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.
Seeing BOTH familes for Holidays
How many of you are seeing both families for Thanksgiving and Christmas? My mom is over 3 hours away and making me feel bad that I'm not driving home every holiday. I've invited her here, but it seems to be a one way solution in her mind. I suppose I created it - I USED to come home all the time when I had no life. Now I have one and don't want to spend all of my time there.
Anyone else cutting the apron strings out there?
Re: Seeing BOTH familes for Holidays
No we can't see both families on the holildays since DH's live halfway across the country. However, if they were closer I can tell you with absolute certainty that we wouldn't be travelling all over town to see them, especially someone that lives 3 hours away. We would rotate the holidays not among two familes but three and the most important family would be the one DH and I created. I figure it is my holiday too and if I don't want to spend the majority of it in the car, then I won't. Simple as that. Roads go both ways and if they really want the family to be all together some years, then by all means come out here.
I would tell your mom that you are staying put this year but she is welcome to come and celebrate with the both of you. IF she turns you down, that is on her not you.
We did, and in the beginning it was difficult. Hosting Thanksgiving/Christmas was not an option for my MIL because the rest of the family were coming to her and FIL for the holidays as well, and since my parents quite literately live five minutes down the road both sides used that as even more ammo to not spend the holiday's here. However, enough was enough. We were tired of the time counting - the "you spent more time with SO's side of the family and it's "Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years"... you can also add in that not only did the Rents have their dinners - but we also had to go to my Aunts and DH's grandmothers. All - within 5 minutes drive. (I HATE small towns now).
Anyway - enough was enough. We told everyone that we cannot do it anymore and we came up with a plan. Thanksgiving with one, Christmas with the other. We made our point - it was not up for discussion. That lasted 1 round. They got the hint - - we do what we want without any guilt trips! Since then we change it up and negotiate. It brought us from being the kids who have to do as their told to adults who have other responsibilities that cannot be ignored. Life is good now. I hope your situation ends the same. Good Luck.
Coming out of lurkdom...
We live in the same town as my family, and they're 10 minutes across town. DH's family is in So. IL., so 5 hours away. We're doing Thanksgiving with his family this year, Christmas with mine. It was the other way around last year, and it hit my MIL about July that she wouldn't have us for Christmas this December. I got several emails and a few phone calls/texts with her whining about how she gives up every holiday and doesn't see her son hardly anymore (God forbid, she come visit us). I let it go on for about 3 days before I lost it and told her - nicely - to get over it. She had her turn last year, she'd see us at Thanksgiving, and if she wants to grab FIL and come up for New Year's, they're more than welcome, but my family gets a turn, too.
The plan now is to see them at New Year's (them coming here), and we'll take down their presents and pick up ours at Thanksgiving in case snow keeps the plan from working out.
We see both families for both holidays, but they do not live too far away. My family lives half an hour away and DH's family lives half an hour in a different direction. We do drive a lot on Thanksgiving day, but DH is an only child and I have a tiny family so we do not want to leave either of parents alone on Thanksgiving. We enjoy the time we spend in the car. We go through the ads for black Friday
.
But if one family lived 3 hours away, we definitely would be rotating holidays.
Before we got married our Minister would not marry us until there was a Holiday Plan in place that made EVERYONE (the two sets of inlaws AND us) were happy.
The decision was, that while we are able too (we are military and have been stationed in Europe for most of our marriage) we will alternate between His family and My family - following his Custody Visitation Order. The years we have SS we go to DH's family.
But once we no longer have to legally follow a CO, we will alternate His family, My family and OURSELVES for Christmas. Tday is not on the table, because neither of us care....
We used to switch back and forth between the families for the holidays. Now we just spend them all together. Neither side is big and we're all pretty close to each other so his family will go to my family for Thanksgiving and we host Christmas at our house. I can't imagine having to run from one house to the other all the time.
Growing up we did Thanksgiving Day with my dad's side of the family and Christmas was a very busy day with my immediate family, dad's extended side and mom's extended side. I loved it (and still do)!
Now with H's work schedule we don't always make it to Thanksgiving with my family. H's family are all OOS so we don't see them as often as we wish we could. (SIL & nieces live in AZ, ILs live in AK.)