- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee boards
We live 5 hours away from my parents and grandma. We live 30 minutes away from his grandparents, aunts, uncles, sister, her family, his mom, etc. You get the drift. How do you balance it? We have yet to find the perfect solution. Expecting my parents to drive or fly up every major holiday is unreasonable. And I know he'll feel like he's letting down his family if we aren't there for, say, Christmas, but he knows it's a two-way street. This year is his first year home (first thanksgiving in over 2 years, too) so both holidays will be with his side, but on the 26th i'm pretty sure we're going on vacation with mine.
Anyone in a similiar situation? How do you handle it while making everyone feel like they're getting your attention? I know this will be a huuuge issue when we have kids b/c our kids will be my parents ONLY grandbabies. They will want to see them but ti's not fair to expect parents in their 60's to always come up. With him, it's literally every single holiday with his family and I don't want my parents to feel left out, but I also don't want to feel so obligated to attend everything simply b/c his family is more convenient.
It's a two-way street in my book, so I'm just curious how some of you make this work!
i am in this situation as well. we live about 10-15 minutes from his parents, and 900 miles from my parents! this year is crazy because he has a test to study for directly after christmas so i made the decision to stay here. i probably won't be home for a holiday until NEXT christmas :( i am struggling with this and i know my parents are too.
i guess i can't really offer any advice but i can commiserate!!
I can't say I am in a similar boat but I know this is a big subject for many couples and their families...we're far away from everyone! Us = FL, his family = Iowa, my family = Japan. Haha, so it's relative.
I think the best thing, in any situation though, is to have a plan: compromises must be made, and like you said, it totally is a two-way street. =)
His parents live a hour and a half away (and will normally see us on weekends) and my family live eightteen hours away.
It is usually Thanksgiving at his; Christmas at mine. Than the next year Thanksgiving at mine; Christmas at his. Though last Thanksgiving we spent Thanksgiving day at his parents and flew home the next day to have Thanksgiving with my parents two days later. My parents just held off on the dinner and stuff till we got up there. Since, his parents don't really do holidays, I get really homesick around these times because my family is always together, celebrating. While his family are there for the food and out. So I don't get to play card games or anything with family...so it makes a good argument over who to visit during the holidays because my fiance loves going to my house and getting involved. lol. We also switch it up with where too because I live in Florida so my parents like to come down here every once in a holiday for it cuz it's nice without snow though they don't want to do it every year. So last year was down here...so their next christmas, we'll fly up to IL.
Christmas is easier because opening presents can be done any day...I remember we had two weeks off for christmas (we're college students..usually get kicked out of our dorms that holiday so gotta tell work that! Have to have a place to live...geez) so we spent one week at his parents and one week at mine.
I think as long as you make an effort, your parents won't feel too left out. Now if you keep telling your parents that you will come and don't...than there might be issues...but both of our parents get satisfied with the amount that they see us. Actually my parents see me more than they did before we got together. Opps :( (too independent and hated living "under their roof."
oh the mess up was cuz we got engaged and everyone wanted to see us...
If not; I was going to stuck to the plan. Thanksgiving at his; Christmas at mine..etc!
Living closer doesn't necessarily solve this problem. My parents are divorced and his are together. All three sets of parents live within .5 hour of us. I hate the holiday season because we can never please everyone. Last christmas we spent the 23rd at my Dad's girlfriends family christmas, the 24th early morning opened presents with dad, early afternoon at moms, night at his extended family get together, and christmas morning with his immediate family (my extended family get togethers were like 2 days before and after that mess, so yes I went to 7 events in one week). They live in opposite directions of each other so we spent a lot of time in the car (especially with weather). Each of them feels like we don't spend enough time with them and everybody wants us around on christmas eve AND christmas. All I can think is WHAT are we going to do when we have kids??? I have four to five thanksgiving dinners also. BLAH....since we are close everyone assumes we can go to everything. Its a non stop guilt trip! AND it always seems like his family gets christmas morning which just peeves my family off, but I think it would be worse if one of my parents got it because they would fight BIG time about which one should get it.
I think its difficult no matter what.
That's a very good point, Bamboo. It could always be the other way around!
