How do you "share" holidays?

wandajune6

My relationship with DH is the first time I've been in a relationship where both of us live in the same city as our families. This opens up all new issues with handling holidays. I'm incredibly lucky in that I've never had to miss a holiday with my family and I hate to start now.

Christmas is easy- his family celebrates on Christmas Eve and my family does Christmas Day. Easy. Thanksgiving is harder. My family plans everything in advance and has the location and time set at least 3 months before. On his side, we still don't know who is hosting Thanksgiving or what time it will be at. His mom (who will not be hosting) wants us to come to their family's Thanksgiving - or at least stop by- but we have no details.

To make things harder, DHs brothers are married to 2 sisters. DH has no family in the US outside of his mom, siblings, and their families. One couple (and their kids) share a 2-flat with the sisters' parents. There are a remaining 3 siblings in the area and countless cousins so DH's family events are usually tightly tied to the sisters' family. This year, someone on the sisters' side will host but no one knows who it will be or what time. This makes scheduling a mess for me.

On top of that, MIL wants us to host Christmas Eve this year. We have a bigger home so it's easier but there's a catch: she'll have 10 people in from Mexico over Christmas and doesn't want to include the sisters' family. Needless to say, this is not going well.

I'm trying to stay out of the drama but know that I won't be successful in the long-term.

How do you handle the holidays with your SO and families?

holyguacamole79

We started a rotation.  This year we will spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his.  It doensn't necessarily mean that we won't spend any time with the other family; it just means that family has "dibs" on us.  Last year, we did Thanksgiving with H's family and Christmas with mine.

climbingsingle

H and I have only been together for 1 year and 7 months. That sounds totally crazy, doesn't it? 

Anyway, we've only been through 1 set of holidays and are about to be through another. My family is all local (mostly - my parents live in PA but only 90 mins away). MIL, FIL and BIL all live in Florida, and they've been down there for quite a few years. H never really traveled down there for the holidays. MIL usually does come up right before Xmas though, so that's when we plan to celebrate with her. 

So Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'll probably end up spending with my family most years. It's ridiculously expensive to fly to Florida now (I can get a flight to San Fran for cheaper. WTF?) and it's hard for me to take time off around the holidays, as it's our busy season for work.  

luckya23

We haven't really been through any major hoidays together so it's a wok in progress!

Last year, FI had to work both Thanksgiving and Xmas so I was off the hook.  We did go to his family for Easter, but I do not care about easter basically at all.

I guess I have agreed to go up to his family for Thanksgiving this year, although my BFF is begging me to stay home with her because she is going through a tough (to her) break up at the moment.  I also haven't told my family yet.

He will also have off Xmas, but I want to stay home. 

Especially now, before we are married or even officially living together, I would be perfectly happy spending them separately, but I don't think he would like that, and I don't want to ruin his holiday.

To be honest, I love decorating and stuff, so I like the "season" for each holiday, but I find the actual day rather anticlimactic.

ETA: His parents (and father's family) live about 3 hrs from us.

Jells2dot0

My family isn't too into holidays. So, we either see my ILs for Christmas (they live out of state) or we stay home. We don't do anything special for other holidays, like Thanksgiving or Easter. I visit my family when I have time throughout the year.

 

This year, because of my health, we are staying home. Anyone in the family is welcome to come see us, but no one will. LOL

flyingfoxes

FI's family is 4 hours away, and since he's been in the Army over 20 years, they've been used to him not being around to come to holiday dinners.  Thanksgiving will be easy, we're hosting this year and my family is coming up.  Christmas is a little trickier - I think will visit them the weekend before Christmas.  My younger sister was asking about us hosting Christmas as well, but my older sister kind of likes being the host so I don't know how that will play out just yet. 

My younger sister is having problems with Thanksgiving because she wants to see our family on Thanksgiving, but also wants to spend some of the day with her wife's family. 

