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This is a little crazy, but even though my guy and I were together for eight years before we tied the knot, we NEVER spent a holiday together! I didn't want to miss my family's events, and he didn't want to miss his, so we just went separate ways. It was never a big deal - our families live a few hours apart, so we'd usually just be away from each other for the day. However, I don't think we can do that any more now that we're married.
I will be honest, when it comes to holidays, I'm very selfish. I have a huge family, and Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only times everyone is able to get together. I've been celebrating Christmas in the same place, with the same people, and the same traditions since I was an infant. Missing that would break my heart, and I'm starting to feel depressed just thinking about it. At the same time, I know my husband's traditions are important to him, so we're thinking the most fair method would be for us to alternate years.
I'm wondering how other people deal with the holiday situation. And how did you feel the first time you spent the holidays with your inlaws? Sorry if I'm being dramatic, but this is really stressing me out!
Ooooh. Holidays are interesting for us. FI's parents divorced a few years ago, so they had just worked out a holiday-splitting system when I came into the picture. I'm pretty selfish about holidays too, although my family is pretty flexible. Last year, FI's mom made us promise to spend this year's Christmas with her (which I am NOT pleased about...needless to say we don't make promises to family anymore). But we're spending thanksgiving with my side. After this year, I think we'll be spending at least one holiday at our own home and if anyone cares to visit, that's fine, but we won't be going to see them. After my wedding, all my siblings will be married, so my family decided to make Columbus Day weekend our family 'Christmas." We're all meeting up someplace next year, celebrating together and not having to worry about who's spending Christmas where. Plus the hype isn't near as bad as the Holidays.
we're starting this this year (even though we're not married we agreed it was important!!). my family is 14 hours away :( here's what we came up with:
christmas will alternate. one year we'll stay here with his parents, the next year we'll fly home and spend it with my family. however, we'll still fly home to my hometown at some point over the holidays even if it's not for christmas day.
unfortunately because my family is so far away, his family ends up getting all the other holidays. UGGGGH. i'm not sure how christmas is going to go but i am already really sad about it (we're staying here). i can't wait to see what advice other bees have!!!
I don't know how much help this will be but I felt the same way about my family's holiday traditions and I was not going ot give them up. What was ULTRA awesome was that my traditions did not clash with the FI's family traditions so we are able to make it to both. My family does a big thanksgiving dinner on thanksgiving and they do Christmas day. His family does Thanksgiving the Sunday before (the FI has an already married sibling and this is how they worked out their family stuff) For Christmas his family does everything on Christmas eve and my fmaily does everything the next day. The Christmas time celebrations make for a very long and tired day but we are able to enjoy both families.
We spent our first Christmas apart (our families do not live near each other so it's minimum a week apart). The next year, he came to my family for Christmas but flew home a day or two later and spent New Years with his family. Then we decided to alternate years. Last year, I spent the whole holiday with his family (we visited mine in October) and this year we are both going to spend the holidays with my family but have planned a weekend trip to his at the begining of Dec. I think it is more complicated for us because visiting my family requires 9 hours of flying and visiting his needs at least 7 hours of driving or 3 hours of plane/train so it's not like we can just visit casually.So far, alternating works because wherever we are, at least we are together and we started a tradition of getting everyone to send a greating to the other family via speaker phone.
I know that can be hard. And if you have to balance other married siblings etc. balancing their own holiday schedule it can be even more challenging. I have a SIL whose family always makes sure they get together for Thanksgiving on FRIDAY. And a cousin who celebrates Christmas with her own family a week or two before actual Christmas. I think she wants to make sure she celebrates Christmas day in her own home for the kiddoes.
I think alternating is a good solution, especially if your families are far apart. It would be hard for one family to completely claim something like Christmas. But if there is a way to coordinate an alternate date for the holiday, you could still manage to see the family for the "spirit of the holiday". Also, maybe at some point you could host the festivities. I'm sure some of the extended family wouldn't make it. But you could get your parents and ILs together. (Of course that depends on how much space you have.) And it's a situation that has to be reevaluated often. The game might change when you have kids, the ages of the kids, the health of people, etc.
It's an adjustment, but you'll be fine.
I know how you feel. DH is really not happy about missing his family stuff--it's the time of the year they all get together, too. But now that we're married he doesn't get to be selfish just b/c his family stuff is "bigger" than my family stuff. Bigger doesn't mean more important--my parents are just as important to me as seeing his family is to him.
