Money Matters
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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.
NMMR-Hosting Holidays
With both of our families making Thanksgiving plans, hosting holidays has been on my mind lately. H's family and mine each live about 20 minutes away from us, but in different directions. Traditionally, my family always has Thanksgiving dinner at 5:30 or 6:00, so it has worked out to join both families for both dinners. This is pretty tiring, so last year we only went to my MIL's and I ended up feeling pretty badly about it. We're both only children, and my parents never pressure me about holidays but without us coming they didn't even get a turkey or really celebrate. They're in their mid-60s and starting to feel "older" to me, so this didn't sit well and this year we'll be visiting both families again. I'd like to work on making it a one-stop holiday, however, once we have kids, which will hopefully be by TG 2016 or 2017.
In a couple of months H and I will be receiving my deceased Grandma's beautiful old dining room table, which has been in storage until one of the grandkids had a use for it (i.e. a house). This will allow us to easily host 8-10 people, and we want to transition to hosting Thanksgiving next year. This way we could see both sets of parents at one time. They get along fine and it has gone well when they've been together in the past. MIL occasionally invites my parents to her hosted events, but they always politely decline, citing a conflict. The real reason they decline is that my dad has some really serious health-related dietary restrictions. He's on an extreme low sodium diet for high blood pressure, and he doesn't get cheat days. Brined turkey is out, as is any side with salt added. If we hosted we could quietly accommodate his dietary restrictions while still making typically-seasoned food for everyone else. We'd gladly include anyone else MIL wanted there, which is usually one or two aunts or uncles who don't have other invites.
H quietly floated the idea of us hosting this year, and it didn't go well. MIL's brother passed away shortly after last TG, so she has a lot of emotions tied up in the holiday and it wasn't the right time to push it. Most years, however, on TG morning she tells me that hosting is so exhausting that it's her last year doing it. Have any of you successfully transitioned to hosting holidays without ruffling feathers? Any tips to share? Or ways I can justify it to MIL while keeping my dad's health challenges private? I'd hate for MIL to feel obligated to accommodate him, and he'd hate that too. And to keep this slightly MM related, if you do host, how do you keep costs reasonable?
Re: NMMR-Hosting Holidays
As for being MM, what about skipping the traditional turkey and going a less expensive route with nontraditional foods? We've done Mexican in the past for Christmas which is always a big hit. Or make it more casual with spread of sandwich fixings, a buffet of soups, or just chicken and dumplings/noddles with mashed potatoes?
1) Your house is located in the middle so it's an easy trip for both families. Without having to travel 40 minutes you and your DH will get MORE time with the families.
2) You're really excited to share your home and with the new table it would be wonderful to have everyone together.
3) MIL can help if she'd like but she can also relax and enjoy the day.
For us we also used to visit both sides of the family but now with 3 kids we do DH's side only for Thanksgiving. They have a big dinner with extended family whereas my family is just my parents and sometimes my brother. The day after Thanksgiving we do "Laughter and Leftovers" with my family, we do dinner, some Black Friday shopping and a Christmas movie. It's pretty great.
@als1982 I love the Mexican Christmas idea! So fun. H is eager to master cooking a turkey, but I'm open to mixing it up on sides.
We will probably never host holidays because our house is tiny, but even so, I have offered to have my mom and siblings come to my house, and my mom still prefers to do TG at her house (even though she complains every year). If I really wanted to have TG at my house, I'd tell her they are welcome to come, but I'm not going to let her make me feel guilty if she doesn't want to come. We live in the same town.
H's mom and step-dad moved to Washington state several years ago, so there is no expectation from them that we will see them for the holidays. We do try to get out there every few years--we will be there for TG this year. It's way too hard to get time off work around the holidays since we can't all be gone at the same time.
Anyways....I think emphasizing the fact that you will get to spend more time visiting with everybody instead of time driving between places might be a good selling point. And maybe make a point to ask your MIL to make a favorite, 'signature' dish, or make it for her. That way you are acknowledging her TG traditions. I know for me, I would never have MIL over for a holiday without including her famous raspberry jello salad, because it's a family tradition for her. I think it shows respect to include traditions from her family.
I feel for you on this one. If I participated in all H's family activities on the holidays plus my own family's I would have to hit 6 houses on Christmas. (Oh the joy of all our parents being divorced and remarried!) So H and I generally split up on holidays. I've offered to host a big family thing before and his mother basically flipped out sending me a 3 page email about not ruining their family traditions and cc'd everyone in their family. It was pretty embarrassing. So to compromise and so I can still see his family I host a Christmas eve dinner for his parents and grandparents and then my sister and take turns hosting Christmas morning for our family. It's obviously not ideal because I never see H on holidays which sucks. We actually got home so late last year from our family stuff that we went straight to bed and didn't open gifts from each other until the next day.
I really like the idea of offering to host again. I think bringing both families together would be a good way to transition into holidays with kids because who wants to do all that running with little ones? I did it when I was younger and it was not fun. I think @purplebookmark is spot on with how to approach it with your families.
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We hosted TG last year and will do it again this year, despite us having a very tiny house. Everyone loves that we host it. Our families are both generally relaxed about holidays, so they never had any objections.
I agree with others in that I would present it as an opportunity to spend more time with each other without you guys having to travel the roads. Also, is there anything fun to do on TG that is located in your town? Maybe you could suggest that you host, so that you can all take part in that activity? We have a big 5K in my city on TG, so the idea of us hosting began when we decided to do the 5k with my parents in the morning.
Another idea is to host another non-TG get-together. Maybe once they all see how fun it is to get together at your house on average Saturday, they might be more on board with getting together there for TG.
For me, the toughest thing about hosting both families was figuring out what to cook. My family is very southern, and H's family is Italian so TG food is extremely different between the two of them. I decided to just make up my own things that neither family does like a smoked turkey.
It is exciting to me that we have developed our own new traditions that include both sides.
I like the suggestions about how to approach MIL with your taking over the hosting. But, if it still becomes a big issue, could you host TG for your parents on Friday or Saturday? Or they host on Friday or Saturday? I realize that is a lot of turkey eating!
I have to admit, I find it puzzling when some people act like the holiday has to be THAT day. General puzzlement, not directed at anyone on this board. The important part is having family together and, if other days are more convenient, it really doesn't matter.
Growing up, my dad was an electrician at a power plant. While he was usually able to get TG and Xmas off, he wasn't always. We would just flow with the punches and celebrate the next day or whatever worked out best. My father is now passed away, but my BIL is a producer for a news show. Same thing. He isn't always able to get the holidays off. NBD, they just celebrate a different day if need be.