Holiday stress?

wildflower75 · May 2014

I know it's kind of early to think about this but since our babies will be born close to Thanksgiving... is there anyone out there that is dreading the Holiday stress that could come up with family and in laws...?

We travel from NY to SF every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas (with my MIL) and stay at my mother's house for the Holidays so this is the first year that everyone will come to our house. There were already some issues between my mother and my MIL last year about who was going to cook what and I REALLY would just rather order in or go to a restaurant but I don't know if that's gonna fly with everyone else... I just don't want the stress of even listening to my mother complain about my MIL...but before all that even happens I REALLY hope that my brother and sister get their acts together and request their time off work now so that they can come to NY for both holidays!! Not sure what would happen if my mom and grandmother are here and my siblings are left to fend for themselves for the first time ever (besides the fact that I would miss them terribly).

Anyone else already making plans?

Dana633 · May 2014

Nope, lol. I'm planning to just go with the flow. Our families live pretty close, though.

missnacholover · May 2014

I'm not stressed. We've expressed that we will not be traveling for Christmas any more as we will be spending time with our kid(s). People are more than welcome to come to us, but we want Christmas morning to ourselves. Our home will not be open for visitors until 12:00 pm. You show up at 11:59 am, you're waiting outside.

For thankgiving this year, my in-laws may be coming down and making us dinner. I'm not sure what my parents' plans are. If they are in town as well, maybe we'll have everyone over or I'll somehow con my sister into hosting everyone at her house (30 min away). I'm not too worried about it.

runningmama14 · May 2014

DHs family lives close (like all siblings within 9 miles of their parent's home). My family is about 3 hours away, with the exception of my aunt who lives near me.

Thanksgiving with DHs family is lame and not made special at all. Depending on when baby comes, we may or may not go to my parents that weekend. They may come to see us and stay at my aunt's house. I'm sure we'll take a trip to see my family sometime near Christmas for several days to catch extended family Christmas and spend time with my immediate family, but it won't actually be on Christmas day. DH's family does Christmas Eve and in the past we've gone to my family's on Christmas Day, so we should be pretty good to transition it over to a day just for us. I'm sure DH will feel the need to go see his parents because they live so close but whateves. I'll tear down that bridge when we get to it.

MollMoll4 · May 2014

We were clear with our families from the get-go that we likely will not be traveling for Thanksgiving (even though they're both driving distance).

DH and I have a great Christmas schedule worked out that we will continue in the coming years where we have the morning to ourselves, then his family comes over for breakfast and presents, and then we head up to visit my family for the afternoon.

mander82 · May 2014

Our families are pretty close. Farthest away peeps are an hour away. I already laid it out there that if anyone comes to see the baby, they need to bring a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers to get in

As for Christmas, I think I will be more stressed financially. I will be off work, so there will be time to shop and bake. DH suggested I start picking up gifts for people now and storing them so that we don't have to try and afford everything in between babies birth and Christmas. I think I might do that. Even if I just pick up some gift cards, that will save us some $ in December. I also have 6 birthdays to shop for in December.....so December always hurts oru pocketbook.

DoubleUp8 · May 2014

We are not traveling for Thanksgiving. The grandparents-to-be have been invited to come for Thanksgiving to visit the baby since 3 of the 4 are educators. The condition was that they do the cooking (though if my mom doesn't come to cook, I will be coaching DH through the meal since we usually cook it together, and I love my MIL, but she's not the best cook (:| )

This is the one year we will travel for Christmas since all of the grandparents live out of state. Baby has 4 great-grandparents (my 2 grandmas and DH's grandparents) who all live within 2 hours of DH's parents. The plan is to see my parents for X-mas. Then go to DH's parents and coordinate visits with all of the great-grandparents so they can meet the baby.

Next year the grandparent can come to us, we will always celebrate x-mas in our home with our kid(s)!

sparklingwhit · May 2014

For Thanksgiving we will be going to SIL's house to celebrate with the IL's.

