Just curious as to how everyone splits up the holidays?
- DH family lives within an hour
- My family lives 8 hours away in Kentucky
- Thanksgiving : We go to his parent's mountain house for the day for a mid-afternoon meal and come home
- Christmas : As of last year, we host his whole family (mom's side) on Christmas Eve and then get up and head to Kentucky early Christmas morning to have dinner with my immediate family and stay for a few days before heading back
I'm thinking this is the last year we will split up Christmas...we're hoping to have a family and that would just be a little much with LOs ![]()
What's cookin'?
BFP: May 16, 2011 DD born January 19, 2012 | Chart

Re: What do YOU do for the holidays?
We do a misfits dinner for Thanksgiving at another couples place w/ a whole bunch of friends that have no family in the area. last year there were about 30 of us! There's tons of food, games, laughs & lots of booze. Before we met these friends we had a tradition of going out for steak & crab legs, then hitting a movie. :-)
On Xmas we do pretty much exactly the same thing, tho we do the movie first, then dinner w/ friends.
We usually go home the 1st week of Dec. and visit our families. It's cheaper to travel then & neither of us is religious or into the holidays. Also, our parents live like 5 min away from each other, so that makes it easier.
For Thanksgiving, we alternate between my parents and DH's.
For Christmas, we typically do Christmas Eve with DH's family then Christmas Day with mine. This year, we're doing both eve and day with my family then celebrating with his family on the 27th because of other family's travel schedules.
DH and I are in the Triangle, and both of our families are in different parts of the Triad so traveling isn't too bad, just hectic.
i'm not really sure how things will go this year. we always alternate between DH's family in NC and my family in Ohio. This year we're in NC for Thanksgiving and Ohio for Christmas.
The Ohio visit will be a little different this year. My parents split just a couple months ago, so things are still very fresh. Not sure what to expect for family time this year.
Both our parents/siblings live in MD, but the IL's celebrate Thanksgiving in Northern Virginia and go to DH's grandmother's in NY for Christmas.
For Thanksgiving, we usually spend a couple hours @ my parents place near Baltimore, MD, then drive to Northern VA and spend a few hours at my IL's celebration, then drive back to my parents since we leave our dog there. It usually ends up being several hours in the car on T-giving day, which is tiring since we spend 5 hours driving up the day before. So this year, I'm delighted to be going to St. Lucia instead.
We alternate Christmas's and will typically celebrate Christmas a few weeks later with whatever side we don't spend the day/weekend with. We usually we end up going to MD/NY to celebrate both, though my parents/brother will sometimes travel to us.
For Thanksgiving we do lunch with my family and then dinner with his.
For Christmas we get up and do our own thing at home (opening presents over coffee and whatever else, we haven't really developed any traditions of our own yet), then we do a huge breakfast at my Mom's with my side of the family, then we drive to his parents house and do a big dinner with his side and we always spend the night there and get up and go out for breakfast with is parents and sister in the morning.
The Holidays have always been a huge headache for me. My side of the family lives about 45 minutes away and DH's family lives in the same city as us.
Thanksgiving - usually do something with his family, because I always have to work the Friday after.
Christmas - this is the nightmare... we are expected at one grandparents house Xmas Eve and the other grandparents house on Xmas Day. Usually I have to work Xmas Eve and end up staying home (celebrating that night with DH's family) and then doing both grandparents Xmas Day. The problem with this is that each year DH and I have no time for ourselves (and no time to go to MY parents house). We usually end up doing my parents house the next week (during the week).
I totally expect this to be the last year we do it this way. Next year since we will have a kid, I demand we stay home more. Not sure which day and how it will work out, but I hate having to spend the entire Christmas Day travelling.
My family lives 3 hours away / Grandparents live 7 hours away
DH. . complete family lives 12hrs + away
Last year we did DH (then FI) aunt house while she still living in VA and his whole immediate family came down. We stayed there for a couple days and then came home.
Then for Christmas, we drove through that horrid nor'easter for 22hrs + to get to CT to spend Christmas with his family. We stayed there for about 1.5 weeks?? After we got home, we went to my parents place the next weekend and stayed and did Christmas with them.
This year though, my grandfather isn't doing well at all so we're going to ATL for a couple days before Christmas (or on Christmas. . not sure yet) and then we'll come back to our house and stay.
Thanksgiving will either be done here or at my parents house.
DH family is coming down for vacation in Feb. to emerald isle, so we'll visit with them then
)
I wish I had my own plane. It'd be much easier then.
Both our families are in WV, but they are about an hour and a half apart.
For Thanksgiving...we did this last year and prob will again this year
Drive up the Wed before-go to DH's family house...they eat early on t-giving, then go to my parents house and eat there (my sister and her family will be there), stay there...go shopping on Friday with my mom and sis, go back to his parents house on Saturday afternoon, and stay until Sunday. It sucks! His parents house is boring as He^^. They live in the middle of no where.
For Christmas we will do some variation. It depends on when my mom works (she's a nurse) as to when we do Christmas with them. We also celebrate her birthday while we are there. DH likes to see his family on both xmas eve and xmas which drives me nuts. They do most of their fun stuff on xmas eve, and I'd rather have xmas for my family.
Wanted to add that your holiday events sound like a lot of fun!! I wish we had more friends that would do something like this. I'm pretty sure most of our pals are headed out of NC for the holidays.