My parents don't make a huuuge deal about holidays. They just want to see us. But I am their only child now, so some of that's me feeling obligated. Whereas holidays are these huuuuge events with his family! Bbq's, presents, drinks, lots of food, the whole nine yards. So DH surely would feel like he's "missing out" on festivities if we traded one eventful holiday for a snoozy one. I also don't want to take advantage of the fact that my parents are so understanding that they get all the "bad" holidays =] I'll probably propose we do holidays this year with his, next year with mine, then start figuring out who gets thanksgiving and christmas. Driving 4 hours on Christmas morning is not a pleasant idea. I know he thinks his family get togethers are "better" so we should go to those.
@ejs--we're in almost the same situation as you. My mom lives 25 minutes away and his parents are about 4.5 hours away. Honestly, we haven't figured out a situation in terms of holidays yet. Before we were engaged, we split up on holidays--I went with my family and he went with his. Last year (when we were engaged), we went to his family Thanksgiving. Then for Christmas, we spent Christmas Eve separately, then he drove down to my family Christmas party. Honestly, I kind of hate the idea of having to drive on Christmas morning (especially with snow being an issue), but I don't want to give one family the entire holiday. I'm so close to my family, so I just couldn't do that.
At this point, our solution so far is to do Christmas Eve with his parents and then drive down here to my mom's house on Christmas morning. I don't know WHAT we're going to do for Thanksgiving--I keep suggesting we go on vacation to avoid it! Either way, I want to make it clear to his parents (since they're the ones who push more on this stuff), that once we have a house/children, we're staying here. I want our kids to have holidays in their own house, without having to drive every single year.
I used to be in that situation, but we fixed it by moving. His parents now live 12 hours away (actually his dad is overseas) and my parents are 8 hours away. Before we moved, we lived 10 minutes from his folks and an undrivable disatance.
It's really hard. Have you tried explaining your dilemma to your in-laws? They should be reasonable to understand that you need to see your folks at home, and sometimes they'll come up to visit, and other times you'll only see his family. Our families have, thankfully, been very understanding about our needs to split our time. At least from what you've said, your parents are understanding, but that's no reason that you only see them outside of holidays.
FI and I don't live really close to any of our parents, but we are closer to mine because they're in the same country at least -- but still a 4.5-5 hour drive, depending on traffic. We've been alternating holidays since we got engaged and will continue to do so...however, FI always has to work the day after Thanksgiving, so once we have a house (with guestrooms...sigh) we hope to do T-day here most of the time, and I will go to my parents' maybe 1 out of each 3 years. FI gets a couple weeks at the winter holidays, though, so we will probably alternate going to my parents' one year and travelling internationally to see his family the next, and doing a summer vacation with his family on the years they don't "get" us for New Years. It does suck that we can't make everyone happy, but we have to do what is best for our family (especially once we have kids) and dividing things as equally as we can is the best we can do.
I'm in a crappy situation. None of my family lives here. Or anywhere close. I'm in Texas and they're in Idaho and NJ. His family all lives in our area for the most part. I also work a job where I can't take off holidays. So unless my family comes to me for holidays we just spend them with his. Fine by me as long as I get to celebrate with someone!
his parents live in the house behind us... yes, behind us and the rest of his siblings live up the road from us. my entire family live in the next suburb, less than 10miles away
we avoid both sides and plan on holiday in the south pacific every chrismtas so they both get to ***** about us not spending time with them :)
the in-laws are all very udnerstanding. It's just that DH hasn't been home for so long that I feel like I'm "stealing him away" from them all. He's open to the idea, to an extent. He's not keen on missing big holidays like Christmas for my family's low-key Christmas, but he knows it comes w/ the territory. I'm the only "outsider" spouse not from the stl area. All the other spouses have family IN st louis, so, for instance, they spend the mornings with one family, then the afternoons with this family. I that makes any sense. They may not like that he won't spend every Christmas with them, but they will get over it. =]
My parents really are understanding, but now that my brother has died, im the only child left, so some of that is obligation to go see my lonely parents (who literally have no one near theM) on some of the hardest times of the year, whereas we can literally see my DH's family any time we want. It's easier to travel 5 hours away when i have a few days off of work.
My bf's parents are an hour away and mine are an 8hour PLANE ride away... His mom is very into Christmas so I don't see us ever being with my parents for Christmas. But the other holidays are up for grabs!
