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Babies: 3 - 6 Months
A little early, but what about Christmas?
What will you do for Christmas? Will you visit DH's family or your family? Try to squeeze in both? Stay home every year so your LO's can have the whole Christmas/Santa experience at their own home?
I am really torn about this. My IL's and my parents dont get along, so there is not much hope in getting everyone together. In previous years we would travel to my parents house for Christmas Eve and then to IL's for the night and then Christmas morning with them. Then last year my parents wanted Christmas morning so we did it opposite.
However, DS is getting older and DH and I have talked about staying home from now on and having Christmas morning with just us and our kids, then having dinner/presents with one of our families. My parents live 3 hours away, and DH's are 1 1/2 hours away though, so we would have to have each family come and stay with us every other year over Christmas. This would also mean we would only get Christmas with 'our' families every other year.
How are you doing it? Do you think it would be wierd not to see your Mom, Dad, brothers and sisters every year at Christmas? I
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Re: A little early, but what about Christmas?
DH's family's Christmas is the first weekend in December, that way everyone can get together - My IL's have three kids - all of which are married, they have 5 adult grandchildren - all but one is either married or engaged so there are A LOT of people!
This year my MIL is planning on renting a house at Myrtle Beach for the weekend for everyone to stay at. 4 years ago we did this too but went to the mountains in Tennessee.
Good question. Even before DD was born we had issues with the holidays. We have 3 sets of parents to visit (all of them 2-4 hours away) and it always seems like we are hurting someone's feelings not to be with them on the actual day of Christmas or Thanksgiving, etc.
We warned everyone in advance this year that for DD's first Christmas we were not traveling. Everyone can come to us. So far everyone has said they think it is a good idea but I guess we will see what actually happens when the holidays get closer.
Growing up my parents believed that little kids should get to be home for Christmas. Family was always welcome to visit us any time of the day though.
DH and I have always stayed home for Christmas and my family comes over and does gifts and dinner. Then we travel to the in-laws' the next day or over the next weekend. It depends on when BIL & SIL can also go. The in laws would rather have us celebrate all together on a different day.
So do you do just you, DH, and kids on Christmas? Or do you have Christmas with your parents?
Thats what we decided at first for this year "everyone can come to us". Its so hard to travel now that we have both kids, and we would like to set up traditions and stay home now that DS is getting older. However, my IL's are BSC and I know they will be here, and if they are here my family will not come because they wont be comfortable. So, now what we are thinking is having one set of parents come down and stay with us each year. I just feel bad about missing out on the other set of parents. I like the idea that PP had about having Christmas on a different weekend for the other set of parents though.
We rotate years. This year is my family's year. We then spend new years with the other family (so this year, DH's family gets new years).
Since we are both students, we are able to make a long vacation out of it. So each family will get 2 weeks with us this year.
The first year away from my family was tough, but not as tough as I expected. I think being away, your mind kinda assumes the world stopped with out you and therefore I didn't really think much about what was going on with out me (if that makes any sense). Plus our family traditions are close enough so that helps.
We do every other year w/ our families. So this year his family gets Thanksgiving and my family gets Christmas. Next year my family Thanksgiving, his Christmas, etc.
My MIL always has Christmas at her house when it is her year. We are on the same year as BIL, SIL, and my neices so we have a big Christmas there and Santa comes to her house.
Since I am an only child when it is my family's Christmas I get my way so Christmas will always be at my house
. This year it is my family's turn. We will have my parents and DH's parents over. BIL and SIL live in the area so we may end up seeing them too, not sure though. I'm excited because DD gets to have her first Christmas at home!
This year will probably be the same - my parents and ILs live 15ish mins away from each other.
This for us too. Although we don't have to 'travel' since everyone is 5 min away. My parents are super mellow and good with whatever. Last year we spent Eve with them and day with my IL's. By doing that though I missed seeing my grandparents since my dads side of the family gathers on Xmas day.
My MIL is a big baby when it comes to holidays, she wants us there all day all to herself. Before when we saw both families on Xmas day she actually had the nerve to ask me to ditch my parents so we could spend all day with them. So I told DH this year, we're staying home and people can come to us. MIL supports the ideas sometimes, although I think she still thinks we're going to come over to her house at some point in the day. So we'll see.
We don't even enjoy the holidays anymore due to MIL being so childish about it. I could go into a serious vent, but I'll refrain. I think about Christmas now a lot just because I'm dreading dealing with her despite it being months away still.
DH's family gets together on Jekyll Island, GA every other year for Christmas. This year they are planning on doing the same thing. Jekyll Island is about 6 hours away from where we live. We will probably travel down there before Christmas to visit everyone and then come back to our place for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and invite my in-laws to stay at our house. My parents live about 20 minutes away so they will be at our house on Christmas morning, of course.