Our families are 4 hours apart and I've always managed to spend them with my family (i would leave at noon and drive to St Louis to spend the rest with him) and the only holiday I missed with him, besides our very first (started dating 2 weeks before Christmas), was the Christmas he was in Iraq
We decided to spend the 18-21 with my parents, then spend the actual Christmas with his family. Next year, I'll likely be too knocked up to travel (that's the plan anyways) so we'd like my parents to come visit us. When we have kids, we will try to "host" holidays since my parents are the only ones in the ENTIRE extended family who don't live in St Louis. So DH thinks THEY should travel to be *fair*, but c'mon they're not young chickens. I think he's just being particular b/c he's missed Christmasses and family time due to the military. My argument is that I don't see my family often and I get 1.5 weeks paid Christmas holdiay, so we SHOULD go see them, even though his family is 30 min away, we see them more often. We both have valid points. Once we have kids, we'll make it a point to visit my parents every other month and for holidays, we'd like them to come visit us so that everyone gets to share the kiddie love, but when they get too old to drive the 5 hours or don't want to spend $600 on plane tickets, he knows we'll have to go visit them more often b/c it's the right thing to do.
So i don't have a lot of help for you, but I can appreciate the sticky situation you're in. It sucks.
Ugh I'm not happy about this either. We are the same way... this will be our third holiday season together and will be the first that we're engaged. My bf has come to Thanksgiving every year at my family's house. The first year and this year he will fly alone to his mom's house for Christmas and the second year he came to my family's (this year wasn't a big deal because he hasn't seen his mom in a long time so he took off 10 days to go for an extended visit and I don't have the time off work anyways to do that).
I'm the same about my family... I LOVE holidays with my family, and I don't want to give them up! My family is about a 2 hr drive, my bf's dad lives about a 3 hour drive away and his mom lives about a 4 hours plane ride away, so it isn't like we can really do everyone on the same day like I did growing up (we would alternate who got Christmas breakfast and who got Christmas dinner w/ my mom and dad's parents who lived about 20 min apart).
Luckily Thanksgiving is not a problem because neither his mom or dad celebrate it (no real reason... they just don't). Christmas isn't a problem with his dad because that side of the family all gets together at a cabin for a weekend a week or two before Christmas to celebrate, so the real problem will be between my family and his mom for Christmas. I think we'll probably just alternate years, but I am not looking forward to the first year I have to spend Christmas in NY :(
Ooh I know how you feel, and I am struggling with this too!
It previously wasn't an issue because although we live in a different state from our families, they live 3hrs apart from each other. So we would do xmas eve with my family and leave at like 6am to spend xmas day with his family.
The next two years however may be an issue. Due to FI's work schedule, we are going to be taking our honeymoon this year over the xmas holidays. The thing is, we decided to go to my home country (a touristy, beachy island in the Caribbean) because it was cheap and easy. Of course, all my extended family is there and my parents will be also flying down for the holidays, so we'll be spending the 24th & 25th with them.
His mom is LIVID and is now requiring that we spend ALL of xmas 2010 with her (not splitting it like we usually do) - my FI is like "well I guess we'll be spending xmas eve apart" knowing that I will want to be with my family that night. In my head I'm like uhh yeah, I guess so. It's only his parents, and all they do is sit around and watch TV. Meanwhile me & my extended family all get together, relatives fly in from abroad, we drink, play the guitar, sing, joke around etc. I've suggested that we go ahead and fly down for thanksgiving so his mom feels better, but we'll see....
I have been with my fiance for about 7 years, and all but the first Christmas, we have spent with my family. To me Christmas is very important and I want to continue my family traditions. It is not an issue at all for us because growing up he really didnt have any family traditions around the holidays. His family barely celebrated, so he really enjoys spending that time with my family.
Thanksgiving, on the other hand, we started spending with friends about 5 years ago, and we will continue to do that as our tradition.
When I was growing up, my family lived about an hour drive from my dads parents and a plane ride from my mom parents. Since we would get 2 weeks off for Christmas and only 3 days for Thanksgiving from school. We always did Thanksgiving with my dads family and Christmas with my moms. Which seemed to work out really well.
Ugh, we go through this every year and our families only live about 45 minutes apart.
I hate to be mean...but it's just so BORING at his family's house. I have a younger family and lots of cousins. We goof off, drink, play board games, etc. It's so much fun! At his family's house, all we do is just sit on the couch. His fam lives in the country, so there's nothing to do. Anyway, I digress.