My family is all within 10 miles of us which is great. My FI's family is a 7 hour drive...we rotate Thanksgiving and Christmas Day (although we always go spend the week after Christmas and the New Year with his family) and we usually spend Easter with his family and 3-day weekends (like Memorial Day) with his family as well! It's hard to balance but it works out well. The only annoying part is when his mom and her boyfriend whine that they don't see us that often and it's not really that far of a drive...They, however, can drive 14 hours to see my FSIL in Missouri but have only been here for a cumulative total of 2 days in the last 2 years!!
I sadly don't have this problem, because his parents aren't really big on celebrating much of anything. It solves the problem, but at the same time, it's sad that we don't get to share holidays with them.
But I agree with what most people have said about alternating holidays: Thanksgiving on one side, Christmas on the other. Maybe every year you could alternate who gets Thanksgiving and who gets Christmas?
We live within 5 hours of my family, but my husband's family is about 15 hours away. I think we finally came to a good holiday compromise, though, this year. We decided that Christmas is our time together; just us, no family. This is kinda setting up the future for us because when we have kids we will NOT be travelling over Christmas with them.
I think we're also moving toward having Thanksgiving at our house every year. Ideally, both of our families would come to our house every year for Thanksgiving. After that, each family gets one holiday. So, we'll spend Easter and New Year's travelling every year, but I think it's a little bit better that way. We get the major holidays at our house and the minor holidays can be spent with family. Also, this schedule allows his family to come visit us for one week a year, and we'll go stay with them for a week a year. Because my family is so close, we see them more often for shorter visits, which I really prefer.
Ugh. This can still be a problem even if both sets of parents live pretty close to each other.
We live in NYC. We do not have a car. My parents live about 2.5 hour train ride away in Albany. His parents live abour 45 minutes west of Albany in a pretty rural area. Amtrak doesn't go there. They don't like to come to Albany and pick us up. I feel kind of selfish, but it's just easier to be at my parents'. They're close to the train station, there's malls and restaurants, and bars around. There's actually stuff to do. There's NOTHING to do at his parents' house. His "town" consists of a Stewart's and a truck stop. The nearest movie theater/mall is 45 minutes away. If I forget so much as my toothbrush, it's a huge production to go get one.
Anyway, I digress. We've had Christmas figured out for years. We spend Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning at my parents' house, and Christmas Day and the next morning at his parents'. We gave up on Easter a few years ago and don't even come upstate. It's just too much to go up just for dinner. But Thanksgiving is an ongoing issue. We spend Thanksgiving Eve at my parents' as we usually go out to the bar with my sister, her BF, some of my friends from "back home." But we always spend Thanksgiving Day separately. Obviously we're eventually going to have to figure that out too -- not looking forward to it!
We live about 6 hours from my parents, and across the country from his. Last Christmas his parent' came out and we spent them all together. Typically something other than preference dictates where we go (vacation days, money, special event) for a holiday. Last Thanksgiving, I was living abroad and so we met at his parents place to be halfway. This year the wedding burned my vacation days, so we'll be at my sister's house. The funny thing is no one gets upset based on what coast we are on. But when we are at one parents house longer, in the same city, it is WW3.
We're in a similar situation. We split up major holidays, and the parents on each side are pretty understanding. If we had a bigger place, I would love to host both our families for Thanksgiving. Is that a possibility on your end?
We have an interesting set-up. His parents are only 2.5 hours from us (I consider this a short drive) and my parents are more like 7 hours away. We visit my parents about once every three months or so, and his maybe once every 4-6 weeks.
The funny thing is that his parents are closer to my parents than we are (5.5 hour drive). So usually for Christmas we go to his house and spend up through Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas Day we drive to my parents' house and spend up to New Years. We split New Years festivities between the two places.
Thanksgiving is not an issue because he is from Canada. His family doesn't even celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. The awesome thing right now though is that both sets of our parents are retired, so they are usually pretty free to come visit us (which they actually don't do very often). I don't know, I think things could get more complicated when grandchildren are involved, but for now we seem to have a pretty easy dynamic with the family visitation.
Both of our families are within 15 minutes of us. It is good and bad all at once. We get to see our families all year round and don't need a special occassion to drop by. But on holidays we split the day and feelings get hurt when one is ready to leave and see their own family. Time has to be split pretty evenly to ensure no one gets hurt. I makes for very busy holidays!
Same situation: his parents live in the DC suburbs and mine live in the Chicago suburbs. We see his family every Sunday at dinner (and it's oh-so-awkward), and I've seen mine 4 times since moving to DC last June. Unfortunately I have the more "normal" family -- his mom has some major complexes and is, in a word, unfriendly. If we can't come for a Sunday because of plans, she guilts my fiance about it, which really irks me considering how much we see them compared to my family.
