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Being the Oldest...
Both my husband and I are the oldest in our families' birth order. So, both sets of parents are having to go through the concept of "they're married now, and holidays aren't going to always be like they "always" used to be..... It's been neither graceful nor polite, by any stretch of the words.
Does anyone else on here have experience being the "guinea pig children?" As in, your parents have never experienced having a child get married, and are therefore unpracticed as far as being flexible and accommodating when it comes to holiday plans?
How do you deal with breaking news to the IL's (both sides) when something comes up that rocks the boat a little, like wanting to stay at home and do your own holiday, rather than doing a holiday hop-scotch to 3 houses in one day? How do you handle that?
Re: Being the Oldest...
Just explain to the ILs on all sides that you and H have made your own plans for the holidays, and leave it at that. Since it will be (I am guessing here) your first holiday season as a married couple, you might want to plan a get-together the weekend before with each set of parents, one on a Saturday, one on a Sunday, to help ease the transition for them.
If they push the issue, or pull the "it's a family tradition that we do ___________ together on this day", explain that you and H want to start some new traditions with your new family unit.
You have to set boundaries right away! Walk away when they b!tch about it or give you any type of distress/guilt trips - and never show favoritism to one set over the other. If you already have issues then you will have even more when they think they are getting short handed over the other set.
One thing I wish I would have done was set the guideline that we would spend Christmas with parents on a 3 year rotation - that way DH and I could spend a holiday alone - going on vacation or doing something we want to do.
This part sucks but you'll get through it.
My sister and her husband were 1st borns and in the same boat as you. They just caved to the pressure of both families and ate two meals on every holiday and ran between both sets of family's houses and took crap for leaving 'early' or arriving 'late'. They did this for years rather than have a few tough conversations and a few hurt feelings.
This went on until BIL's younger brother got engaged and went to his soon-to-be IL's house for T-day. That year, BIL's mother said SHE would be going to that home too ... and that left BIL out of the holiday picture. I was just floored that the same woman who INSISTED on being "together!" no matter what pressure or insanity it put on her son, changed plans on a dime the very first year it was more convienent to do so for her. Jiust floored.
I learned a very good lesson that day. I'm not perfect and I have had a rough time of it, but I have refused to cave on several occassions to either set of parents. I've stayed home and the world didn't come to an end. And now, people respect us - both the efforts we DO make and the choices to NOT come on occassion. Its the kind of thing you have to ACT on and tough out - you can't talk your way to making someone respect you - or see your POV.
I am the oldest in my family, and first to be married. We told my family we would alternate holidays and my parents completely understand. (growing up we alternated between grandparents and my parents still do this.)
My DH on the other hand is the youngest in his family and not the first to be married, and MIL gets upset every holiday that we are not there.
MIL always thinks that we both favor my parents. This is not the case, I just don't think she will ever understand.
How we deal with MIL:
1. Tell her once it is not DH family's turn.
2. Drop the subject after we say it once. If she continues we get up and leave the room. This happens once or twice a year.
This year we do not live close to them, and we were able to get the time off to come visit our home town. We will see how this is going to go.
MH and I are both the oldest (MH is a twin, but he is the oldest twin), and are first to get married in both of our families. My mom is a little awkward around things like holidays and such, but my IL's seem to be handling it well as they have several children I guess...
This is our first year of having to split the holidays. We spent Thanksgiving at MH grandmas house with ALL of his mother's side of the family...It was fun but reallllly chaotic...anywho...
I think we are going to spend Christmas with my mom this year because I didn't get to see her at all during Thanksgiving.
You could set the trend in your family where you spend one holiday (Thanksgiving) at your parent's house and the next holiday (Christmas or whichever one) at his parent's house. If you do want to have your OWN holiday together just the two of you, I'd say that you should visit both sets of parents for one holiday...basically if you see one set, you should see both...
JMO
H and I are both the oldest (and most stubborn) in both our families. We began celebrating our holidays as a team years before we even got married, once we moved in together. Its been 10 years and they've all been hell as far as mothers are concerned. I guess we still deal with it because we want to see and celebrate with our sibilings. It wouldnt feel right to host something without our parents.
The best advice I can give is discuss what you and your H want in advance and be prepared with your plans before asked by moms. Our mothers "dilemmas" in recent years... not getting the exact time they want. Its not good enough to even see us because we have no problem making it to both houses xmas day, they get pissed and attempt to manipulate us over what time we plan to come. Then its of course how long we are staying. In past years MIL has really try to stir up problems between us. This year, my mom is causing a hassle already. I wont get into the details because its long but the time may just be coming where we say F U to both of them.
IF they are the type to hassle you, more advice its taken me years to figure out- dont give them room to negotiate a time or date, which I made the mistake of doing. I really should have said- we will be to your house at x time and can stay until x time, see you then. My siblings are great to work with, we have no problems working out times or dates amoung each other so at least theres that.
Just a lurker chiming in, but ...
I would ask your mom and MIL what they did/how they split the holidays in the first few years of THEIR marriage. Tell them if it was good enough for them, it should be good enough for you.
If nothing else, it will remind them of how awful it was being pulled in all directions/dealing with pouting mothers etc.
