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.
Holiday help!
Please someone tell how to work out this holiday problem i have. My husband and i want to be fair when it comes to breaking up the holiday's (easter, thanksgiving and christmas), so that no one is getting screwed. please, please help!
Re: Holiday help!
Yea, knowing where everyone lives would help. But at the same time, you and DH need to think about yourselves first and what the two of you want to do. You don't have to go running all over God's creation so that everyone sees you. And also remember that "fair" doesn't necessairly mean "equal".
If anyone gets "Screwed", it's really of their own making and their lack of support and understanding for you.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Always remember that it is your holiday too and you can spend it however the both of you please. You are more than just pawns for others to enjoy the holidays. You don't have to visit family if you don't want to. You can spend them with friends, go to the Bahamas, go to Disneyworld or you can stay at home and eat chinese food and watch old kung fu movies. Always put your and your husband's needs first and again, it is your holiday too and you really can do whatever you want.
All family gatherings are within a 50 mile radius
this, exactly.
my brother and his wife finally realized this- after years of trekking from San Fran to NJ for the holidays... that they had more fun staying home on xmas and thanksgiving- and coming to visit family during non-holiday times of the year instaed.
There are a lot of factors that come into play. What kind of jobs does everyone have? I have some family who gets holidays off and others who do not at all due to their jobs. Because of that Easter is not a big holiday in my family. I have a friend who has kids and since all family is nearby, they see both sides on holidays but spend the majority of one of the minor holidays with one family over the other.
You can try assigning holidays to his and yours via even and odd years. It all really depends. One year someone in my family was dying and we opted to spend all holidays with my family that year.
Here is some more advice for the holidays that I have learned througout the years. This comes from my own family and friends' experiences and also tidbits I have learned from the Nest.
1. I still stand by my advice above. Once you realize that it is your Holiday too and you truly can spend it however you please, it is very freeing. Sure some people will get upset, but you might not really care when you are sitting beachside drinking yummy drinks, getting a massage in your cabana and watching the waves roll in.
2. If you do choose to visit family, it is best to spend the entire day with one family and then spend the entire day with the other family on the next Holiday. Then switch the next year. For example, spend Thanksgiving with his parents and Christmas with your family. Then next year switch. DO NOT SPLIT UP THE DAYS. Trust me, you both will be miserable and your families won't appreciate one bit the sacrifice you are trying to make and will still complain about not seeing you enough.
I have friend that drags her poor kids all over town to see four families on Christmas day and she says that everyone is just miserable. I tell her to not do it, but she is a huge doormat and is so afraid of upsetting one of the sets of parents that she would rather her kids be miserable.
3. Absolutely do not let yourselves be treated like a commodity. Do not let one family say " Well you spent 6 hours with her family, so you have to spend 6 hours with ours" or " Well you had dinner with his family, so you have to eat dinner with ours" or the wonderful " Well you spent 4 hours at his mom's house then 4 hours at his dad's house, so that means you have to spend 8 hours at our house because we shouldn't be punished because we aren't divorced." This is the worst trap you can fall into and do not take it for a single second. Shut that talk down and say " We are not discussing this at all and the more you hassle us about how much time we spend with the other family, it makes our time here less enjoyable and we might be more inclined to not visit as much in the future.
4. With apologies with the above poster because this doesn't include her situation, don't fall for the " you have to spend all the holidays with us because it might be grandma's last." Unless it truly is grandma's last, just keep with your rotation. Now when it does come a time when you do know it is someone's last holiday, of course make arrangements to spend time with them, but don't do so just because grandma is creeping up in age and it MIGHT be her last.
5. Don't see it as splitting time between two famiies but three because you and your husband are your own family and the most important one. Again, what you both want comes first. So if that means you skip out on Aunt Sally's holiday party because you simply don't want to go, then don't go. Remember you both have your own holiday traditions that you need to start too. My husband has turned down family celebrations because we already had plans and although his family was super pissed, they also got over it. I might also suggest spending Christmas morning in your own home. I feel it sets a precedent before children arrive and in my opinion children should spend Christmas morning in their own home, waking up in their own beds and running down the stairs to see their own Christmas tree.
6. There is no law saying you must celebrate on the exact day. So say you do go to the Bahamas for Christmas, then get together with family the weekend before and have your own Christmas celebration.
7. Try to make other holidays fun too. My brother has a very busy schedule and really can't come out to visit for a lot of Christmases. However, he does try to come out for New Years, so my family started a new tradition of making New Years a bigger deal than we had before. My husband is the same way. BEcause of his work schedule, visiting his family for ThnX and Xmas isn't an option, so we try to make Easter and the 4th of July bigger holiday celebrations.
Please read and re-read what stw wrote. Open up your mind about how to approach the holidays. You're patting yourself on the back for being "too nice", but you need to 1- be careful about not falling into "being a pawn"/ doormat land, and 2- what happens when you have kids? Who comes first? All your families and their wants or your kids?
I would actually argue that if either of your families truly give you GRIEF over not being w/ them, then now is the time to start resetting expectations so that when you do have kids (OR you just decide for yourselves "we're not doing this every year"), it's not a huge shock to them.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
do you have children? my husband and i do not and there fore spend the holidays traveling to our parents homes- 1/2 away from us different ways. we spend christmas morning at our home then head out and don't get back till 11pm. ugggg. but when we have kids it will change so I happy to oblige now. I just say when we have kids thigs will change.
easter and thanksgiving are similiar but try to alternate or do a combined event.
We have found in the past few years that we really enjoy making our own traditions and you should consider that.
However, to answer your question:This is how we did it before our dd came along.
Our families live 100 miles apart and we live very close to dh's parents.
Thanksgiving rotated: We spent the night before Thanksgiving at one parents house, would wake up and share the day, then leave and get to the other parents for dessert. The following year, we flipped it.
Christmas eve was always spent at DH's family. We would wake up very early Christmas morning, open gifts and leave for my parents house every Christmas morning by 10. I have a younger sibling so that worked for us.
Easter just rotated every year.
Now it is so different because I want dd in her own home christmas & easter morning, so we do our own thing and last year we did not see Dh's family until 2 days after Christmas.. it was not any less special and made the holiday last longer. GL with your choices.
Hi,
I would like to suggest you that,postponed your work till holidays end and enjoy your holidays.
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