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How small a distance is too close to play, "we're staying home for the holidays"?
Both sides of the family live 25 minutes away (about 5 minutes apart from each other)
Both sides of the family are ridiculously tiny. I have my parents, and DH has his mother and his Aunt.
All other family live overseas, and there is never an expectation that they travel for Christmas, although from time to time someone does come over.
So because everyone lives so close it's not a huge deal to visit everyone on Christmas, except that I would like to start having our own Christmas at home with the foods we want to eat and our own traditions.
The obvious solution is that everyone come to us, except the two sides simply don't socialise well together. Everyone is perfectly civil but it's stilted and awkward and it's not a fun way for us to spend our Christmas day either.
So then the obvious thing seems to be that we visit each side on either Christmas eve or boxing day, or that they come visit us. But then it seems churlish not to share a Christmas meal with at least one side.
Up until now we've visited both sides on Christmas day, and eaten dinner with one side.
We don't have Thanksgiving here, so Christmas is the only holiday to work with.
So do we just suck it up and keep visiting everyone. Do we be mean spirited and stay home, even though they're only 25 minutes up the road.
Thoughts?
Thanks
Re: How small a distance is too close to play, "we're staying home for the holidays"?
Can you travel on christmas eve to one family and have other travel to you christmas day? then next years travel to other family on eve for dinner and have the opposite travel to you christmas day.
did htat make sense?
Yes that makes total sense, and is such a ismple solution I'm not sure why I couldn't think of it.
I think I got caught up thinking that if we were hosting then we had to invite both sides, when in reality there is no such rule.
It's difficult to try to get into a routine and figure out holidays. I don't think there is anything wrong with telling the family you are going to stay home and have a small dinner.
DH and I plan to do this and it's only the two of us. My parents / grandparents live about 30 minutes away and DH's parents / sister / my brother all live in the same city as us. We both have to work the before and then early the day after the holiday so we are just going to relax at home and make our own little feast.
Good advice about the Christmas Eve/ Christmas Day option, but another thing to think about - dont' worry about the distance. "too far/too close" - it doesn't matter. Its about what YOU want to do.
Anyone gives you a hard time about "but we're only 5 mins away", you say "I understand, but it's not about the distance. We simply want to stay home and enjoy the day w/o running around.".
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Change "distance" and make it "cost" and that's us this year. We do a 3 year rotation (both of our families are far enough away we need to fly to them) with one year at DH's family, one year at my family's and one year home. Money is tight at the moment, because of my job situation, but we also want to stay at home this year and just enjoy the holiday with the two of us. DH's family offered to fly us to Colorado to be with them, but we're working on creating our own traditions. I'm SO excited to have a real Christmas tree this year instead of an artificial one, and it'll be fun to just relax and enjoy the day.
Too much cooking on a holiday with this option.
lol
This! We tried to have both families over last xmas and it backfired. We spent it just the 3 of us. lol
I am in the same situation. Last year DH and I spent Christmas Eve with his family, and Christmas with mine. This year I would like to visit everyone on Christmas Eve, and have Christmas to ourselves.
I don't think you should feel obligated to spend every holiday moment with parents. Even though I say this, someone will still be mad. Just tell them to suck it up