They may be fine w/ it and move on and no drama. IF they don't accept this and then start the drama, the guilt, etc, THEN bring out the 'big guns' and the firmer, more absolute statements, the "this isn't open for discussion", etc.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
hahaha. our first year married, MIL sent me an email to see if we'd be home for thanksgiving (we live many states away from MIL and my parents, who are 5 minutes apart).
so i responded that yes, we'd just gotten the holiday time approved, and DH should be contacting her to work out the details.
next day, she called DH to tell him that she'd gone ahead and made dinner reservations for thanksgiving for 3: DH, MIL, and SisIL. not me. he responded that he would be having dinner with HIS WIFE, and that we had yet to figure out how we were splitting up the time between the two families, so she couldn't just make plans like that.
after which his sister called him and screamed at him on the phone for a while - i could hear it from across the room - about how he sees me all the time, so he shouldn't make his mom change the dinner plans.
yeah. we ended up choosing to have Tday dinner with my parents that year.
--
no advice about your final question. but i would say make whatever decision works best for you and DH, then tell everyone what the plans are, and don't feel like you have to explain it or give in to guilt trips.
oh. to add, i'm the oldest, but DH is actually several years younger than his sister. i think that was actually part of the problem, that MIL and SIL were used to DH being in the position of just going along with whatever they planned, since he was the youngest.
First of all, get on the same page with your husband. Before children, I'd make a plan, ask my husband's opinion, and then one conversation with his mom and whoooosh, there went my carefully planned holiday.
This year, I sat DH down and said "What are our Christmas plans." We've agreed on Christmas Eve with his family and Christmas day with my family.
My mom asked about Christmas, I told her when we had planned. She asked questions-- are you going to stay, why do I only get so many hours, blah, blah.
I just repeated our plans. I expect DH to do the same.
My advice is to not make it a big deal. Just explain it to them like it is the most normal thing in the world-- which it is. Every family has to make new traditions.
Decide with your dh what it is you want to do this year.
Tell people that's what you're doing.
Entertain no guilt trips or discussions re: same. Announce, do not 'ask'.
Do this every year, with every holiday discussion.
Start out how you mean to go on.
My FI and I have been splitting holidays for about four years ( I am the oldest he is an only). We actually went to his family for Thanksgiving the first year we were dating (that's when I met them).
Typically this is the style (we can't do both they live in different states:
Christmas goes to my family We already do Christmas Eve with one side and christmas day with the other side so there really isn't room to add another celebration.
We would go to his families house for Thanksgiving or Easter if we can make it, since they live about 5 hours away I cannot always get enough time off for him to feel like its worth it. (I didn't get Thanksgiving off this year so I offered to go see them for the weekend but FI didn't want to. However, because he is an only we will celebrate with them on other days. Like this year we are going to see them the weekend before Christmas and will trim the tree and exchange presents over that weekend. It gives them the whole family experience (holidays were typically just the three of them) and allows me to continue my families traditions. I am hoping as I gain more seniority I won't have to work thanksgiving, but his parents have been pretty understanding about that especially with the economy.
My family freaks out when we are able to go spend a holiday with FI's family, but I don't give in to their guilt trips because they know they get Christmas and I think thats fair.
I'm an oldest and my husband is an only. We had tons of issues with his folks. Mine knew that we'd have to split our time and are happy to see us whenever we can make it work ( I could kiss them - they've been wonderfully easy to work with now that we're splitting our time). DH's parents had some growing pains and it wasn't fun or pretty. Here's how we handled things.
DH and I sat down and tried to figure out a way to share holidays that was fair. That ended up being Christmas Eve with his fam, Christmas Day with mine. We alternate Thanksgiving years and whatever year is an "off" year for Thanksgiving is an "on" year for Easter. DH's family gets together for New Years day which, between us girls, is too much of his family for my tastes so we've been rotating years on that too.
When MIL threw a fuss about that (because that is when they'd celebrate my birthday and how are they going to wish me a happy birthday if I'm not there - to which I replied I have a phone, a mailing address, and email. Any would be perfectly fine to use!), we firmly stated that while we respect that they have family traditions, we are also a new family and have to create some of our own and are doing our best to accommodate both. They can't argue with it and if they tried, there'd be no discussion. This is what DH and I decided works best for us and that is what we're going to do. They can be pissy about it and ruin everyone's holiday, or they can get on board and enjoy our time together. Its totally up to them. They've been grudgingly on board with it ever since.
I can totally relate to this! I am the oldest, and my mom gets emotional about EVERYTHING. My dating years became a nightmare every time I tried to enlist her advice about anything. Even though this was the case, I still tried to incorporate her into my decision making for years because I wanted to respect her and because I truly did love her. It caused nothing but tears and heartache on my part, and I wound up having to go to counseling because of some of the emotional guilt trips she put me through with my BF (now husband).
To make a long painful story short, Easter weekend before I got married (this would be two Easters ago) was the last time I bent over backwards to be home for a holiday. I cancelled long-made plans with my best friends, and drove six hours to be home for Easter weekend because my mom threw an emotional fit when she learned that I was making other plans. It wound up being a horrible weekend for a number of unfortunate reasons.
Ever since then, I adopted the position that I would not ask my mom her opinion if I already had one. I just let her know what our plans are for holidays, and give her some options if I don't have a preference. She surprisingly handles this much better than me giving her equal say in the decision making process. It's worked really well.
Thank you for the reminder about not letting myself get pulled into an argument, I always forget that you don't have to directly reply to someone's comment/response if it's designed to exacerbate. I will try to stick to the "repeat as necessary" concept!