However, it's not a touchy subject since he generally feels the same way I do about the situation. He loves his family, but it's just a much different dynamic than mine.
So we've only done one set of holiday so far, but we visited my family for Thanksgiving, spent Christmas day with his parents and then left for Florida with my parents the day after. I think that was completely fair.
It's nice to see how everybody else handles this. I definitely know I am not alone, but all my friends ended up with guys from this area, too! So I am like the only one doing this! I just hope DH and his family doesn't feel jilted if he's not there on Christmas and feel all, "oh it's not really Christmas if he's not here" and then I feel guilty. Or that my family's Christmas is no fun in comparison, so we shouldn't go or something.
This year we are spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family. Thanksgiving is no big deal for mine, and then on the 26th we're going to Jamaica with my parents until New Years Eve!
I'm hoping we can solve this by hosting a holiday here or there at our place for a neutral sort of holiday =]
My good friend has had this issue for awhile now... her family lives within 20 minutes of her and her husband's family is about three and a half hours away... at first they simply alternated the major holidays... if they were in town for Thanksgiving one year they went out of town the next... and so on for Christmas as well...
But once they had a baby they decided to change it up, because neither of them wanted to travel over Christmas... it was more important to them to establish their own holiday traditions in their own home... (this caused some serious issues...) They eventually decided to start inviting everyone to their own home for Christmas which has kind of worked...
My own fiance and I will have to deal with this soon...
if things go according to plan, then we'll be in the same situation as well. mine will be within 20 minutes and his a plane trip away. i figure we'd split the holidays [mainly thanksgiving and christmas]. we can spend one with my family and then the other with his. seems the fairest way for all involved, especially our wallets!
My Parents moved to Arizona 2 years ago, so we'd have to fly everytime we want to see them. My FI's parents still live an 8 hr. drive away near the Canadian boarder in Washington.
Our original plan was to let mt FI's family have Thanksgiving and my Family have Christmas and then just switch off. Until we figured out that we can't afford to fly to see my parents and we can't risk driving in the winter to see his family since we have no money for snow tires. Thus last year we stayed home. Hopefully we get to figure something ou this year!
My parents are 2,200 miles away while his are about 5 miles away.
We are planning to make it a point to get back to see my parents often, and invite my family out to visit, but there is no way we'll see eachother even close to as often as we see the in-laws. Obviously it's easier for the two of us to get out there rather than then 6 of my immediate family or 30+ in my extended family to come to see us. So we'll get out as much as we can before children (who knows where we'll move when we decide to have kids)
But at the same time, my family "needs" me a little less than his does. His parents have two sons and the other is away at college so we make it a point to spend time with his parents, especially his mom.
We have divorced parents on both sides so Christmas lasts for 4 days in our house and we get a lot of miles. We drive 3 hours to my father's side, then 1.5 to his mother's, then 1.5 to his father's and then another hour until my mothers. We usually do Thanksgiving at our place and give all four sides an open invite (it worked out great last year, everyone got together well and it was fun for them to drive for a change) and then we pack on the miles for Christmas.
Thankfully they're all in the same state!
@Kay7, that's what I'm afraid of with us. When we have kids, we'll be really discouraged from making a 5 hour trip with our car packed to the brim unless it's for a long time. And I know DH won't be up for skipping his famiy's festivities with a "if you want to see us, you come over" philosophy. He has repeated over and over, "why can't your parents just move to St Louis? It'd be so much better". But my parents are retired and live on the lake. They're not about to stop living the dream, c'mon!
We dont live TOO far from my parents but they are abour 45-60 minutes away from us. We live one floor down from SIL & FBIL and about 15-20 minutes away from BIL's & SIL's and MIL/FIL. We see his side of the family much more often which I think sometimes upsets my parents. Its not that we dont want to spend time with them but its hard when I dont get out of work til 6pm and they live far especially in the horrible traffic. We are making it a point to get together with them at least 1-2 times a month and do stuff.
I'm not sure what we'll do once we are married. Honestly we'll probably have to do christmas with his family because they are OBSESSED with it and just go see my family before or after depending on where christmas lands. Growing up we always did thanksgiving with one set and christmas with the other. My grandmother always had a "christmas at thanksgiving" set up so we would do two christmases which of course was awesome as a kid. Its certainly not an easy situation but as long as everyone is willing to compromise it should work out!
