Family 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.
Holidays
This year my new husband and I have our first Thanksgiving as a married couple. We are torn about what to do since both our families live fairly close (his is 30 minutes away and mine is an hour). We've thought about just doing our own dinner, doing TWO dinners (which seems like a lot.. ) or doing dinner at one and desserts at another. We don't want to hurt feelings or miss out on traditions. What did you guys do your first year?
Re: Holidays
We went to DH's parents who live out of state and then we were with my family for Christmas. We used to trade off the holidays for the first few years of our marriage.
Now that we have DS, we stay home for both holidays and both sets of parents are welcome to come over and share in our traditions.
We eat dinner at one house and dessert at another, and alternate every year.
But we just bought a house, so this year we'll host. My family will likely come for dinner and maybe the in-laws will stop by for dessert (they live farther away and will probably host their own dinner since their family is larger).
My suggestions:
1) figure out what you want to do when you have kids and then make those arrangements starting NOW.
2) do what makes you, as a couple happiest/stress free.
My minister would not marry us unless we had a holiday plan in place AND that we had shared said plan with our families. His very first marriage ended in divorce over the holiday issues.
For us, we do not do Thanksgiving with anyone. DH LOVES this holiday. He cooks like a madman. He wants to watch the football games however he wants. And neither of us ever really had huge familial celebrations. So if people want to come to us, we have an open invitation.
As for Christmas, until SS is 18 there is no longer a CO visitation, we alternate visiting HIS family (when we have SS) and MY family. However, since we are in the military, that is a moot point, given we are living in Germany.
Once SS is 18, we are probably going to alternate three ways - His, Mine, Ours. It is NOT fair to Monkey to have to travel every year.
DH and I tried to go to two houses (20 minutes apart) the year we were engaged. It was a disaster, and I would never do that again.
You need to remember, someone will be hurt that you are not spending the full holiday with them, regardless of what you do, but you are married now and can't do things the way you did them before. That's ok!
Our first year we spent Thanksgiving with my family. After that, we decided to host. We had my family and a friend of mine.
Since then, we have always hosted. My family (it changes who every year, sometimes my sister comes, sometimes she is with BIL, sometimes other relatives come to our home). Recently, dh's sister and her family have joined us, and this year dh's brother may come as well.
Christmas we split between Christmas eve (ILS) and Christmas dinner (my family). We don't travel, so Christmas morning is at our home.
I agree w/ the others- figure out what the two of you will enjoy the most. NO matter what, someone will be disappointed about whatever you do, so accept that and make your plans as they best fit you.
DH and I are lucky - both our immediate families are small, so we host Thanksgiving. It works out great.
But if we didn't, we also wouldn't be running all over trying to see everyone. We nevr did that- even before we were married. We picked one place and went there.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
We alternate major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Easter) and have done so since we got engaged. Trying to do two families on one day is too much stress for us. We'd rather be able to really enjoy the holiday rather than splitting the day. For Thanksgiving and Easter we do something another evening with the opposite family.
It's not a perfect system (MIL still gets crabby when it is not her turn) and we do miss out on some family traditions we both love. But it keeps the stress low/enjoyment high and we're building new traditions just the two of us.
We tried doing dinner at one house, dessert at the other and it didn't work well for us. We felt rushed at the first house and like we didn't have enough time at the second. We decided that for us, it was best to just alternate years.
Both our families are local so we have always done Christmas eve with my husband's family and Christmas day with mine. We alternate Thanksgiving and Easter between families.
The first year, we tried to hit both families. It was a nightmare that I personally don't recommend. I was totally stressed...DHs aunt served dinner late, everyone was pressuring us to stay, we held my family up because we couldn't get there on time, etc. Everybody else enjoyed their holiday but us, not so much.
The next year we decided to visit one family for Thanksgiving, the other for Christmas. The original intent was to switch each year. But we ended up moving out of state, and realized after only a year that we wanted a holiday at home.
So now it's Thanksgiving at home, just us and our girls. We decided on that because 1) DHs family Thanksgiving sucks, IMO...too crowded (one year DH didn't even get any turkey and he vowed that would never happen again!), 2) my family goes to a restaurant which we don't really like, and 3) we feel Christmas is a nicer holiday to celebrate with everyone together, especially the kids.
We had our first holiday together in our home and invited both sets of family. Both declined and we had a wonderful feast/holiday together.
This!
Everyone is different...so you just have to figure out what works for you guys. We do two Thanksgivings...every year. It works for us. Typically one at about 1PM and one at about 6PM. So it worked. We *wanted* to see both families and honestly, it was/is a lot of fun. Neither Dh nor I could imagine Thanksgiving with only one side of the family. Same for Christmas. For us...'our traditions' included all our family. Can't imagine a holiday without them!
This is our first year married as well but the last 2 years we didn't split up for the holidays. Luckily his parents do lunch on Thanksgiving and mine do dinner. So we get to eat twice and spend time with both. I make sure every year that we can make it to both at least for a while. We have my sister and brother and dh's sister and brother so there are a lot of us to plan around- so planning can be difficult but I think it's important to get together.
If they are at different times can you go to both-or ask to change the time? I'd try that-first. also if my side can't get together for dinner then we change it to saturday after so that everyone can come- so that's a possibility. depends on how many people you have to work around tho.
Our first Thanksgiving we went to my parents and invited MIL to join us. His side doesn't really do much, so we spend Christmas with my parents every year, and invite his mother to dinner on Christmas day. (We usually take her to lunch on Christmas eve too) We've spent the last several Thanksgiving's with just the two of us. I've done the two thanksgivings in one day thing before, and I really do not recommend it. I know at least one side could possibly be upset that you aren't eating as much.Some people can make it work, we couldn't.
I think you could invite everyone to your place and host it yourself though!