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s/o of holiday posts
I'm just curious about how people approach sharing holidays. We only have one conflicting holiday (Thanksgiving). The Jewish holidays are spent with my family and Christmas with his. They don't celebrate Easter so that's not even on the table.
My husband thinks that since we get all the Jewish holidays and because my family lives closer (see them more often), we should spend Thanksgiving with his family. I have to work the next day and they live farther away so it's not really that easy. His family Thanksgiving is just his sister, BIL & parents. Mine is 20+ people and the only time my family really gathers together. His family has been invited to join ours but his sister tends to work Thanksgiving morning and the next day.
I think we are going to end up having to rotate... does anyone have any wise advice or experiences to share? It's only one holiday so we're lucky in that regard! (It's my favorite one though!)
Re: s/o of holiday posts
It's a sore subject among many, many married couples, I have found.
Generally, I think rotation works best. Every other year, every other family. It keeps things fair and it's a clear boundary that everyone SHOULD be able to understand, though most do not.
I have hated holidays since getting married. I dread them every year. MIL starts with the emails and guilt trips on me as early as April. And when my mom feels she isn't getting her way, she can get pretty snarky.
We have adapted (only done it one year so far) to switching off between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day (and Mother's Day and Easter). Pretty easy.
Though last year when we were spending Thanksgiving with my family MIL and SIL came up with us so they didn't have to spend it alone. (FIL is deceased as is MIL's parents. One SIL live in their state about an hour away but usually spends it with her husband's family. Other SIL is in VA. FIL's parents are in FL by Thanksiving.)
I think rotation is fair... thank goodness we only have one, I just don't like it! We don't do much for Chanukah anymore as a family but maybe once we start rotating Tday, my family would.
We don't have any nieces or nephews to make a big deal of any of the holidays either... I think when that happens (or we have kids) it will be more important to rotate.
Sharing holidays is pretty much the biggest disadvantage to being in a serious relationship/getting married, in my opinion. It is so stressful and makes the holidays less enjoyable because one person is always missing out on their idea of how things should be. My hope for the future is to make each holiday our own and get our own traditions going so that we don't feel so sad about missing out when we are with the other's family. That will take some time to establish though.
The major holidays for us are Thanksgiving and Christmas. We live near my family and a 12 hour drive away from his. We came to the agreement when we got engaged that we would alternate years, Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with the other, then switch the next year. We actually haven't made it out to see his family for Thanksgiving yet because the first year we didn't book plane tickets in time and it just got too expensive and we didn't feel like driving. This year we are driving out there and doing Christmas here. It's tough, but I think having the alternating years and holidays rule in place really helps, because everyone knows what is coming and can plan ahead for it.
Ditto this. The topic comes up every so often on the boards.
I'm lucky in that MIL doesn't care that much about holidays (FIL passed away last year but DH wasn't close to him anyway). Still, to make things fair we usually spend Thanksgiving with her in AZ and then Christmas with my family here. I don't know what I'd do if I had to split Christmas--it's a big deal with my family since so many of us live in the area and it would kill me to miss it with them. I do get bummed sometimes that we don't get Thanksgiving here anymore, but we might be changing that up since, like I said, MIL doesn't really care if we're actually there on Thanksgiving Day. The only snag is that taking vacation time is easier when you follow the "normal" schedule around holidays.
That sucks.. I don't understand it at all, but to each their own!
We have always spent holidays together, since we started dating (first holiday was Easter after about four months of dating, when we already knew this was it for us). We are lucky in that all of our family lives within a half hour radius, so it's not too hard to see everyone.
But there are times when we don't want to do that much driving, and only see one side of the family. We hosted Easter last year for my family, and plan to continue doing that. Once kids are in the picture it's going to be harder to drive around to more than one house also, so we are hoping to host more holidays to avoid trucking kids a billion places.
Yeah, the first year we were still in college and had started dating a couple months before so we went our separate ways. In 2006 they went to FL and I didn't want to go (not a big fan for FL and didn't want to spend the money because I was buying my car early '07). I don't know why we didn't spend 2007 together since we were engaged. MIL probably guilt tripped DH into going home and to be honest I like spending holidays with my family since there are more people. Oh well. We didn't have any issues with anyone last year about the rotating schedule thing. I expect the same this year. Hopefully next year we can host Thanksgiving or Christmas Day and have both sides.
If we all lived within 30 mins of each other, my life would be a lot easier
Just in case you took it the wrong way, I didn't mean that towards you, I meant I don't get why people's parents insist that they stay home. Dating in HS, that's one thing. But now, we are adults, we can choose who we want to spend our holidays with, you know? DH and I have been dating since I was 20 and a junior in college, and we always knew we wanted to be together for the day, first and foremost.
Well duh! Because, obviously you don't know that if you don't spend every holiday with your family, you don't LOVE them!! lol
I figured that's what you meant. The first two holidays we were together there were valid excuses. I really don't know why we didn't spend '07 together. DH's mom tries to guilt him about things, but now he's a lot more assertive with her. I know it has to do with the fact that she pretty much has no family, but we can't always spend holidays with her.
Whoa. Holy boundary issues!
Holy crap! Sounds like you may want to turn your phones off from now on, haha.
DH and I have been together for the last 3 years, and lemme tell you, having all family in the same town does NOT make anything easier. Everyone wants to spend time with you since everyone is so close, and no one wants to compromise without being offended, so that means its up to us to adjust to everyone's schedule... its pretty insane, and right now I can't wait til we have kids so that we can tell people that they might have to accomodate us.
As of now, we alternate Thanksgiving - my uncle up in NH or on of DH's family member's (they rotate every year)... last year we did my family, so we visited DH's family afterwards just to say hi.
Xmas has been the biggest pain in the ass, so we have to legit spread it out over, like, 5days. We got visit my family they day before the day before xmas eve, xmas eve night is with DH's extended family, xmas morning is some time for us, then over to DH's parents' house, xmas afternoon is my mom's side of the family, and then the Saturday either before or after is my dad's side...
ugh.
We have a schedule that works really well for us, the only one with the issue is my mil but she's learning.
Thanksgiving- My family
Christmas Eve- DH's family (both sides, 2 stops)
Christmas Day- My family
Easter- DH's family
My MIL wants us to swap Easter & Thanksgiving but we're not going to. It works for us, we like it and she's making a fuss because she has no control. They don't do anything different for any of these holidays, the exact same people are there so it doesn't.