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Can the holidays just be over with?
I usually love the holidays, but ever since having DD, there is such a tug of war as to where we "should' be for the holidays. Already I have one family member barely talking to me because we chose the other side of the family to go to for Thanksgiving. We just can't be everywhere and there were 4 different places with different parts of the family having meals all at the same time. I tried talking to this family member about getting together on a different day over the long weekend and apparently that isn't good enough. I'm just over it. Can it be New Years already???
ETA: Sorry about being a Debbie Downer..I'm actually excited for the holidays in the sense of celebrating with DD and DH, but my family is about to drive me nutso! Maybe this is where I just say if they want to see us they can just come to our house and we stop trying to please everyone else since we obviously can't.
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Re: Can the holidays just be over with?
My late husband passed away on Dec 23 so things have sucked pretty bad the past few yrs. I am somewhat looking forward to it this yr with LO.
I learned even before LO you tell them when you will come over. For me it works cause we have a small family. I have always spent the night with my family (younger brother still lives at home) on christmas eve. Mom asked if LO and I would be this year. Umm no! Santa has to come to the house. I don't care how old he is I want to start my own Christmas morning and if you dont like sorry!
Christmas is a little easier to spread the love around, but it sucks being pulled in so many directions for Thanksgiving because no one wants to celebrate on a different day.
No LO yet for me, but having one on the way made DH decide it was time to start our own traditions. I absolutely dread Thanksgiving shindigs - always have. We only have to decide between 2 family parties (huge, extended family get togethers), but for whatever reason Thanksgiving sucks at both of them. So we decided that we were just cooking for ourselves and telling our immediate families that they are welcome to stop by on their way to/from the other parties. I am surprised that none of our parents have voiced a problem with this!
This is something I'm already worrying about for us. This year it isn't an issue and it really won't be next year either (DS will only be 8 months) but the following year it will start to be... because of Santa.
We usually go to my IL's on Christmas Eve and celebrate Christmas with them, then drive home Christmas day to celebrate with my family. Well, as our child begins to understand about Santa I want him to be home on Christmas Eve. And I don't want to travel 2 hours south on Christmas day. So I'm not sure what we will do.
Thanksgiving isn't as big of a deal. My family usually comes down with H and I to the IL's house so we'll probably just continue to do that.
This is one reason I am "Thankful" that my Dad and Step-mom are going out of town this Thanksgiving and my inlaws live out of town. I will still receive pressure to attend my extended family's Thanksgiving, but hopefully will be able to just enjoy being at my mom's house. As a child of divorce my holidays have always sucked because you are always expected to be 10 places at once which in the past has meant that you can only stay at places for small periods of time. Last year I decided I was making Christmas dinner so I crammed whoever wanted to come into my two bedroom apartment so that my LO could enjoy her first Christmas morning where she actually knew what was going on. We will probably do the same this year. You just have to make people realize that you have a LO now and your priority is that person and not everyone else.
Good luck!
This is really what we need to do. I think next year we will just cram family into our house for Thanksgiving and I'll have to learn how to cook a turkey. Then it's on everyone else to come see us and we can sit back and relax.
We did the same thing-- it works out nicely that both families are pretty understanding :-) This year is a little different because my due date being Dec 2nd we are limiting our holiday traveling but on a normal year we do Easter with DH's local family (including extended family that all still live in Campbell Co.), Thanksgiving we normally go to Cleveland to be with my moms side of the family and my immediate family. Christmas is split up-- we celebrate with DH's side of the family the wknd before Christmas (they just pretend its christmas day and all his sisters and their families come over in the AM for breakfast, kids stay in jammies, we open presents, do a special mid-afternoon dinner and watch movies and hang out all day.)
Our IL's realized it was easier to get everyone together by having it the wknd before instead of making all of their kids try and coordinate with IL's each year (there are 5 kids in DH family and all are married with kids so its A LOT of schedules to coordinate). We do Christmas Eve at home, Christmas morning we will go to my parents and spend the day w/ my family. NYE we do with friends and then New Years Day we travel to visit DH's moms extended family in Indiana. We get to see everyone at some point between Thanksgiving and New Years and we dont have craziness of going 4 different places in 1 day.