I'm also curious to see how other people handle the pressures/demands of multiple families! 

daria24

We live about 2-3 hours from our families, and they live about 90 minutes apart from each other. We don't have a car, so we either have to rent one, or take public transportation to ONE family, because there is no public transpo available between families. Currently the set up is:

Thanksgiving: we rotate between families each year, and just take public transportation to/from

Christmas: we rent a car. The family we saw for Thanksgiving we spend Christmas Eve with them. The other family we go to for all of Christmas Day, and possibly stay longer. 

Thankfully both my family & my ILs are wonderful about it, and understand that we may not spend every holiday with them, and that we are doing our best to be fair. My grandmother (my mother's mother), who is 94 and awesome, even made a comment last year about how she is happy to see that we are mixing it up and not just spending the holidays with the same family. Growing up, my father's family always got precedent, we never saw my mother's family on any holiday. 

My husband is an only child, so I know he feels twinge of guilt not seeing his parents for Thanksgiving every other year. But they live close by other family and are always invited to someone's home for Thanksgiving. They're never alone. After they pass away though I don't know what we'll do, since he is not that close with his cousins and their families. 

theartistformerlyknownas

For the time being, we will be spending Thanksgivings at the country club with his grandparents. My grandparents have all passed, and we'd like to spend as many holidays with his while they're here and well. They spend winters in Florida, so Thanksgiving is all we've got. We're hosting Brunchgiving the Sunday after at our house for my family. Once... you know... we'll start rotating.

For Christmas, we make the rounds, but only on different days. His step-dad's side does Christmas Eve, and his mom's side does the day after at one of the aunts' houses. The Saturday after will be at my mom's house - miraculously, my divorced parents have begun getting along so he and his wife will actually be there! Hallelujah! Makes things so much easier! Christmas Day though is just for us. We wanted to set that tradition now so once we have kids, we won't have to truck them all over the place to see everyone. Christmas Day is about pajamas and playing with new toys. We also make a fancy dinner - last year was lamb chops. 

We take the dogs for a walk at midnight Christmas Eve too. To look for Santa. It's amazing how quiet the world is at midnight on Christmas Eve. You can hear the snow fall.

amelisha

Mine is easy because my birthday is Christmas Eve. We see my parents then and do a little birthday/Christmas thing, and we see his dad and stepmom and their side of the family on Christmas Day. We see his mother sometime in the week following (and invite her and my parents for Thanksgiving, but it isn't a major holiday here.)

ChemFanatic25

Oh god, holidays for my last relationship were so stressful. I enjoyed them but god, the drama! My ex's external family wasn't very good on compromising and they expected both my ex and I to be at their house on the big holidays. I explained I needed to spend time with my family as well. "Well why can't you get together with them before or after?" yeah . . . so the last holiday we were together we compromised and actually had my family join them. I offered money and I made a crap ton of food to help out. Never again. I will never combine families ever ever again. I couldn't suggest rotating holidays either because my ex ABSOLUTELY had to be with them (he actually wouldn't have minded - it was external family who pitched a huge fit). I loved his family but holidays bring out the worst in people sometimes.

This year, I have organized it so that I am spending time with my family the weekend before for both major holidays because my mom and sister both work on those holidays. It works out, so I'll be spending the major holidays with my SO. We'll see what happens next year.

Edit: Just in case to avoid any misinterpretation - when we compromised and my family joined theirs, they offered. I did not ask. I felt that would have been rude.

princessofgenovia

Our first set of holidays together we just went and hung with our seperate families, the second set we did Thanksgiving with his parents and Christmas with mine, this is our third set and this year...we've decided to change things.

We're hosting Thanksgiving and inviting both our families (his parents and sisters, and my parents and grandma, the rest are all scattered), I think he wants to host Christmas too, but I say we just get through Thanksgiving first. My grandma always does a thing on Christmas eve, so we'll go to her place on Christmas eve like always, she's invited his family to come over too.

If/when we have kids, I think we'll stay in one spot and let them come to us. We've got the kid, you want to see it, you come here. FI's sisters are a lot younger then him so we'll probably have kids first (if we have kids), and I'm an only child. 

glitter2015

FI's family is about 2 hours away, mine is very local.  We switch off every year for Thanksgiving, this year is with his family, Next year will be with mine.  

