Meshing family traditions
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How do you handle meshing your family christmas traditions with your DH'?
Most of ours are easy to mesh, but there is one that really drives me nuts! His mom is a little bit of a hoarder and tend to buy a lot of cheap junk, especially for gifts. When they were little she gave them giant stockings and overloaded them with probably 30 presents. All of it was junky stuff or gag gifts and she wraps every single one before putting in in there so it takes about an hour to get through the stockings. She STILL gives them a stocking full of this stuff every year. We literally have boxes in the closet from years past of junk that DH never touched and I end up tossing out.
Now DH wants to continue this "tradition" for our boys. He spent $100 on the stocking last year and was basically just stuffing it full of junk that all is now lost or broken. I like to do a regular sized stocking with a few meaningful, nice gift and spend the $100 on something they will use. We've argued about this for two years in a row and maybe I should give in and just let him have his kicks. It's really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
It made me wonder, do you have any traditions that conflict with your DH and how do you deal with them?
Re: Meshing family traditions
DH and I picked the traditions that we enjoyed most and then meshed those together. Traditions that we kept
DH's
St. Nick's Day
Christmas Eve dinner: Fondue
Christmas breakfast: Homemade beignets
Mine:
New ornament every year that represents something that we did that year
Decorating on black Friday
Family game/movie night on Christmas Eve
We both grew up with stockings on Christmas so we continue to do that also. The stockings full of junk would drive me crazy. MIL does that (I ended up with a ton of dollar bin junk I never used). Luckily, DH doesn't really dictate how much or which stuff I buy for Christmas. I usually fill their stockings but I put things that they will use in them - bubble bath, treats I know they like, tooth brushes, cute soap,.....
I agree that that is annoying. $100 a stocking sounds CRAZY to me...BUT how big of an issue is this to you? If I were you, and it's not a super big deal, (just annoying) I would let your H have this victory. You can take the next one that might be a little more important to you.
I'd go ahead and make your stockings. You can always hang both to display them. FWIW, my sister had 3 stockings growing up (all were gifts). My mom hung them all to display them as part of the Christmas decor in the house. Then my sister would choose which one she wanted Santa to fill.
I still have the stocking I grew up using. My great-aunt made it. I will always hang it up for display. But this year we found super good deal on a set of matching stockings. I want all of ours to match, so Santa will now fill one of those for me.
OP: I feel your pain. We have stocking drama here too. (I don't want my mom to fill stockings for me/DH/LOs. Also, a lot of it is junk or stuff we just don't need/want/use. IMO, Santa only fills one stocking per person. And that happens in their house on Christmas morning. ) I like the suggestion of setting a stocking dollar limit in your case.
I'm sure gonna try! I think as he gets older he is starting to see that some of the "fun" things his mom did when we was a kid are things that would drive most parents crazy. Like bringing home pets left and right - lizards, gerbils, ducks, frogs. . . . and I think some of those things led to her divorce. She is and awesome grandmother and a very intelligent person (bio-chemist) but she is quite the free spirit and flies by the seat of her pants. Of course kids love this type of thing, but it's not so fun when you are the parent. Luckily we've already settled the pet issue because that would NOT be ok in my house.
Our traditions easily meshed... they were surprisingly similar, actually.
In DH's family, before they could open their presents or even go near the Christmas tree, they had to eat breakfast, wash the dishes, and call all the relatives (dozens of them). That's the only tradition we disagreed on - I think that's just cruel. So we're gonna be a presents then breakfast kinda family :-)
HAHA! Yes, I just tell him that if he wants them all wrapped then he can go right ahead and wrap every one of them for me, DS1 and DS2, but his won't be wrapped since I do all the other present wrapping for every other present in the house myself. I don't want to wrap his entire stocking too! Last year he stopped about halfway through and did half the stockings wrapped and half not because he got bored with it.
We do wrap Santas bigger presents though, both of us grew up with that and we have a special Santa paper that we use only for those.
HAHA! Yes, I just tell him that if he wants them all wrapped then he can go right ahead and wrap every one of them for me, DS1 and DS2, but his won't be wrapped since I do all the other present wrapping for every other present in the house myself. I don't want to wrap his entire stocking too! Last year he stopped about halfway through and did half the stockings wrapped and half not because he got bored with it.
We do wrap Santas bigger presents though, both of us grew up with that and we have a special Santa paper that we use only for those.