My mom thinks that this means we will be traveling with a 2 month old 12 hours for Christmas. I have told her there is no bloody way I will make that drive, but she still brings it up like I never declined. She's in some sort of denial. I did invite them to come my way for the holidays, but said she could not stay with us, so we shall see what kind of drama unfolds!

shan24 · May 2014

Canadian Thanksgiving will be well over with by the time the baby is born, but I've told my family that I'm not taking a tiny baby on potentially shitty roads, so they can come to us.

@mander82 shopping now is smart! I just might have to do that.

ktibbits1 · May 2014

We haven't discussed it, but I'm assuming my family will come to us. DH's mom doesn't travel so unless we do end up moving closer to her I don't foresee splitting family time being an issue. Now that I'm thinking about it I'll definitely make it clear we will NOT be traveling for the holidays.

lincoln79 · May 2014

Thanksgiving will be at our house and IL's (MIL, FIL, BIL, SIL, niece) will be traveling here. We are due 11/7 (and I'm not giving birth) and each family always pitches in anyways. Hoping I am not crazy to be thinking that is a good idea....

Christmas we are staying put. MH is on call for Christmas and that gives us the perfect excuse to stay home. I know my family will never come here, so we are anticipating a quiet time at home.

absolutelymaybe · May 2014

No, because if anyone wants to see us, they will have to travel to our house. We don't have huge families (DH's lives about 30 minutes away and mine lives about an hour away), but since they live in their own little clusters and have kids, it's always DH and my duty to travel to them for all the holidays (which is really stressful because we have big dogs we can't take with us).

This year, I'm going to be all, "Merry Christmas! I just birthed two babies, bitchez! You get to make the drive this year!"

nonoemily · May 2014

I hate holidays. So much work and my family is so crazy. I think we'll keep it mellow for Christmas and skip Thanksgiving.

krgriffin26 · May 2014

DH and I only go to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving. His family does their own things. We do however have 4 Christmas places to go to in 2 days. That is always stressful anyways.

FirstBabyDoyle · May 2014

The only thing that stresses me out is missing turkey and dressing due to our inability to travel. I just hope my family can make it happen here. I love t-giving dinner.

Bklynnj0118 · May 2014

I am thinking based on my due that I could potentially be in the hospital for thanksgiving since I will most likely have a c-section. We don't go far anyway for thanksgiving but I already told MH that weren't going anywhere if I am home. My in laws can come here.

Christmas should be fine as our parents are close and will probably host Christmas morning breakfast then be free for the day.

I am getting more grief about possibly missing a wedding 12/13. Considering my due date is 11/29 and I will more than likely have a c-section I'm not going. It's two hours away. No thanks!

montella1064 · May 2014

Between my DH and I we usually have 4 houses to go to each holiday (both of our parents are divorced). Considering the fact that we will have a 3 week old around Thanksgiving, my plans will be to either stay home or maybe stop by my mother's house (because she is close and everyone else is about an hour drive away) but that's it. No jumping house to house this year to make everyone else happy. Feelings will get hurt, but that's the way things will go for us for at least Thanksgiving this year.

Celticlass6 · May 2014

We haven't really talked about this yet - especially Christmas! Our immediate families are fairly close (all within an hour of each other), but we usually hop from one family to the other to see everyone on Thanksgiving. I've already told DH that if the baby is here there is no way we'll be doing the rounds this year. If we're playing the waiting game still, I'm getting myself some stuffing!

ssstephanie214 · May 2014

I hope to God someone thinks to bring me Thanksgiving dinner cause I'm not going anywhere. And I crave that food every day.

Allyvaughan86 · May 2014

I'm not worried about travel because all immediate family are within driving distance and hopefully they'll want to drive to us... I'm just not sure how I'm going to do Christmas Shopping with a newborn... I guess gift cards and online shopping will do!

kimberly_ann81 · May 2014

Dana633 said:

Nope, lol. I'm planning to just go with the flow. Our families live pretty close, though.