This will be the last year we split up for Thanksgiving. Next year we're going to have to figure something out. Usually, we come in Thanksgiving Eve to my parents', and go out to the bar with my sister, her BF, our friends, etc. Then Thanksgiving morning, he takes off for his parents'. He usually ends up back at my house Saturday because we have a poker tournament.
Christmas actually works out pretty well. We spend Christmas Eve (which is the big party in my family) at my family's house, as well as Christmas morning. Then we spend Christmas Day and the next morning at his parents'.
Easter...we sit in our apartment and order Chinese ;o) It's too much to do all that traveling for one day.
I'm pretty stressed about it, actually. Even though we've been together for almost 4 years (married for 5 months), we didn't start spending any holidays together until we were engaged. I was with his family for Thanksgiving last year and it was really hard. His family, while very nice, is VERY different from my family.
This year, I think for Christmas, we're going to do Christmas Eve with his family and Christmas Day with my family. the main problem is that our families live 4.5 hours apart, so that's a lot of driving on Christmas. :(
I honestly get soo mad at this.
My family is in FL, and his is here in MA. Sometimes I would go to FL alone to be with them, but for the most part, since we live close to his family, we spend holidays at their house.
but never has my fiance flown with me to have a holiday at my parents house. he says his mom would get too sad if he didn't spend a christmas or thanksgiving at home..and I don't care!!!! He's going to have to learn that he can't be with them all the time!
we alternate holidays too. Last year we spent Christmas here in Chicago - with his family. To be quite honest, I think its all state of mind. I was really upset at the thought of missing Christmas with my family - but my parents are great, his whole family is great - and I really looked at it as an opportunity to start and share new traditions. There were a few tears, but nobody made a big fuss about it and I was happy the entire day of Christmas.
this will be an interesting discussion in our house once we get married because of logistics, work and a whole slew of other things; we are in FL, his fam in Iowa, mine in Japan...plus I work at a place that's open 365 days a year, so I usually work thru the holidays....
I honestly think alternating holidays is the only fair thing to do, unless there is something major preventing you from doing so. (For example, FI doesn't like to travel over the holidays cross-country, we're in DC and his family is in CA, so it was his choice to see them at other times).
My ex-H and I had a HUGE blowup one year over who we'd spend the holidays with. We had spent 2 of 3 Christmases with his family, and my ex-MIL was insisting that we spend Christmas with his family again. Meanwhile, my mother is a widow and an only child - and she kept spending holidays with distant relatives or friends. This battle continued for MONTHS and my ex-MIL won, but only because my ex-H said he would go to his family's no matter what, so I wouldn't have spent Christmas with him otherwise. Yea. Should have let him go by himself. :-)
This is a pretty big deal for us, too. We've had all the holidays together except for Christmas, which is a pretty big deal for me. This year will be our 4th, first as married, and I know we need to spend it together. With the complications of lack of time off and distance between us and both of our families, it's going to be tough.
I'm really hesitant to start making plans to alternate at this point. I don't know what we'll do yet.
We didn't even have to debate this one. It just seemed logical and fair to split the holidays evenly. We started doing this three years ago, so each side of the family knows how it works now.
Year A: Thanksgiving at my side, Chrismas at his.
Year B: Thanksgiving at his side, Chrismas at mine.
We haven't explicitly divided up Easter but we have done Easter at my parents' one year and then Passover at his Grandmother's another year.
Linzella, we are the exact same way. We've never spent holidays together because we both wanted to be with our families, and our families live three hours apart. This year we'll be married by the holidays so we'll need to figure something out. The idea of alternating makes me sad, but I know it is the only fair thing to do.
We have our holidays worked out beautifully. Neither of our family's celebrate the holiday on the actual say- so it is convenient for everyone. For example, his mother always has Thanksgiving the weekend before, and my family does Christmas on Christmas Eve. I think both sides of our families realize that its still Christmas even if you celebrate it on the 27th.
Boo. I am NOT looking forward to this. We are starting this year as well, even though we wont be married until June. We'll do Thanksgiving at his families, and then Christmas at mine. I'm hoping to pull a fast one and get Christmas again next year... but that's a whole other story. I am devistated at the idea of not being around my family for the holidays.
We don't deal with this too much yet but I know we will in the future. Luckily both of our family's are close. The nice part is that he's the youngest child and i'm a middle child so our older siblings already have these things kind of worked out with the parents. We have always had most of my family things on the Holiday Day itself. His parents are divorced so they've had to split their time for years now. So they're use to celebrating the day before or the day after. I know that christmas will be a big run around holiday. It's pretty much a packed full holiday from Christmas Eve till the day after Christmas. We will run around to 7 different places. It's hecktick but still enjoyable.
