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.
Thanksgiving
This is our first married thanksgiving. Our families live in the same town. My family is very domesticated and Thanksgiving is a HUGE deal in my family. We have tons of people and tons of food and of course its all home made. His mom goes out and buys a ham, a pecan pie and warms up some green beans and corn and maybe mashed potatos. He wants to spend Thanksgiving at his family while I want to with mine. We have agreed to go to both houses (since they are in the same town) but I want to eat my family's food when its hot, especially since his mom just heats up food thats already been cooked anyways. But I know he won't like that. he is very "protective" of his mom and thinks she can do no wrong and if I were to dare say something like this to him he would get mad at me. Any suggestions how to settle this?
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Re: Thanksgiving
Maybe mention that since there are alot of people at your family Thanksgiving Grandparents, Great Aunts, Children...that might be on a earlier schedule naps, early bedtimes, etc that you go to yours first so that you dont miss anyone instead of bringing up his Mom's cooking (or lack of)
You could also ask Inlaws to join your family and just bring a dish or two?
Not sure if this will work for you but I always insist to DH that he tells his mom what time we can make it to her house (which is planned @ my families agenda/meal). H's family only consists of MIL, FIL, BIL and 4yr old N. I am one of four, 2 of my siblings have significant others who also come from larger families. Between us 4 kids, we coordinate what time works best for all of us. The first few years I would remind H his family has no one else to plan their day around and BIL sits there all day on every holiday so it doesnt really make a difference what times we are there, just that we show up.
Then we basically tell MIL- we can come to you say noon to 3. If you want to eat with us it has to be in that time frame and if thats not when you want to eat, no hard feelings on our end, we'll still stop by to spend time with you. The first time she did try pulling something and decided to have a sit down meal prepared right at the time we needed to leave in attempts to keep us there longer but we said- hey you knew our plans, we dedicate the same time to each family and yours is up. Once she realized she would not get her way, she never tried again.
For the first few holidays we spent together, while trying to figure out what works for us I had to be careful of my word choice. I too have an H that would be defensive if I attacked his mom's (horrible) cooking and said I wanna eat with my fam cuz the food is better and basically my house is way more fun. So I really played the "we will be fair to each family" - 3 hours with each. I first approached it by saying: I dont want to miss out on my stepdads dinner, its always so good (& H agrees) and I want to eat with my family but I'm also willing to eat with yours since I know you want to eat your moms food and we can do both if your mom will have her meal during the opposite time as mine. Its fair that we make the attempt to do both so hopefully your parents can understand. Then I just make a very little plate at his cuz I'm either saving room or full from my families.
Now IL's are so overly involved with N and BIL that the whole day is spent accomodating them. We have to watch cartoons, child movies, MIL doesnt even really sit and eat with us cuz she attending to N while hes eating in the living room while watching TV, constantly bashing xSIL, bragging about N's accomplishments (that are just normal kid stuff really) etc. so H doesnt really enjoy being there that much. They kinda act as if we dont exist since N came along and just arent that great of company, which is more than fine by me!!! And now H is the one that wants leave early or doesnt care if we are late if we are having a good time with my fam so it works out to my advantage!
I am surprised you didn't discuss this prior to marriage. We decided that because certain holidays were a bigger deal for my family than his (he also rotated years between paternal and maternal sides), that certain holidays, such as Easter were with his family because it wasn't a big holiday for mine.
Try to stress the importance of it for you as opposed to anything related with his family issues.
Please remember that Thanksgiving at his house with his family is just as important to him as thanksgiving at your house with your family is to you. Don't split up to your own houses for the day whatever happens, don't do that, because each half of the family will talk badly about the absentee-spouse... Make it about bigger things than just this one holiday, like suggest that they do his family's house first on Christmas, and your family's house first on Thanksgiving. Perspective like that helps to cool the arguments.
I agree with this too. Remember that your family doesn't win Thanksgiving because they have homemade food. That isn't fair. The most important thing is that he enjoys his family's Thanksgiving traditions just as much as your enjoy yours. Do your best to make Thanksgiving fair for the both of you. That might mean rotating the whole day or spending dinner with one family and dessert with the other and then switch the next year. Just don't say anything about how his mom buys her food while your family makes everything homemade. That will only upset him. Trust me.
On our first Christmas Eve, my husband put down my family's celebration because it wasn't the same as what his family did. My family always went to see a Christmas movie at the movie theater and then came home to share a huge sub sandwich, chips and soda. After eating, we would open one gift and might go out and look at Christmas lights. His family had a big dinner with yes homemade food and then talked, listened to Christmas music and played games. The weeks leading up to Christmas eve, he kept commenting on how weird my family's traditions were and more "Christmassy" his families traditions were and when we have kids we will be doing what his family did. It really hurt my feelings because I loved my family's traditions. Sure it was different, but they were also a lot of fun and I looked forward to celebrating them with my family. Once he realized how much I enjoyed my family's way of celebrating Christmas Eve, he stopped complaining and respected that my family's way was just different. Not bad or weird or wrong, just different. I suggest you do the same.
We do two meals on Thanksgiving.
Since I was a kid, it has always been a tradition with my parents that we eat early...like at noon/1pm.
Then, we sit around and watch a movie and relax. In the evening we go to MILs to eat with her and the rest of his family. My MIL is also one of those people who reheats and doesnt really cook.
I'd try and convince one family to do Thanksgiving at 1pm, for example, and the other at 4pm. Then you can go to both.
If that can't work, then I'd rotate every other year.
I understand your feeling on wanting to be with your family because dinner is better, but Thanksgiving isn't really about the food.
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My parents and ILs live 2 hours away, so we rotate between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.
Last Thanksgiving was at the ILs, and it was just one of those years where none of the extended family was able to come ? so it was just MIL, FIL, SIL, BIL, DH and myself. And it was my favorite Thanksgiving with them yet. My family always does big parties, and it was so nice to have a personal dinner.
You have to stop comparing your family's traditions to his, because nothing good will come out of it. Plus, it'd be boring to have the same traditions ? nothing would be special about them.
PS ? Thanksgiving is about more than food. Your DH has every right to be insulted by your comments.