His family is big on Christmas Eve and almost nothing on Christmas Day, they just use it as a relaxing day, my family is big on both, so we do his family on Christmas Eve and mine on Christmas Day.  I kind of miss Christmas Eve with my family though, it has been 8 years now, but what can you do!  :-)

princessleia22

DH's family lives in same town as us.  My parents live in MI, and my siblings live in FL and AL.  So, for us it usually depends on if we can afford (time & money) to travel to spend Christmas with my family, which seems to happen about every 3 years.  So, most years we spend it with DH's family and then Skype with my family Christmas morning to open gifts. 

Thanksgiving is totally DH's family and he refuses to give that one up. It's usually hosted at his mom or sister's home, but DH smokes the turkeys (so yummy) and doesn't want to give up that duty.  That's fine with me since Thanksgiving was never too big with my family and Christmas is a much bigger deal to them, so if I'm going to travel to see them I'd rather do it at Christmas anyway.

I do have some family (aunt/uncle/cousins) in my area and for a few years we tried to accommodate everyone by attending Thanksgiving with both my local family and his family. We usually knew what time we were doing dinner with his family before my family made real plans, so we would just tell my family that we have other plans at ___ o'clock, but we are available anytime after ____ o'clock to join them.  So, depending on how timing worked out, we would eat two meals or just join my family afterward and hang out without eating.

PrettyGirlLost

DH and I live in the same town as our families.  For Thanksgiving we go to my Aunt's house for "dinner"- usually around 3pm.  Then depending on how full we are we either join his parent's for dinner or just dessert.

Christmas Eve his family joins ours for dinner, and Christmas day is similar to Thanksgiving- my family eats earlier, then we go to his parent's house for dinner and desserts.

Holidays are when I wear pants with an elastic waist ;-)

LakeR2014

My family, most specifically my mom, is awesome when it comes to the Holidays.   I live in town but my brother's family and SIL's extended family live out of town.  So that my brother and I never have to feel 'torn' about holidays, she has us celebrate our holidays with our side of the family a few days before Thanksgiving and Christmas.   It's amazing!   She didn't want the holidays to become a stressor to us and said 'As long as I can celebrate the meaning of the holiday with my family, I don't care on what day it is.'   Yea, she's kinda wonderful like that. 

So few days before with my family, day of with DHs.

lacqueredlover

Thanksgiving we decided to switch off.  On years we have his kids, we will be with his family, years we don't we will be with mine.  We are both Jewish so we do my family friends hanukkah party the day they have it and just do another weekend with his family.  For Passover, we do 1 night with my fam, one night with his.

cafarrie

This is the first holiday season we will do together (we attended our respective families holidays while we were dating/engaged).  FIL/MIL are about 6 hours away and we're doing Thanksgiving + the rest of the weekend with them.  My family is about 3 hours away and we'll get there Christmas Eve and stay til after NYE - we're only staying with them that long because my sis lives overseas and is only home for a couple weeks every year so we want to see as much of her as possible while she's here!  The weekend after NYE we will go from my parents straight to his family (my parents are right in the middle) to do our Christmas with DH's family.  We plan to alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas for the foreseeable future (depending a little on my sisters travel schedule, and whether or not kiddos are ever in the picture).

ETF: grammar 

southernbelle0915

Our families are in different states. This year Xmas will be with DH's folks and thanksgiving with mine. Next year, Xmas with mine, thanksgiving with his. And so on. We keep this schedule every year so that our families can plan way into the future and we don't have to talk about it year after year.

DH's mom tried to mess with the schedule by saying they were coming to our house for Xmas in 2015 and staying for a week.... So we had to remind her of the schedule. Bit otherwise, it's been a drama free way to do it.

wandajune6

lacqueredlover said:

Thanksgiving we decided to switch off.  On years we have his kids, we will be with his family, years we don't we will be with mine.  We are both Jewish so we do my family friends hanukkah party the day they have it and just do another weekend with his family.  For Passover, we do 1 night with my fam, one night with his.

