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3rd Trimester
wordtoyourmother
member
Have the holidays become more complicated with LO?
wordtoyourmother
member
This is the first grandchild on both sides and EVERYONE wants to be with the baby during her first Christmas.
DH, his mother, and I live in the same state. I actually moved away from my family in FL. My family has come up twice to see me during the holidays since we've moved. Unfortunately, we will leave MIL alone this Christmas while we visit my family. She'll get to spend Thanksgiving with LO but she seems to be bummed out about not being there baby's first Christmas. I've already asked her to come down to Florida but she refuses.
It seems with LO that breaking up the holidays evenly with relatives will become even more complicated.
Anyone else see these issues in their midst?
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Re: Have the holidays become more complicated with LO?
The good thing is all our family lives close. The bad thing is they all want us for all the holidays.
I think we are going to do Thanksgiving/Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with DH's family. Who knows, maybe we will just lock ourselves in our house and have our own family holidays....
I have a feeling there are going to be some issues. It is the first on either side with us too. I know that every one will be upset when it is time for us to leave for our next "event".
We usually split Christmas going to DH's familyin the morning (he has a much younger sister who still wants to open gifts at 7 AM and his parents want everyone to be there for that), and stay for lunch, then we go to my parents to do gifts in the afternoon, the eat dinner at my grandparents.
I know that this year LO won't be opening gifts but I think we are just going to skip his parents until lunchtime anyway...and leave my grandparents right after dinner. it's going to be such a long day with a LO this year!
You know what? I wish we had them all nearby because we would just tell everyone to come over our house instead. Our families live 800 miles apart though..:-/
I think having out LO will actually make it easier for us. It will give us an excuse to have everyone travel to visit us now instead of having 4 bajillion Christmases with all different parts of the family.
It would make DH and I the happiest to have both sides of our family all together and I feel like it will make both of our families closer.
I would love to do this!! Too bad mine and DH's families can't stand being around each other for more than 20 minutes.
while it has become more complicated, my husband and I have stayed at our home (away from all of our family) since we have been married. It's nice to wake up in my own bed, in my own house, and open gifts. Last year we invited everyone to our home in NC and we will be doing the same this year. I am on the idea that if they don't come to us (our daughter will be about a month old) to see her on her first Christmas its their loss, because we can't be in 4 states at once.
-my parents live in FL, but my family lives in SC and KY -my DH's mom lives in SC, his dad in VA, his family in MD and FL -we live in NC - we are the center for everyone to travel and it just makes more sense to us
Oh yes!!!
my dad lives 1 mile away...no big here
my mom and step dad live in the virgin islands...
BF mom lives in New Hampshire
BF dad lives in Florida
Not to mention..he has a son from a previous marriage so we also have to work around that schedule. His mom lives here, but her extended family is also in Florida so it is CRAZY...we manage though
After several years of accomodating everyone else, when my 2nd was born I told everyone that we were celebrating Christmas at our house and that who ever wanted to come was welcome to, but that we weren't leaving. My MIL bitched the first year, but by the 2nd year, she realized that this is the way it was gonna be. It's been really great.
Last year was our first holidays in our new house. We did our own Thanksgiving and it was just DH, me, and a few of our close friends (no family) For Christmas, we did Christmas morning at our house with his two children then drove 2 hours to my parents house then down the road to his parents. Then we met my stepchildrens mom and dropped the kids off with her. Then we just came home after that long day.
This year is going to be different I'm sure. We now have custody of DH's son, while his daughter still stays with his ex. I'm not sure how we're going to do Christmas morning. Usually, the years rotate. We'll have them one year in the morning and then the next, we'd get them in the afternoon. It's going to be one confusing year.
But I know either way it goes with the children that both sets of grandparents will want to see all 3 kids at the same time and do Christmas. Hopefully we figure something out to make everyone happy.
We had to make the rule that we don't go anywhere on christmas day and we sleep at home on christmas eve. I think kids should be at their own home on christmas. Everyone lives 2 hours or more away from us. They are welcome to come over Christmas day or we make arangements before christmas and get together then.
For thanksgiving we take turns and go to different houses year to year.
Having LOs has made it less complicated b/c we get to make rules like these! lol
We are doing Thanksgiving, Xmas Eve and Xmas morning with my family. Then we are coming back to our house and DH's family (his grandma, his parents, brothers and sister in law) are coming to our house for the afternoon/early evening and then we are going to friends of the family later in the evening. It's going to be hectic, but we want to see everyone.
This is our usual routine except for we usually go over to DH's parents house. Since like all of them smoke and their house is really small, we're making them come to us.
I agree. This year it's not an issue because DH is deploying in January so we will be with his family for Christmas and LO and I are moving to be with my family while he is gone. After that, we won't see anyone on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day because I would like my children to be home then too. They can come to us if they want.
We just told everyone we don't plan on schlepping a baby around for the holidays. If people want to see us, they can come to us.
Problem solved.
We're doing what we always do. We alternate where we do TG and Christmas and we're doing it this year at the houses that happen to be getting their turn. Only fair.
That puts us at my parents for TG and the ILs for Christmas
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This is what DH and I are thinking about although we haven't said anything to either family yet.
We are running into this also. My family is about an hour away from us but DH's family is about 7 hours or so (Illinois). Pretty much everyone will be here for Thanksgiving but Christmas has been the problem. Ever since me and DH have been together, we have been alternating our holiday seasons by spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with one side and New Years and Easter with the other. This year it is my family's turn and out of interest of having a 1 month old, we opted to stay here and have Christmas Eve and part of Christmas day with my family and see his family on New Years. Well that didn't go over well with his family because they of course want to be with us on her first Christmas. We did extend the invitation for them to come here, but they refused because they have other family members in Illinois.
In short, me and DH said that we are keeping our cycle. We would love to have all of them included but we cannot be in two places at once, and we put the idea on the table of having his family come visit us a few days after Christmas and we would have kind of a second Christmas with them. Then next year, we would switch. This idea seemed to work for us. Maybe something like this would help in your situation
Yes.
I'm not sure how we're going to handle this. My fam and his fam both live over 5 hours away by car and nowhere near each other. We've been alternating since we got married, Thanksgiving at one and Christmas at the other, but have told both families we'll be celebrating at our own home this year. My mom is already not ok with that but I am not attempting to travel 5 hours by car with 2 month old twins and wind up trying to tandem breastfeed somewhere along the I-95 corridor!
The 2 mothers couldn't even get it together to host a shower here together for me (I couldn't travel and only wanted one, combined shower but even that couldn't happen) and since it is the first on both sides I forsee much jealousy.
I also am worried that they (especially my fam) will want us to travel to them for Christmases and I really agree with some of the PP that kids should sleep and have Christmas morning in their own home. I always did, my mom never had to travel with us but somehow she expects us to...