Oklahoma Nesties
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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.
How do you guys do the holidays?
We JUST NOW kind of figured this out, after over 3 years of being married. We're slow. 
I'm curious about what everyone else does about the holidays after marriage. Do you trade off? Do you split up and go to your own family things? Do you just kind of hope it all falls into place? If you or your husband have divorced parents, how do you work all that in?
We've decided we're going to trade off every year, and also combine 2 sets of family on H's side. Everyone still gets a turn on either the 24th or 25th, and that way we're not spreading ourselves too thin.
Re: How do you guys do the holidays?
We pretty much just do my family... if we do his, it's a short visit no more than an hour or two. H doesn't have the best relationship with his mom, and he's not half as close to his family as I am to mine.
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We usually have to figure it out every year depending on who is doing what. My family meets every year on Thanksgiving and Christmas at the same time and the same place. H's family seems to make new plans every year. His parents are divorced. his dad who lives 6 hours away decided to have Thanksgiving at his house this year. We are going to my family's for Thanksgiving and to H's dad's the weekend after. We will miss the family gathering at his dad's, but that was H's plan to begin with. If we travel 6 hours, he wants plenty of time with his dad...not just a few hours with him and then the rest of the time with stepmom's family that he doesn't care for.
Christmas is crazy this year on his side too. His dad is thinking about getting a hotel suite in OKC for a few days and everyone can come visit. Stepsister lives in OKC, the other stepsister, H's brother, and us all live in Lawton/Duncan. It saves them from traveling, but causes everyone else to travel to them.
We meet up with H's mom whenever we can throughout the holidays. She is easy going and understands that we may not make it to her place on the actual day.
We pretty much know that we are going to my family functions every year. I always tell H that it is up to him if he wants to go to his. If so, then we can change our plans up a bit.
That answer was much longer than I planned. : )
We usually have H's family, my dad's dad's side of the family, my dad's mom's side of the family, and then my mom. Since H only has one big family get together, we make sure we go to his family's stuff for sure. Then we'll go to any of my family get togethers if they are at a time we're available.
This year for Thanksgiving, we're going to H's family on Thanksgiving, my dad's mom's side on Friday, and then my dad's dad's side on Saturday. My mom's cooking Thursday, but we're not going since we'll be at H's family's. There's usually one get together we have to skip each year.
Kaylee & Cole 06.14.08
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1/28/12 Texas Half Marathon 2:38:03 Instant PR!
3/25/12 Earlywine Dash
We trade. This year we have Thanksgiving with my family, and Christmas with his.
The downside to this is that we can't seem to catch our families at good times! This year at Christmas it will just be the immediate family because MIL is having neck surgery and will not be able to do much. I might step in and do cooking (yikes!). We also missed a Christmas with them because of the blizzard. However, H's family's things are often kind of boring...
Luckily our parents live in the same town. Since we've moved to OK, we stay home for Tgiving (DH always volunteers to work it.) Christmas is complicated. DH works every other Christmas and Eve, so since I have 3-4 weeks off, I usually go to my parents' for 2 of those weeks. DH joins us there when he can. Then, we choose a day to celebrate the holiday. This year it will be the 28th, I think. We do my parents' house in the morning and for lunch and DH's parents' in the evening.
The two couldn't be more opposite, but I love them both for it. At my mom's house, there are like 300 traditions and rules (like the order in which we open the presents, while wearing our new Christmas jammies, one at a time and in such a way as to watch each person open their gifts last.) The meal is a giant feast. The tradition is lovely but gets a little stuffy. Then, we go to the inlaws house and my MIL, following in the tradition of her MIL before her (seriously---it's the only tradition) immediately makes me a drink. She says no one can survive their ILs without alcohol
Dinner is a buffet of random tasty *** like chili, cheese and crackers, olives, mixed nuts, cookies, a veggie tray, etc. We usually hang out for a bit, then do a gift free-for-all. Then I take my Christmas nap on their couch (since my mom's Christmas begins a full 4 hours before I normally wake up.) It's SO nice to get both experiences.
Thanksgiving is at my parent's house in Tulsa. This year we are going to Kansas City the day after to spend the weekend with a few of DH's friends (and his parents decided to invite themselves along.)
Christmas is tricky. We go to my parent's house the 23rd, stay Christmas Eve, do Christmas morning with them, and then drive to DH's parents house in Missouri (5 hour drive) to celebrate Christmas night with his dad's side (re: the FUN side). I LOVE Christmas night... This family has Christmas traditions, but my absolute favorite is that everyone gets hammered.
