Update to my Unreasonable Christmas post.

SimpleJane

J and I hadn't actually sat down and had a discussion about Christmas yet. My last post was just me thinking out loud and he had text me saying we could talk about it later. Thank you guys for the advice and perspective.

We did talk about it last night and decided we will see my family on either the weekend before or after Christmas, depending on their preference. That is what we did last year and it works best for my parents too.

Christmas Eve we will be going to Mass and dinner with J's Mother's family, with the understanding that we won't be staying late. We still need a little time to maybe watch a Christmas movie or something with the kids.

As far as cookies for Santa ( which was a Christmas Eve tradition in my house growing up, so I really wanted to fit it in on the years we have the kids CE) we decided to do it the night before CE when the four of us are home together with no distraction.

We also decided that mass and dinner on CE would be sort of a trail run this year. If it felt too busy and hectic and at the end of everything we don't feel we had enough down time with the kids then we will reevaluate.

Also, 8 am pick up Christmas morning always leaves everyone feeling rushed, so we might try to talk to XH next year about pushing it back to 9 am. He would never agree to do it this year as it would give me extra time, but he may agree if we start it on his years.

Anyway, thanks for listening if you made it this far!

Wahoo

I'm glad you were able to sit down and problem solve, and that you are open to switching things up if they don't work. 

sweetwalks

Yay! I'm glad you guys had this talk and figured out a compromise! holidays are much smoother when everyone knows what's going on.

KTdidit

That's great that you sat down and talked about it. It seems like J is on board for changing up the schedule so hopefully it won't be too hard to find something that works for you 

Lavender P

So glad you found something that works for both of you and that you go into knowing you can tweak the process if it doesn't work out the way that is best for everyone. It seems like you found a good compromise. Kudos to you both!

twister22

Yeah I definitely don't understand the point of a 9 am p/u time. I would think either have p/u be late Christmas Eve (say 9 or 10 pm) that way the parent who gets Christmas Day actually has the kids wake up Christmas Day at their house -OR- have p/u be later on Christmas Day (say 11 am or 12 pm) that way the parent who got Christmas Eve has time to do Christmas morning presents.

Would you and XH ever consider rotating the holiday completely? Like odd years dad gets the day gets are out of school until the 26th and mom gets the 26th until the kids are back in school and then the next year it's switched.