On years where DH's family doesn't travel to the island for the holidays we will probably do Thanksgiving with the in-laws and Christmas at our house. Or the other way around, depending on what works for everyone.
Amykins, I'm seriously jealous! Jekyll Island is one of my favorite places to visit. It's so laid back there.
When I was a kid, we did Christmas Eve at my grandfathers, and a very early Christmas morning at home, then we would head out for a 9 hour drive to my dad's parents'. When my youngest brother was born, Mom decided the trip was too much with 3 kids and it wasn't fair to us to be on the road that long.
Christmas morning was always a rushed affair because as soon as the gifts were unwrapped, we headed to the kitchen to cook enough food for a small army. Relatives would drop in all through the day.
Now we do Christmas with DH's family the 2nd Saturday of December. This year I will take over the Christmas Eve dinner since my granddad passed away last spring. Christmas morning will be at home, and then in the afternoon we will go to Mom's for brunch, take our time opening gifts, and then football and napping the rest of the day.
Our families live too far apart (DH"s are in the UK) so we alternate Christmases. I guess it could be a good thing so we don't have to worry about squeezing both families in!
ETA: When I was little, my parents did Christmas morning at our own house..once DS gets a little older I'd like to do that (and then visit my parents that evening or the next day).
We live several states away from both families. We just decided that we won't be traveling for major holidays. Trying to haul LO halfway across the country is hard on a good day. I have absolutely no interest in trying to do that with a super busy airport during a holiday rush. Both families are invited to join us for any major holidays and we're willing to travel near holidays to see them. My family is coming out for Thanksgiving and I'll travel back to see them in early December. I don't know about Dh's family. They don't plan anything until the last minute so we probably won't see them around holidays. So Christmas will probably be just me, SO, and LO.
I don't think it's weird not to see your own family every single year for a holiday.
I have no idea what we are going to do. The whole thought of Christmas gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I spend the entire holiday season trying to satisfy everyone in my family, while making myself miserable. The stakes are even higher this year with DS.
Through the entire time DH and I were dating, holidays belonged to my family. We usually celebrated holidays on a different day with DH family. He rarely celebrated holidays with his family from the time he was 18 through college and beyond. That was fine with me because my family has deep seeded traditions. However, as soon as we got married (after 5 years of dating), all of a sudden his family wanted a piece of us. "Traditions" started being invented, but we never knew what to expect because they would change 5-6 times. IL started complaining that they used to be so close, and this started causing problems because DH would start to feel guilty even though he doesn't have any recollection of this closeness. It has since gotten 100x worse with the birth of DS and has spilled over into other areas.
Then, there is my family. My mom does not make it any easier on me to try to accommodate the IL. I am the only sibling married and my mom has a hard time recognizing that her daughters are grown up. She never had to split holidays with IL, so doesn't really get the whole compromising thing. When I have tried to make compromises I have been told that she is not changing her traditions just because DH family has decided to make up some of their own.
Added to that is my DH who would just prefer to do away with both families on the holidays. He would be happy existing in a world that just consists of me and our son.
The families don't really get along, so getting together is not an option either. So, I don't know what we are going to do. One of these days, I am going to get the nerve to tell everyone where they can go because I am sick of killing myself to please everyone else. I haven't reached that point yet, but I can feel it coming. This might be the year because I am determined to actually enjoy my first Christmas with my son.
Ugh, I don't know yet. We talked about it when I was pregnant, but didn't come to a 100% conclusion.
His family & my mom/stepdad are local. But it's still annoying to do SO much running around on the holidays. It's exhausting & we always say we aren't going to do it anymore then we always do...
We will probably do Christmas eve at my mom's, Christmas morning at our house & then Christmas afternoon at ILs like we always do. I will put my foot down when DD is older though b/c I want her to have the same thing every year of Christmas day at our house.
DH suggested having everyone over to our house, but that is MORE stressful for me b/c they linger around forever & while I love them they will seriously stay til 1-2 in the morning even with me drowsy on the couch & dropping hints. And then all the hosting/cleanup falls on us.
DD1 born 5/24/10.
Missed M/C at 14 wks Feb 2012.
DD2 born 5/14/13.
Missed M/C at 9 wks July 2015.
Both DH and my family are at least 20 hours away.... (his in Massachusetts, mine in Michigan) so honestly we have not seen our families for the holidays in years. We'd like to visit our families on a rotating schedule... either Thanksgiving or Christmas with my family one year, his family the next, and home for the third year. We'll see how this goes and if we can keep it up.