Hannukkah makes life so much easier!

My dad grew up Christian (though he has never been religious) so we have a Christmas party at my parents' house every year. My mom was raised Jewish so we do Hannukah with her family. Since my dad has no family in town, the family Christmas dinner is a big group of Jews sitting around the Christmas tree. It's kind of wonderful- it's easier for us to all get together because of national holidays/schedules but without the strong feelings of tradition - well, beyond those we've set for ourselves- things are easier.

JeeGooDowster

DH and I are from LI/NJ so we see everybody.  Thanksgiving is his Mom's side of the family, Christmas Eve is his dad's side of the family and Christmas Day is with my family....thank God my mom is an only child so we don't have her side to go to!

emmaaa

Hildays seriously stress me out.

Thanksgiving is pretty easy. Lunch at FI's grandparents' (mom's side, they don't associate with his dad's side) and supper at my aunt's for my dad's side of the family. My mom's side of the family usually does lunch the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Now Christmas. Oh, man. Christmas Eve we have an early supper at my aunt's for my dad's side of the family. Then we go to FI's parents' for a few minutes to help prepare for their party. Then we go to the church I grew up in with my dad's side of the family for a Christmas play the kids do every year. We talk to everyone there for a few minutes and then go back to FI's parents' house. They always insist that we stay the night there for Christmas Eve (FMIL legitimately gets mad and cries when we push back). 

We do gifts Christmas morning with FI's parents and sister and BIL. Then we run to my dad's to see him really quick (he works third shift so we catch him before he goes to  bed). Then it is off to FI's grandparents' for Christmas breakfast (30 minutes away)  which is amazing. We are there until 1100ish. After that we go to my mom's (about 45 minutes away) for lunch and Christmas with her and my brothers. Then it is back to FI's aunt's (45 minutes the same way we just came from) for Christmas with them. 

SO HECTIC!

Not trying to threadjack, but I think when we have kids the way we split the holidays (specifically Christmas) will [have] to change. Does anyone else feel this way?

jdluvr06

I'm extremely lucky and I am well aware of this. My mom and MIL are BFFs now and since dh's family only has 4 people, including him, in it so our holidays are now combined.

wandajune6

@emmaa- We'll have to change things with kids.

Fortunately, our families are only 30 minutes or so away from each other, plus 30 minutes away from our house- all in a nice triangle.

DH and his ex split custody for holidays. We had SS last Thanksgiving so she'll have him this Thanksgiving. We had him last Xmas Eve so she'll get him Xmas day. That's actually a bit issue with my family-- they do the tradeoff at 10 AM Christmas Day. He's 15 and used to it so it's not a big deal to him. My family wants to start our Christmas Day tradition at 9 (well, my parents do- my sister still loves having everyone spend the night at my parents' then getting up crazy early). I'll get crabbiness and bitchiness about it again this year but there's little we can do to fix that.

When we have kids, I want them to be able to have traditions of their own.

theartistformerlyknownas

emmaaa said:

Hildays seriously stress me out.

Thanksgiving is pretty easy. Lunch at FI's grandparents' (mom's side, they don't associate with his dad's side) and supper at my aunt's for my dad's side of the family. My mom's side of the family usually does lunch the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Now Christmas. Oh, man. Christmas Eve we have an early supper at my aunt's for my dad's side of the family. Then we go to FI's parents' for a few minutes to help prepare for their party. Then we go to the church I grew up in with my dad's side of the family for a Christmas play the kids do every year. We talk to everyone there for a few minutes and then go back to FI's parents' house. They always insist that we stay the night there for Christmas Eve (FMIL legitimately gets mad and cries when we push back). 

