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We seem to switch off holidays. Last year, we were at my parents for Thanksgiving and this year we were at his parents (which worked out because he was already there for work).
We have been switching off for the past 3 Thanksgivings. My family always gets Christmas since his family is Jewish and does not celebrate. We might end up going all Thanksgivings with his family but I'm not ready to make that decision yet
We live smack dab between both my family and his family (half hour to my parents, 20 minutes to his) so we're normally able to hit up everyone on the holidays. My family doesn't really celebrate Thanksgiving so as long as FI's parents are cooking, we're there. Christmas is much more of a challenge. The holidays with FI's family generally depends on what his brother and SIL's plans are since my FSIL's family lives a few hours away and they have to share holidays with them. For example, this year they will be with her family for Christmas so we'll be celebrating Christmas with my family on the 25th and with his family the following day when his brother and SIL get back into town.
Every year its different though, so we never really know what's going to go on from year to year.
This year we did Thanksgiving about a week early with his parents and combined it with DH and FIL's birthdays. This freed us up to spend Thanksgiving with my family which was nice. We haven't decided on Christmas yet but last year we did Christmas Eve with his family and Christmas with mine. It kinda depends on where his parents decide to celebrate. If they celebrate with their extended family we usually will split a holiday and go to both my family and his on the same day since his extended family is near my extended family. If they want to be anti-social and stay at their house we have to do it seperate days because of the distance. Things will probably change slightly when we have kids. Right now we're obligated to travel to my family because my Grandma is older and doesn't travel well. Once she has passed we will be hosting holidays in our house and whoever wants to can come and whoever doesn't can see us on a different day. We will be the only one with a child in the family and even though it sounds selfish we just feel like it will be too much to travel all over the place with a little one.
His parents went to Disneyworld for Thanksgiving this year so we spent Thanksgiving with my family. For Christmas, we are spending Christmas eve with his family and Christmas day with mine. Our parents live about 45 minutes apart so usually we end up going to both places on both of the holidays.
We have a pretty complicated system. We are both from the same town, so our parents live about 10 minutes apart. My FI and I currently live about 7 hours away from our hometown so we do thanksgiving here with friends. For Christmas, this is our sched:
Christmas Eve:
There's no easy solution to this problem! We've got the same situation as y'all (my side is HUGE, w/ two big extended families, his side is just parents/siblings/gparents). We wanted to keep it as even as possible. To make things crazier, our parents all live in Houston (within ten minutes of each other), but all the grandparents are in the Dallas-Ft Worth area 4 hours away. Here's our schedule...
Thanksgiving:
Wednesday afternoon cooking w/ my extended family on my mom's side in Dallas. Wednesday night spent in Ft Worth w/ his gparents and parents.
Thursday early lunch at my dad's extended family in Dallas, late lunch w/ his gparents and friends in Ft Worth, dinner w/ my mom's extended family in Dallas. Spent the night in Dallas w/ my mom's family. (This was absolutely insane...we drove 200 miles back and forth on Thanksgiving Day! But it worked)
Friday - woke up and hung out with mom's extended family, then drove to Ft Worth and hung out with his family, then drove the 4 hours back to Houston.
Christmas:
Christmas Eve church and dinner w/ my mom's extended family. (we're also spending most of the 23rd with them to make up for not being there on Christmas Day)
Christmas Morning w/ my dad's extended family.
((Drive 4 hours back to Houston))
Christmas Evening w/ his family
So basically we're driving around like crazy people to make it to see everyone. I can tell you it will DEFINITELY change once we have kids because it's already a little insane with just the two of us. Crying babies in the backseat would be miserable. But for now, it works, and we're keeping everyone happy.
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Hey Bees,
I'm wondering how you and FI/SO decided upon your holiday schedules (which family holidays when, etc). FI and I are addressing this for the first time this year since previously we'd kind of just go with the flow, and I think it would just be nice to see what sort of things other couples and families have decided on and how they reached that decision/how that conversation went.
FI's family (both extended sides) are in the same area, so its sort of like Christmaspalooza, while my family just does the mom/siblings/grandparent thing and it's pretty small and low key. I don't want to be the one to change his family Christmases or cut them short, but I do want our family time to be about equal between my side and his, even if there's about a 20 person difference.
Also, if you had one arrangement during your engagement/newlywed years, did that change when you had your own kids or did you decide to consider that from the very beginning and set up your 'own family' schedule from the get go?