This is us also. My IL live 15 minutes away and my family is only 1 hour so we'll drive to be with everyone. I'll probably have a harder time because DH will be on night shift right after LO is born; hate his changing schedule but it pays the bills right now.

ccam · May 2014

We normally switch back and forth every year between families for Thanksgiving since my family is out of state. But this year, I will be discharged on Thanksgiving so my Mom has offered to stay with DS at our house and have Thanksgiving dinner waiting for us

We haven't discussed Christmas yet. We usually spend Christmas Eve with the ILs and drive to my parents on Christmas Day. Guess we'll see how it goes! But everyone will know ahead of time that Christmas, in terms of gifts, will be very light.

brooklyngirl18 · May 2014

ughhh holidays are such a sore subject. both our moms host every holiday every year and expect us to always be there. they are about an hour away from each other so when we tried to split we just spent most of the time sitting in traffic fighting. i think we fought every holiday two years ago

both moms say they understand we need to split blah blah but they're full of it.

we already agreed we aren't going anywhere for thanksgiving with a newborn so we'll invite whoever over wants to come but the thought of a houseful of people when I'm a sleep deprived new mom scares me. dh parents live 10 minute away so i don't think they'll buy the excuse we don't want to drive there. i have no idea what we're going to do but yes I'm feeling the stress already.

Dimples0101 · May 2014

I hadn't thought about it yet, but now you guys have me thinking. Both of our families live within 20-30 minutes of us. Thanksgiving isn't as big of a deal because we rotate and we're with my ILs this year depending on when baby comes. Christmas is going to be a bigger deal. We always run around and I can't decide if we should break tradition this year or wait until next year when DD is 3. I think we will piss people off when we do break the tradition, but I'm fine with that. I'm not going to exhaust myself or my kids every year on Christmas. It makes it less enjoyable.

PS. Now you guys have me craving stuffing and gravy.

NLJ82 · May 2014

Luckily we all live within a half hour of eachother on my moms side AND DH side. My fathers side, however (parents divorced), all live about 3 hours away. Regardless, we've made it clear to everyone that we will not be traveling and everything will be at our house and apparently everyone already assumed that so...no problems here!

emoxymoose · May 2014

We usually alternate staying in our home state one year, the next year Ohio, the next year Baltimore, but this year we've told everyone we're staying at home for the entire holiday season. If they want to see LO they can come here (and help).

Carebella · May 2014

I'm used to holidays being a special time and have quickly learned my ILs don't feel the same way. I asked them last year if we drove out there, could I cook us all Thanksgiving dinner? Morning rolls around day of and MIL says I wish we were going out or had ordered food, WTF?!?

This year the plan is to have everyone come to us at least for Thanksgiving. My mom will already be in town to help once baby arrives and my dad and brother will be chomping at the bit to meet LO. And they are all good cooks and pretty easy guests so I should be able to focus on baby and enjoy good food. ILs are invited but MIL is a flight attendant so no guarantees she will make it. But they will need to plan on staying with my BIL or DHs cousins as they are NOT as easy and I don't want the house that full as a FTM with a new baby. Christmas... I like the idea of going back to my parents but it's a two long days of driving if I want to bring the pups, and if we fly we don't really have great pet care options for the pups on long trips :-(

MrsTuna08 · May 2014

I'm dreading the holidays, which is a big bummer because I usually look forward to them. I'm due the day before Thanksgiving so everyone already knows that we won't be traveling. But Christmas, yeee-ikes. Previously, we just split the holidays - Thanksgiving with one set of parents, Christmas with the others - we lived across the country and air travel was too expensive and time consuming to do anything different. We just moved closer to home and are now a 3 hour drive from each set of parents (but in opposite directions). It is my IL's year for Christmas, but my mother expects us to be home. Sorry Mom, not gonna happen. I'm willing to travel at some point around Christmas, but I'm not going to spend hours traveling in crappy weather with a newborn so that you get a specific day.

missnacholover · May 2014

I really want some mashed potatoes right now. That's all I have to add.

jf198400 · May 2014

We already have kids, and both families are local so nothing is really changing for us. I'm due the day after thanksgiving and all my babies have been a week+ late so I don't think LO will arrive before then. We switch off thanksgiving every other year so this year it's my moms turn.

Christmas is always crazy busy. We have a big Christmas Eve at my moms. The whole family comes. This will be a chance for everyone to meet the baby. Then we have Christmas morning at home and go to church. Then we go to MILs for dinner. The whole 2 days is a whirlwind of activity.

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