We do gifts Christmas morning with FI's parents and sister and BIL. Then we run to my dad's to see him really quick (he works third shift so we catch him before he goes to  bed). Then it is off to FI's grandparents' for Christmas breakfast (30 minutes away)  which is amazing. We are there until 1100ish. After that we go to my mom's (about 45 minutes away) for lunch and Christmas with her and my brothers. Then it is back to FI's aunt's (45 minutes the same way we just came from) for Christmas with them. 

SO HECTIC!

Not trying to threadjack, but I think when we have kids the way we split the holidays (specifically Christmas) will [have] to change. Does anyone else feel this way?

Absolutely, and that's why we started to try and push back now. WE are our own family. WE will spend Christmas morning together. If you don't like it, I guess you can come over.

Our first Christmas together his mom insisted we come for Christmas morning breakfast/opening presents with the siblings "like it always was." (H's youngest brother was 7 at the time, so Santa was a big deal, and she wanted all the "kids" there for that.) Meanwhile, my parents didn't even try to schedule anything for Christmas Day, because when they were newlyweds with a new baby and tried to go see everyone, they spun off the road, and swore off all that nonsense so they totally understood "that's YOUR day together now." And I'm not cool with people getting their way just because they're pushier about it, KWIM?

I'm sorry, things change. People grow up. My husband and I come first to each other now, period. Plus, we'll always end up pissing off some portion of the family because it's not physically possible to see everyone in one day, and frankly I'd rather piss off everyone than play favorites. We'll see everyone at some point over the course of 2 weeks; deal with it. 

thisismynickname2

DH has lots of local family and I do not. We're celebrating Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve with his extended family, Christmas Day with mine, and we're having my parents over a couple days after TD. I won't see my sister for TD because she goes to her in-laws'. 

It works out, us not having extended family. Especially with TD, since my mom is foreign, she couldn't care less about the holiday. It's easy to "give thanks" on a day other than Thursday. 

emmaaa

lolo883 said:

emmaaa said:

Hildays seriously stress me out.

Thanksgiving is pretty easy. Lunch at FI's grandparents' (mom's side, they don't associate with his dad's side) and supper at my aunt's for my dad's side of the family. My mom's side of the family usually does lunch the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Now Christmas. Oh, man. Christmas Eve we have an early supper at my aunt's for my dad's side of the family. Then we go to FI's parents' for a few minutes to help prepare for their party. Then we go to the church I grew up in with my dad's side of the family for a Christmas play the kids do every year. We talk to everyone there for a few minutes and then go back to FI's parents' house. They always insist that we stay the night there for Christmas Eve (FMIL legitimately gets mad and cries when we push back). 

We do gifts Christmas morning with FI's parents and sister and BIL. Then we run to my dad's to see him really quick (he works third shift so we catch him before he goes to  bed). Then it is off to FI's grandparents' for Christmas breakfast (30 minutes away)  which is amazing. We are there until 1100ish. After that we go to my mom's (about 45 minutes away) for lunch and Christmas with her and my brothers. Then it is back to FI's aunt's (45 minutes the same way we just came from) for Christmas with them. 

SO HECTIC!

Not trying to threadjack, but I think when we have kids the way we split the holidays (specifically Christmas) will [have] to change. Does anyone else feel this way?

Absolutely, and that's why we started to try and push back now. WE are our own family. WE will spend Christmas morning together. If you don't like it, I guess you can come over.

Our first Christmas together his mom insisted we come for Christmas morning breakfast/opening presents with the siblings "like it always was." (H's youngest brother was 7 at the time, so Santa was a big deal, and she wanted all the "kids" there for that.) Meanwhile, my parents didn't even try to schedule anything for Christmas Day, because when they were newlyweds with a new baby and tried to go see everyone, they spun off the road, and swore off all that nonsense so they totally understood "that's YOUR day together now." And I'm not cool with people getting their way just because they're pushier about it, KWIM?

I'm sorry, things change. People grow up. My husband and I come first to each other now, period. Plus, we'll always end up pissing off some portion of the family because it's not physically possible to see everyone in one day, and frankly I'd rather piss off everyone than play favorites. We'll see everyone at some point over the course of 2 weeks; deal with it. 