EVERY holiday we have the same problem... it's so unbelievably frustrating. I'll be interested to hear more advice on this, too:)
My family lives across the country from me (I live in MD, they live in CA), whereas FI's family lives about a 30 minute drive away! We've started doing the alternating holidays thing - Thanksgiving last year with his family, Christmas with mine. This year, Thanksgiving with my family, Christmas with his. I hadn't even thought about how having a baby would complicate this! As LatteLove said though, his family 'needs' him a little more because he's never really lived far away from them, whereas as soon as I went to college I was 1000s of miles away, so my family is more used to it. We try to coordinate the times we'll be home visiting my parents with the days my sister will be there too so we can all celebrate together.
*sigh* when i was growing up, we did christmas at our house. There was no family to deal with because my dad's mom (widowed many years ago) would drive over (about 30 min) and spend holidays with us. We NEVER spent holidays with my mom's parents, who lived 5 hours away. We'd see them twice a year b/c it was too far. I know it broke my mom's heart and she's always telling me not to let my husband take me away from my family. I know what she's saying, even if she doesn't say it very well. I think she resents my father for always saying "no, we aren't traveling to see your parents with 2 kids for Christmas" and that was that since her parents couldn't afford to come visit us.
My parents don't "need" me as much (even though I want to see them) but I don't want that to mean they get taken advantage of for being understanding if that makes sense. It'll never be 100% fair =(
About 75% of my family and friends live within an hours drive... his entire family live 5000 miles away in Texas (we live in the UK). Although we're not actually in the official planning stages yet, this is something which weighs heavily on the mind, both for planning and budgeting purposes. If we could afford to fly everyone somewhere for a destination wedding then we would - but several people on both sides don't like/want to fly, which means whichever way we decide to do it, someone won't be able to be there.
I think in the end it'll happen here (UK) and be followed by a smaller party in Texas, possibly 'on our way' to honeymoon. Or else at a slightly later date.
Living abroad from [his] family and friends means we have to continually bear in mind the next trip, cost of flights, etc... but it's certainly not something I mind - I love the 'excuse' for going to the states to do some shopping once every few months! ;-)
I'm in the same position, but we're 2 hours from his mother, 20 hours from his dad (but he flys up once a year) and 10 hours away from my parents. This will be our first time splitting the holidays, and we're still not sure how we're going to do it. My family does a big Thanksgiving AND XMas, plus my birthday is three days after Christmas, and his family basically does nothing.
But I know that it's unreasonable to go to my parents for both holidays, especially because his mother is going through a recent marriage/possible divorce. So, we don't want to leave her alone at the holidays, and his sister is less than reliable or helpful. :( I will definately read through these to get an idea of how everyone else does it!
My family lives about 10 hours away- his family lives about 30 minutes away and they have an apartment here in the city too. So we see them a lot. My family, we see every year at Christmas! We drive down and stay at least 3 nights or so. I actually quite like this solution for us. Once grandchildren are in the picture we will probably do twice a year- 1 visit to my family in the summer and 1 visit at Christmas. His family just doesn't get Christmas with us, but they are very understanding about it since they know it's the only time we see my family and they get every other holiday/birthdey/etc.
It seems like there's a trend that the guys tend to stay closer to their families. We're the same way; his family is just down the freeway in San Diego (two hours from LA if the traffic gods are smiling) and my family is two plane rides away in rural Ohio.
We've been doing the "Thanksgiving with mine, Christmas with his, then switch" for two years now so we're getting to be old pros. But there's always a kink in the system. Last year, we got snowed in at O'Hare and practically missed Christmas with either family. And his mom is really into holidays, so we have to get there as soon after Christmas as possible. We also drive down for all the intermediate holidays: Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and everyone's birthdays, which starts to add up.
I'd really love to spend a holiday at home with the FI and the cat, but that doesn't seem to be in our future.
This is so hard. My grandparents live on one side of the country, my parents on another, I'm in the middle, and Mr. Mary Jane's entire family lives within a half-hour radius of us. It's really nice to have family close, but I really miss mine and we end up using up all our vacation time trying to see them all. My relatives live in great places to visit too, which Grand Forks really isn't (especially in Winter). So yeah. It's a problem.
You must log in to post.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
