together and she cannot afford to travel to see us more than once per year so she chooses another time.
Our tradition is what made sense for everyone. I am Jewish so we don't decorate our home. But DH cooks a feast, I help and everyone brings something. We have a blast.
I used to get stressed that everything had to be perfect but once I let go of that expectation I found that I thoroughly enjoyed being around everyone and having a full house of happy (and sometimes grumpy) people.
Oh and one other thing...I think a lot of times we don't realize what we have until it is gone. This year we won't be near family and I am *really* going to miss not being around everyone this year. I think it is going to be especially hard on DH. Not suggesting that you should spend the entire holiday with family, but at least one meal would be nice.
Good luck working it all out
We have a very simple holiday policy (adopted when we got married):
We stay at our house for holidays. Visitors are welcome, as always.
See? It's simple! No arguing/fighting/bullying/guilt-tripping - we have just told any concerned parties about the plan from Day 1. No one gives us grief about it.
Stay home, relax with your baby. Anyone who wants to see you will show up. Seriously, people overthink holidays WAAAAY too much IMO. If any family members are sucking the joy out of your holidays, tell them you'll have to gather together another time. It's supposed to be a time of relaxation and celebration, not stress and misery.
think about your kids and the memories you want to make for them, What are the traditions you want for your kids, It's always a struggle shaking things up and doing your own thing, but I think you should be able to play the kids card and say, these are the memories/traditions we want to make for our family and we'd like you to be a part of those memories and then just pick dates and times and alternate families. good luck
I live near all of my family. We schedule when we will be seeing everyone. Our families understand that people get busy so we have worked out the following schedule: (1) Christmas Eve with my mother, brothers and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews. (2) Christmas morning the two of us, (3) later Christmas morning with his parents, brother and sister, (4) Christmas daytime with my dad's family, (5) Christmas night-time with my mom's family, a couple of days after Christmas for his mom's family. Basically, everyone spread out their schedules over the days before and after Christmas and everyone adjusted. This has helped us out immensely since we were worried about our very first Christmas together how schedules would be able to be adjusted.
Everyone wants to see everyone and it hurts feelings to not be included. While we can't see everyone at the same time or for the same amount, we definitely make sure to call everyone and see everyone every season.
I'm terrified of my mother asking me what our plans are for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. DH's family is very, very laid back and my family is the complete and total opposite. We're leaning to just seeing my parents on Christmas Eve, and I'm scared ****less to tell her!
Both sets of parents, and 1 set of his grandparents live in the same town, about 30 minutes away. My only set of grandparents live in a different town about 30 minutes away, and my grandfather is very, very feeble, so I feel like I should accomodate him. DH's other set of grandparents live 2 hours away, so it makes sense to see them maybe the day after Christmas.
I'm graduating in December, and me, DH, my mom and dad are all going to NYC for a couple of days and will be back on the 23rd of December. What my thoughts are... is that since we just spent craploads of time together, that we just do Christmas Eve with my family (which is very big - my mom plays the organ at the church service). I want to do Christmas morning just the two of us, then lunch with DH's parents and grandparents. I don't think it will be a big deal to see both sets of our grandparents who live away on a different day?
I'm also thinking, since my mom will FREAK out that she won't get to see us on Christmas Day, that we'll spend Thanksgiving with her and see his family on another day of that weekend.
My mother is unbelievably stubborn and most likely will not understand why we can't see her the entire time, instead of seeing his family too. I'm about to pull my hair out just thinking about it.
Any thoughts?