All of this!

I told FI that once we are married this will not be happening. I really want to stay at our house Christmas Eve this year. We are really close to both of our parents anyways (less than a mile for my dad and 3 for his parents). Plus, our wedding is two days after Christmas. I want all the time in our bed as possible.

sarawifenow

H's family lives out of state. We, also, do a rotation. It was thrown off this year because weddings=expensive as fuck.

 

Usually we will do Thanksgiving in one state and Christmas in the other. Then we will switch the next year. It seems to be working pretty well for us so far.

Bubblegum5586

H and I have been together for almost 9 years so I think we are finally getting the hang of it (although as PP has said once we have kids things will need to change).

What makes holidays tough for us is our families are just over an hour apart. So not far enough to just pick one but not close enough to make it easy!

Christmas is easier as it can spread over 2 daysish. Christmas Eve is huge with H's family (and it's with his big fun side of the family) so we always spend Christmas eve with his family, sleep over his parents house (and his oldest single brother sleeps over as well, as his middle brother is married with child but they own a house in the same town). We all wake up and open presents together (oh in the Pajamas that MIL gives ALL OF US on Christmas Eve still - it's so cute but H is the baby and he's 28... wondering how long she will do this!).

After gifts we blast off to my family an hour away where they wait for us to open gifts (we get there around 10am) and then spend the rest of the day with my extended family. The only thing we really miss is spending time with H's other side of his family... but he doesn't care much for that side so it works out well!

Thanksgiving is harder but we do a similar thing as H's fun side of the family has a big Thanksgiving eve party... then H's family (so many boys) play an annual backyard football game where someone ends up injured every year (again H is the youngest.... how long will this go on?!). We eat dinner with his fam, and then head back to my family for dessert where unfortunately most of my relatives have already left so kind of sucks for me.

But we live 10 min from my family and an hour from his. I explain to my family they they see us more every day so his family gets us a little more on the holidays....

Maggie0829

We try to rotate every year but sometimes that is difficult since my parents live in FL, my sister and her family live in GA and H and I and all of his family is in MD.  And for H and I to go to FL for the holidays means H needs to put in for off a whole year in advance and at that point no one knows exactly what they are going to do for Thanksgiving or Christmas, so for the past 5 years we have stayed in MD.  This year will be the first time in about 4 years that I have spent Christmas Eve and Day with my parents.

Since H and I have been married we have spent Christmas morning just us together in our home.  We wait to go over his parents until dinner time.  H and I and our pup are our own little family so we feel it necessary to spend some holidays just us.  I don't want to be one of those families that run around all day trying to hit each family member house and not really being able to enjoy the day as our little family, KWIM?  My Mom said when she had my sister that they would hit up like 3-4 houses every Christmas and my sister, who was little at the time, never had a moment to play with her new toys and my Mom and Dad didn't have a moment to relax.  Once they had me my Mom said that if people wanted to see me and my sister then they had to come to us. This of course only worked because my sister and I were the only kids in our family.

My sister who has a daughter has said every year for the past 4 years that she wants to spend Christmas at their home but each year she gets pressured from her H's family to spend Christmas at one of his sisters houses.  She regrets it every year.

littlemushroom

His extended family doesn't do much for any holiday except Christmas, so that helps us.

Thanksgiving: My mom's side of the family gets together some weekend around the holiday. This year it is the Saturday before. Thanksgiving day will be with my dad's side. The Saturday after Thanksgiving my parents are hosting for my immediate family and DH's immediate family.

Christmas: Mom's side is some weekend around the holiday and this year it is the Sunday before. Christmas Eve day is spent with DH's family and we hit his extended family that night. Christmas day is my family in the morning and my dad's side of the family in the afternoon.

Honestly, we got really lucky at how little we each needed to compromise on how we spend the holidays.

beethery

I just want to host holidays myself because the effort in cleaning and food prep is less work and bullshit than dealing with FMIL trying to take up every second of every holiday and forgetting that I have my own family.