I know how you all feel. In the past we just split up and went our separate ways, until last year (engaged), when we decided we wanted to start spending holidays together. The problem is, I've got family in one location, but his is split up in 3 different places (Ontario, New Brunswick and Conneticut). He has pressure from all three sides every holiday to spend it with them, and now that my family is in the picture, it's just another location into the mix.
So for us, alternating is difficult, to say the least. Last year we spent Thanksgiving in Conneticut, Christmas Eve in NB, and Christmas day with my family in Nova Scotia (that was crazy and we've vowed not to do it again). So the Ontario family was left out, but we made a special trip to visit them.
This year, we are again doing Thanksgiving in Conneticut (mainly because we have a new nephew we haven't met yet who's going to be there), but we don't know what we're going to do for Christmas. It sucks. My husband says he can't wait until we have kids, because we'll be staying home and people who want to see us can come to us. I know he's speaking out of frustration and that's not reasonable. We're going to have to figure something else out.
:D I sooo posted a poll for this for the same reasons! This year is the first year that we are splitting (due to work thank goodness)! We will be with his family for Thanksgiving and mine for Christmas.
Up until this year, we went our separate ways. He stayed with his family, about 20 mins away from mine and then came over to see me after. It's going to be...umm... interesting to see how this shakes out though, as I am never invited to dinner at the outlaws. (That is a whole other story=drama)
This weekend (it's Canadian Thanksgiving) will be the true test. Because they seem to not like me or want to have anything to do with me, they have not 'invited' me to Thanksgiving 'dinner'. They eat at 2p so technically I could go over there.Truthfully, I really don't want to go. I would rather stay and help my mother with their dinner. Now that we are married, I know I should be with him, but his family? No thanks.
This is such a hard thing. This will be our third year of holidays together and it is never easy. Our families have very similar traditions, but live very close to each other. So the last 2 years we have been splitting the day in half. Spend the first half of the day or evening with one family and the other half with the other family. We found that this absolutely sucked. We spent the whole time at the first family watching the time because we didn't want to short change the other family by arriving super late. It made us stressed, exhausted and pretty much hate the holidays. So, this year we decided that we are going to do a flip flop similar to what Miss Lamb posted. That way we'll get to be part of our favorite family traditions, but only every other year. And we'll get to spend the full day with each respective family vs. running from place to place. We found that by trying to please everyone by getting everywhere ended up making no one happy, least of all us. So, while both my family and his family will need to adjust to our new plan, they both are really happy to be able to spend more quality time with us over the holidays and think our decision is really fair. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this plan works better. I'm sure it will need to be adjusted again when we have children.
We use to have the same tradition as you but then my parents got divorced about 5 years ago and so now we have been forced to go spend time with one of them early in the day and then the other in the evening. Now they both are remarried recently so it has gotten to a point where we celebrate on other days just so that we can all be together. My FI's family doesn't all live here in Houston so they don't get together for the holidays. In fact I've been insisting that we at least try to get together once a year. But who am I? LOL
Most of my friends alternate between holidays. Example, Thanksgiving with her family Christmas with his. Then next year they switch and do Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with hers.
It is easier now but I think when we all start having kids then doing Christmas morning with them will change doing the holidays with our cousins/aunts/uncles. Because we are now the aunts/uncles.
We're not married yet, but this year will be our 5th Christmas together. Luckily, our parents are in the same town, about an hour away from us. So we go to my uncle's for my big family Christmas on Christmas Eve, then spend the night at FI's mom's that night. She makes breakfast and we have our Christmas with her first thing in the morning. FI's dad lives in Florida, but comes up and is at the house for Christmas. Then onto my mom's for a couple hours, then onto my dad's for a couple hours. Then finally drive an hour back to our own house, where we FINALLY get to do OUR Christmas! (Even if it is like 10 p.m.) Even though it's very stressful having to run run run all over the place, I am thankful that we both get to see our families. I can't imagine having to alternate. I'd be so sad. 
@hellohellohello - since it is just his parents, maybe you could suggest they come to your family's place for Christmas? That way there is no splitting!
We are having major stresses over this because his parents are divorced. They freak out if he goes to one parent's place and not the other's. But my family (unlike his) is extremely close and I don't want to split our holidays between his family and his family. We usually go to separate places for holidays. I'm thinking once we're married we'll try to work out alternate dates and have some holidays with just us (and tell them if they want to visit they can).