The next morning we do Christmas at the farm with his mom's side and I LOATHE this time. They are all SUPER cheap, rude, and un-fun. Last year it was a nasty breakfast, awkward chit-chat with his cousins we NEVER see, and then a gift exchange where no one can spend over $5. Also, DH is the first cousin on this side to get married... all the other kids are pretty young. Grandma lined "all the kids" up to give them their Christmas cards and $50... All but me. Cause, apparently I'm not family. Whatevs.
Since meeting DH I haven't been to my grandma's for Christmas night celebrations- my favorite.
However, all of this is going to change when we have kids. No idea how we are going to work that out, but I want my kids to have the traditional Christmas morning at our home so... :-/ I'm thinking our parents are going to have to rotate spending the holiday with us or both stay I guess...
My family lives several states away in one direction, and H's family lives several states away in a different direction, so holidays are difficult for us to manage seeing family. Plus H only gets a few days off around the holidays, so that magnifies the problem when 2-3 of them have to be spent traveling. So far, we stay home for Thanksgiving and gotten together with friends at OU who don't go see their families then either. This year we're going on a vacation instead.
For Christmas, I go see my family alone for about a week, fly to meet H at his parents' house for a few days, then we fly back to OK together. Last year I had Christmas with my family and met him the day after Christmas. This year we're both going to arrive on Christmas Eve, so we'll have Christmas together with his family. It'll be my first time spending Christmas day without my family, so I'm a little sad, but it'll be nice to spend it with H. During the 8 years of our relationship, it'll be only the 2nd time we've been together on Christmas.
Christmas Eve we've always gone to DH's grandmas, but we didn't go last year and it was really nice spending the day at home just the two of us. We'll probably stay home again on Christmas Eve this year. Christmas day we go to both my Mom's and DH's Grandma's. Now that G is here, we do have the rule that we will not be rushing to get anywhere Christmas morning. G will have Christmas morning at home with us and we'll get to our family's houses when we get there. I refuse to start our day at the crack of dawn and/or not have our own celebration at home that morning just so we can adhere to some schedule Christmas day.
We go to H's aunt and uncles for Thanksgiving. My family is in Ohio so it's too far of a trip for us for that short of a time.
As of now, for Christmas, we do Christmas Eve with his family and then drive to Ohio the next day or day after. We are in Ohio for 5 or 6 days and do Christmas one of those days with my family.
When we have kids though I'm making it a priority to be home on Christmas morning with just us.
Having kids has made it even more tricky... We are doing some things differently this year for the first time.
Thanksgiving - Lunch is at my grandma's house and dinner is at the IL's. Simple.
Christmas
the 23rd (or, as we fondly refer to it "Christmas Eve Eve") - We have a party with my mom's side in the evening.
the 24th - Progressive dinner & gifts with my dad's side
the 25th - morning we stay home and open presents as a family (I'm really excited about this, this is the first time we're doing this with just US!)
late morning - my parent's house to open presents and eat breakfast
afternoon - my grandma's house
late afternoon/evening - ILs house
Thankfully, my IL's are very understanding and are willing to work around my huge family's functions. That sounds like a lot, but I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love our families and I enjoy making an effort to see everyone.
We run our asses off! C's parents are divorced so we always go to SFIL's families holiday's-thank GOD SMIL's parents (whom I have never met) live in Texas. Thanksgiving isn't too bad-we start out the Sunday before I by going to my Grandparents out of town, T-day we got to my grandma's and C's grandparents and alternate were we eat but always make it to the other to visit since FIL is in town then the weekend after we got to MIL's side of the family for lunch.
Christmas is where it gets crazy-we have 6 or 7! We always go to MIL's Christmas Eve, C's grammy's OOT and my parents on Christmas day. C's grandma in town is doing her's the weekend before and I *think* the others maybe that same weekend-it hasn't been figured out yet. I really hope we don't have to miss anyone's because we had to 1 year and it was not good.
I am very jealous of this!
We go to my parents in STL for Thanksgiving. We usually only see them around the holidays and we see H's family all of the time so that's my way to rationalize it.
For Christmas we have several get togethers that revolve around when we have SS. On Christmas Eve and Christmas day we stay home and whoever wants to see us can come there. My parents were divorced and I remember growing up running from place to place on Christmas, and I do not want to do that with SS. So, my parents usually come to our house for Christmas.