S/O Holiday Plans?

mamaiorory · July 2009

I've noticed there are quite a few posts about holidays with your extended family. Before this LO we always went with IL's, BIL, SIL and nephews to a condo for Christmas. I advised MIL early on that once LO arrived we would stop doing that in order to create our own traditions and celebrations. MIL is totally cool with it--my family is not. They think we should fly to California every Christmas and spend it with them. I really want to start our own traditions and focus on the aspects of Christmas (as well as other holidays) that we see as important. What do you plan on doing once your LO comes?

thatgirlang · July 2009

Spending Christmas morning in our house with the kids is really important to me. We don't travel on Christmas! I love waking up in our house and having the kids find their gifts under the tree and just relaxing at home together.

DH is lucky- his parents are local so we still see them on Christmas day.

My parents have to see us on Thanksgiving... or they are welcome to come to US on Christmas.

sam19 · July 2009

Our family is all really close so we will still be going to there houses every year for Christmas dinners and some presents. We will also have our own Christmas. Lots and Lots of Christmases!

Chief_Carters_Lady · July 2009

I'm not looking forward to sorting all this out. My IL's live across the street from us, so that's not a biggie. My mom lives an hour away, and she doesn't like coming to our house (for whatever reason) so I don't see this Christmas or Thanksgiving going well in that respect.

BeanieWeanie · July 2009

So far we've alternated between visiting ILs in California and my family in England. This year we're going to England, because we figured it was easier than having everyone come here (as was our original plan). I definitely want to start spending some holidays at home though, whether we have visitors or not. We've never had a Christmas tree yet and I really want to be able to decorate our place!

mamaofliam · July 2009

For me growing up we always had Christmas morning as a family and then got together with extended family in the afternoon.

Family is a part of our tradition so even as we have started our family, we have tried to visit extended family whenever possible to pass those memories onto our kids.

We do a present (always new pjs) on Christmas eve, then a stocking first thing in the morning. Then, after breakfast we do family gifts and Christmas story of Jesus before going and spending the Christmas meal with extended family (if possible). It just seems so lonely just the 3 of us if we aren't able to be with extended family, IMO.

JNicMTek · July 2009

Thankfully all our family lives close by (within an hour drive). So we'll be able to have our family Christmas together and start our own traditions, but still be able to visit family in the afternoon/evening. I have always traveled to some family member's house for the large family Christmas in the afternoon of Christmas day, so it's nothing new for me. After 3 years together, DH is getting used to it.

tiannalee · July 2009

Because it would be impossible to satisfy my and DH's family for holidays, for the past several years, we have just done our own thing - went to San Diego, went to Mexico, etc. Family was not happy but couldnt really argue since we spent the time with ourselves and not specific family. I think that this year we will stay home and anyone wants to see us, they can come to us. I have a friend who travels 3 hours with 3 kids to go to 4 different houses of relatives. To me, that is just waaaaay to stressful. I dont how or why people do it....

mamaofliam · July 2009

I will add that I totally agree that making your own family traditions is very good and healthy. As DH what little traditions his family did and try to incorporate those (ex: put the tree up on a specific day, read Christmas story, have specific something for Christmas-my DH is English so we have Christmas crackers, etc)

I will also say that it is possible to have your own family traditions even when you are not at your own house. We alternate families since we have to travel to be with any of our families. But we still make our own traditions happen regardless of where we are.

AllisonLeigh · July 2009

Both of our families live in town so we do xmas morning just the 2 now 3 of us and then we go to his parents for brunch then my grandmothers for late afternoon lunch or dinner. Then if we don't do dinner at gm's then we go to my parents for dinner.

wingsfan524 · July 2009

In the past few years Christmas has been hectic. X-mas eve with my parents/sister. We would spend X-mas eve night at MIL house and BIL would stay as well. Then we would go to MH aunt's house and then off to my extended family's house. It's starting to be too much. I think we will start our own traditions on Christmas Day. If my parents or MIL/BIL want to come over to see the kids open gifts, they are more than welcome to do so.

mamaofliam · July 2009

Oh, and as you are setting family traditions, remember that what you pass on to your kids is likely to influence what they do when they are gone and have families of their own. If Christmas is just you, DH and your children, it is likely that when they grow, they will want Christmas to be just them, their spouse and their children.

monicalynn1979 · July 2009

Both of our families live 10 hours away in the same town so at least we don't have to deal with fighting over which family to visit. Or should I say have our families fight over who we will visit! We do plan on driving the 10 hours this year for Christmas, DD will be about 5 months old at the time.

As our children get older though we are going to want to make some of our own traditions in our own home, but for the next few years we will continue to travel.

Dncr251 · July 2009

We were probably going to keep our same holiday schedule. We switch off Thanksgiving and Christmas every year between the ILs who live in the same city, and my family which lives 8 hours away.

Either that, or we were thinking of taking time off in between the holidays so we could actually spend the holidays at our house and visit my family in between and spend some more time there.

We haven't decided yet and need to look at the time off schedule to see if that's feasible. I would totally prefer to stay around home for the holidays instead of traveling.

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