FI and I both have really small families. Has anyone's families ever started a tradition of everyone from both sides celebrating together? That's what I'm secretly hoping will happen.
My hubby has 3 sides to his family: his mom's side, his dad's side, and his step-dad's side so it's always exhausting to try to squeeze in like 4 Christmases into one day! It's fun, but exhausting! And Thanksgiving? Oh gosh, we end up eating like 3 times that day!
His family lives in Colorado and mine in Texas. The only holiday we really split is christmas. We end up celebrating early with one family and on time with another. It's worked out fine for us and so far his family and my family are ok with it. It gets complicated though as more siblings get married.
Ha ha - this reminds me of my sister. She's been with her guy for 8 years but isn't married. Last winter she told me that she's decided enough is enough and she's not going to spend Christmas apart from her SO this year. I was shocked and said, "Oh my god, are you going to miss some of our family's Chrismast events?!" She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No way!"
Then she realized that that might now work...luckily our family and my sister's SO's family live about 5 blocks apart so it's easy to see everyone. On the other hand, my guy's family is 1500 miles away.
This is such a sensitive topic for a lot of people. I totally understand where you are coming from. We have never spent Christmas together because it is such an important holiday to me, and he always just felt like he should be with his family on it. However, we've spent all the other holidays at each other's family's house. We live like two minutes from his parents, 2-45 minutes from his entire extended family; however, all my family is in a different state 11 hours away. Now that we are married, we will obviously be spending Christmas together, and I am pretty insistent that for the first few years at least, we go to my family's house for it. It is a really special holiday to me and to my family and it hasn't changed in my 27 years b/c I'm the first married, and I don't want to be the one to change it. So we will probably spend all the other holidays here, and go to my hometown each year for Christmas at least until we have kids. I kind of pull the guilt trip on this a lot by saying we see your family every week, all I want is Christmas... and so far it's worked :)
I just did a blog post about this not too long ago.
This year will be our last year going to our separate families.
Splitting the holidays will be a topic of discussion for future us.
we're lucky that we're all in the same city...
FI's family is HUGE on xmas and its really really important to them. so we go over there for the annual christmas dinner. luckily, my family isn't so big with xmas (they still enjoy it and will have a xmas dinner, but its not the end of the world if someone doesn't come) and so we end up having dinner on another day or lunch or something else. this way, FI and i can attend both.
chinese new year on the other hand, is like my family's christmas and so FI makes an effort to do the chinese new year stuff.
Our families live in the same area, so our first holiday season of our relationship we did separately, second and third we did both (I couldn't eat for THREE DAYS after that first Thanksgiving!) and then last year we got lucky: his family was all split up for Thanksgiving, so we just did that with my family by default, and his got Christmas. So even years my family gets Thanksgiving and his gets Christmas, and odd years my family gets Christmas and his gets Thanksgiving.
It will be difficult though... I much prefer my family's Thanksgiving dinner :( Not to say his family's is bad, it's just different.
We have a schedule. For example, Thanksgiving 2008 we spent with my family. Then Christmas Eve & Day 2008 was spent with my husband's family. We then traveled to my family to spend Dec. 26 through New Years. This year we will spend Thanksgiving with my husband's family and Christmas at my family. You should also consider one more thing, the feelings of both of your sets of parents. For example, my mother in-law truly cherishes Christmas Eve. She loves taking everyone out to dinner then to mass. We both realize that this is important to her, so we will be with her on Christmas Eve then travel to my parents for Christmas day. If you implement a schedule, the first year is the hardest, but then everyone understands. Finally, you will be happy because you get to spend every moment of every holiday with your husband!
Hmmm, this is something we still need to discuss with each other. Our families now live two states away, so we too have never spent Christmas together. This year I'm flying up on the morning the day after Christmas (since we live near my parents). I'm not sure what we'll do once we're married next Christmas, but I suppose it will matter a lot more when/if we have kids.
We are lucky in that our families are in the same city, and fairly flexible. We have never spent a Christmas apart - as far as I'm concerned, FH has been my family since we moved in together (which was soon after we got together) so he was always going to be my #1 priority. I'm not sure how we would have managed it if we had families a long way apart though, that would be tricky. We are also not averse to having our own Christmas - one year we went to Japan and another we were living in the UK. We just ask the parents what they are planning and then work around that to make sure we can see everyone. I like Christmas as much as the next person but perhaps because my family has always been very relaxed about it, and never do the same thing twice in a row (at home one year, at grandma's the next, back home with aunt & uncle the year after that), I don't mind too much where I am or what I'm doing - as long as FH is there :)
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