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it's been pretty easy for us, knock on wood. thanksgiving for my family is a brunch, and then we do dinner with his family. new years is always at my house, his parents don't care. and we're jewish so christmas isn't an issue, there's 8 nights of chanukah so we can easily do chanukah at each parent's house whenever is good for us. we have the high holy days and passover and all sorts of jewish holidays, but our parents are both flexible and don't mind doing it the night before or after, (we each have lots of family so we can't do it together) we just each get to celebrate every holiday twice! it's a lot of eating!
This year is the first year we are doing holidays together - yay! We spent 4th of July at his parent's house, and we are spending Thanksgiving with my family. (We will probably do both of those on our own or with friends next year...) For Christmas we are going to my parent's house for three days and then his parent's house for three days. We will be with my family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day because I am the oldest of 5 kids and we make a big deal out of Christmas, while his family is really low-key about it. But I am really excited that I get to share my family's holiday traditions with him and then I get to spend some time with his family (esp. his Grandmas - they are my favorite!!)
This year is the first year we'll get to spend Christmas together. We are doing Thanksgiving separately with our families (because this will be the first Thanksgiving in my family without my grandfather, and for him it's because we will be spending Christmas with his mom's side of the family, so he wants to spend at least one holiday with his dad's side). Then for Christmas we'll be going to spend it with his mom's family together - we are so excited to finally spend a Christmas together!!
After this year we aren't sure what we'll do. We will probably alternate holidays until we have kids, but after that we definitely want to have a set tradition that we do every year.
The first year we were together, we flipped a coin- his parents got Thanksgiving and mine got Christmas. The next year we switched and have been switching back and forth since then.
However, this year I'm pregnant (due Christmas Eve) and can't travel to either side of the family. We'll see how throwing a baby into the mix changes things, because I do not want to be traveling with a baby by plane to visit his family during the crazy holiday travels times!
It's always tough for us. We both live in Illinois, and our families are in NY, but four hours apart by car. His family is closer to us, whereas my mom's house is harder to get to.
For the past three Thanksgivings, we've stayed home and just had friends over. Mu husband doesn't get Black Friday off, and so traveling for us is impossible unless it's local. We actually prefer it that way, though, because we both enjoy cooking, and it's one holiday we always get to spend together in our home.
Christmas is difficult for many reasons. Generally, we'll fly out to my husband's hometown and spend three days before Christmas at his parent's house, and then Christmas Eve afternoon, we rent a car, and drive to my mom's for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and a day after, and fly out of my hometown. However, this is the first year we can't make it to my mom's, and we're only seeing his parents. I LOVE my in-laws, so it's okay, but it's going to be really hard being away from my mom and sister for the first time. We're all really close. Luckily, we just saw everyone at our 9-26 wedding, so that helps. The only reason we can't do both this year is time off. We took two weeks for our wedding/honeymoon, and my husband doesn't even get Christmas Eve off (but luckily has a half day), so we have to drive to NY that night, and only have the weekend.
It's pretty easy for us since his family celebrates Thanksgiving the Sunday before. So we get to go to both!!
For Christmas we are doing Christmas Eve at his parents and Christmas day at mine. His brother has always spent Christmas day with his in-laws so Christmas Eve was already a tradition.
My family's in Australia, and we're in England. Christmas airfares are brutal, so we are always going to spend Christmas in England.
We spend Christmas Day together, just the two of us. I'd rather not replace my own family with someone else's unless I get to alternate between them, which is never going to happen. Plus, if we go to his parents' we have to stay in a hotel, and I would hate that -- I want my Christmas to be about cooking and getting ready for the big day in a very festive way, and that's just not doable in a hotel. So we generally go there between Christmas and New Year instead, and have a brilliant day just the two of us, creating our own traditions.
Hi I don't know what to do with my holiday situation either! I have his parents that live 1 hour 30 minutes from us, then my family will be 3 hours from us and then the otherside of my family will be 3 hours from us too. It's like the families don't understand that we can't see everyone.. help! any responses would be great.
We live in LA, FI's family is in SF, & mine is in Hawaii...so we HAVE to split holidays. We've been together for 11 years, but Christmas two years ago was the first we've spent together. We unintentionally started splitting the holidays that year when my parents flew in for Thanksgiving & we spent our first Christmas together w/ his family in SF. Since then, we've switched off...this year was an exception - my parents were already planning on flying in for Thanksgiving, but when FI announced to his family that we were engaged, his parents decided to fly in, too! It was a fun Thanksgiving with both sets here in LA...and we got a TON of wedding planning & story telling done!
@mrsfrog: so sorry you've got difficult families (concerning this situation)...some close friends had the same problem before their baby girl was born. Now, with the baby as an excuse, they've set up a eve/day split - spend Thanksgiving "eve" with her family (about 2 hours away), then Thanksgiving day with his (about an hour away), & switch the order for Christmas. HTH & good luck!
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The Relationship Series post on this topic inspired me to start a new thread! I suppose it's not just a newlywed issue, but that's my situation so I just posted it here :)
How are you and your DH/FI/SO splitting up the holidays? Does it depend on how often you see one set of parents, for example, you see his parents all the time so spend the holidays with your parents? I'm just curious...