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WWYD? Christmas Edition
This will probably be wordy - bear with me.
My entire life, on Christmas morning, we go to my Nanny's to do Christmas. We always go early (around 8) as soon as everyone is done with their cattle chores.
H's entire life, he has always done Christmas morning bright and early with his immediate family at their house.
When we got married, that was the biggest issue for us to work out - these are both huge traditions for each of us. So, we have always made it work by going to his mom's around 7 or 8, eating breakfast and doing gifts. Then, around 9-9:30, we leave and hightail it to my Nanny's for my family's Christmas (they've always been really great about willing to move the time back so we can make it on time... it also allows them more time to finish their chores). It works like this, because this allows us to do Christmas with my mom's extended family at lunch and H's dad for supper.
Here's my crisis: I just received a text from H's mom that said her Christmas will be at 9 this year. This is too late (for me, anyway)! I know why she's doing it like this - H's sister just got married and now, instead of it just being SIL and her daughter, it's SIL, BIL, and their 3 young kids who live 25 minutes away. I get that. But, I also have a huge family who I see every year.
I want to ask her if she can move it to 8. I know it will be a fight because it will be "too early" for SIL and BIL to get everything together. I've already spoken with my family and they're willing push their time back to 10ish so we'll have time at both places. What would you do? Would you just go at 9? Would you and H split places? Or would you talk to MIL, even though you know it's going to be a fight?
This is the one single thing I hate about the holidays. It never fails. Every year.
Re: WWYD? Christmas Edition
Do you think she's trying to "control" the holiday and force you guys into doing stuff her way? Or is it more innocent?
If you think she's trying to be manipulative, have your H do what my H does when his mom tries things like this. Have him say, "Sorry, that's not going to work for us because we've got other plans that are set in stone already. This day/time will work for us as we've discussed." Make sure he's the one saying this though....he should be dealing with this since it's his family. If you guys stick to what you say, she'll learn that manipulation doesn't work and might stop doing it.
If it's more innocent, then I would discuss options and see if anyone can be flexible with this new information. Maybe you don't all have to be there right at the same time?
Holidays can get sticky with this kind of thing, all right. It can get complicated very fast sometimes.
Kaylee & Cole 06.14.08
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3/25/12 Earlywine Dash
I think it's more along the lines of catering to SIL and her family since they have kids and we don't. It's always been like that.
I wish I could make H deal with this, but he refuses. He claims that since it's me who has the conflict then it's me who has to deal with it. In his eyes, we do stuff with my family all the time and we don't do much with his. Well, the reason being is because I have a huge family. All my grandparents are still alive, I'm very close with my all my aunts/uncles/cousins/etc... his family consist of his mom, her H, his dad, his wife, his sister and her little family. There is no extended family on H's side. We do more with my family because they do stuff... H's family only gets together for holidays. He would have no problem with skipping someone's Christmas just to attend another, whereas I do... I want to make time for everyone (and it's totally possible).
I just hate feeling like the bad guy all the time when there is a conflict between the two families. I feel like it's always my fault. I'm trying to work up the courage to call MIL and ask her to move it back to 8 since my Nanny said she'll move ours to 10-10:30ish.
This is my other option. I'm going to see about getting it moved to 8 instead of 9, first. But, if that's not possible, then I'm going to see if we can do my family super early and then do H's family. The only conflict I can see with this is if the cattle must all be fed first thing in the morning (it's a big deal for the cattle to be fed at the same time every day). I would think it wouldn't hurt them too much to wait a couple hours to be fed, but then again, the cattle aren't my sole income, so I don't know.
DH and I don't view Christmas as having any special meaning that requires the two of us to be together on Christmas morning, so we'd just split up and each go to our own families in this situation.
That said, this clearly won't work forever. If you have kids, for example, everyone will want to see them. So, can you ask one family (sounds like yours is more flexible) to do Christmas dinner and the other do Christmas breakfast? We open gifts at my parents' house, have lunch with extended family, then head over to DH's parents for Christmas afternoon/night. The other alternatives are to host everyone at your house or to just decide to trade off every other year.
Would any of those options work for you?
We aren't tied to a particular day to celebrate and get together so the holidays have never been an issue with us. I could not stand to drive to multiple houses in one day. We usually do something with one family on Christmas and the other family for New Years or a weekend near the holidays. Both families are okay with this since all of us are either married or have SOs and don't want to make the situation difficult. Last year, we didn't do Christmas with my family until the second week in January because of vacations. No one really minded.
Would something like that work?
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We figured it out - thanks for your suggestions!
Turns out it's all SIL's doing. I called her to ask her about moving it back and she claims it's impossible to get the kids around and whatnot an hour earlier. Whatever. I'm not arguing with her. So, H and I are just going to go an hour early so we can spend time with MIL and FIL, stay until 10 and then leave regardless of what's going on. It should work fine... my family said they'd just wait on us to get there.
I just get tired of feeling like the bad guy when I'm always trying to make time for everyone.