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<p>Are your siblings’ spouses content with never spending Christmas with <em>their</em> parents?</p>
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<p>Interesting question. </p>
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<p>Small comfort to the BF.</p>
<p>We always come back to NYC for a week between Christmas and New Year. The first half, until Christmas morning, is at my parents house. The second half, from Christmas afternoon, they go to their in-law’s house. Very equal.</p>
<p>My family isn’t complicated and that’s why it works for us. We have been doing the same thing for 30 years.</p>
<p>07Dad - my kid wouldn’t have asked.</p>
<p>For the first umpteen years of my marriage, we lived physically close to my in-laws and 300 miles from my parents. My husband’s parents gave us grief when we weren’t with the whole mishpocha, and my parents made us feel guilty that we were spending any holiday with H’s parents when “they get to see you all the time, it’s not fair that they get a holiday.” Plus of course “they’re Jewish so why are they asking for your presence on Christmas Day” (sigh, that’s when they did gifts). I am quite certain I shed numerous tears and gave myself an ulcer over all this, and I’m sorry I did.</p>
<p>I was very fortunate in my in-laws. My MIL was all about her sisters and girlfriends. Had no interest in family holidays, so never invited us and I never had conflict.</p>
<p>It makes me very sad that my son has never had a holiday with extended family. It can be a little lonely to be just exactly the same small, everyday group of people on every holiday.</p>
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<p>You’re fortunate that all of your siblings’ spouses are (apparently) from the NYC area / within easy traveling distance of your parents’ house.</p>
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<p>And, in 30 years none of your siblings or their children asked for any deviation from “the norm?”</p>
<p>I’m in awe. I can’t imagine a scenario with 4 siblings, their spouses and their kids all being willing to come second to one side of the family (not theirs) for 30 years without wanting to change it up. That’s a whole lot of compliant people! I had no idea this sort of arrangement was even possible. And I’m just dying to know-what time do you cut the pie??</p>
<p>PG, I have to say that I agree with your parents that it is a rotten deal for them if you spend Christmas with the Jewish side of the family. Thanksgiving with the Jewish side and Christmas with the gentiles seems fairer. 
Presumably you don’t go visit your parents on Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur :D</p>
<p>But definitely not worth anyone getting an ulcer.</p>
<p>Different families have their own rituals around holidays.
Once you are an adult, you have an idea of what makes the holiday most meaningful to you, and for many it may be to spend it with their sig other, rather than their family of origin, especially if they regularly see their birth family.</p>
<p>We dont see our oldest every Christmas, as she travels with her BF to see his family on the other side of the country, and some years they travel before Christmas- this year they are traveling afterwards. When I was her age, she was five, and her dads family was so difficult during the holidays that we made our own Christmas tradition and traveled miles away from both families, for two decades, allowing us to celebrate at our own pace with them when we returned.
It really seemed the best option at the time, although I would be pained if either my own kids chose that path for 20 years.
But so far, they haven’t.( however- youngest is still in school, & oldest just finished grad school while her BF is still finishing up, so they havent really " landed" yet)</p>
<p>We don’t celebrate Christmas and so the big family gathering type holiday for us is Thanksgiving. We did not live in the same state as my parents or my husband’s parents. For the first nine years of marriage, we didn’t have kids yet and so we went every other year to my family’s house and every other year to my H’s family’s. After we had kids, we had a three year rotation of my family’s out of state, H’s family’s out of state and invited grandparents to our home every third year. Things got a little trickier when the kids were in college which is a time kids want to get to come home but we still did the grandparent thing out of state but didn’t stay all weekend so that the kids had a chance to go home for about two days. Subsequently, my Dad died and my Mom was very difficult about our keeping the pattern going where we went to my in-laws in their “year” which I thought was entirely fair but she claimed that now that she was a widow, we should come to her house every year and forget my in-laws and this was a big source of conflict because of course my in-laws wanted a turn to see the grandkids on a holiday too (and my mom was not alone as one of my brothers lived near her). She thought I wasn’t loyal to go to her house every year after my dad died (well there were only three years involved since she died three years later) but what was I to do as my husband’s family needed their chance? I was trying to be fair about it. I didn’t want myself to go to my mom’s and my husband and kids go to his parents or some such and I had to honor my in-law’s turn. I will say that the year my Dad died (he knew he was dying of cancer but was at home and actually he died the Saturday night of Thanksgiving weekend), we all went to my parents’ house even though it was not “their” year and my parents invited my in-laws to come to their state for the holiday too given the circumstances with my dad. Then, after my mom also died, we tried to do every other year at my in-laws and every other year at our own house because again, our kids are RARELY home as they live in other states and wanted a chance to come home and my in-laws stopped traveling here. So, that’s one story of trying to split holiday gatherings fairly as married people with kids.</p>
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<p>Sure, easy enough except when the Jewish side “celebrates Hanukah” on December 25 because that’s when everyone’s off work. I’m over it all now and I can laugh about it, but I remember a few too many of my young-adult Christmases spent sobbing over how I couldn’t please everybody.</p>
<p>Hey, I think Sportsmama’s thread has wandered off the point. I don’t get the feeling that she’s being ungracious. She’s just dealing with something new and is afraid her D is rushing into a new relationship too quickly, that’s all.</p>
<p>You’ve got it, Jonri. :)</p>
<p>My daughter’s last bf broke up with her shortly before she left. She moved far away from home and basically knew no one. A couple of months after moving there she is in a relationship that seems pretty serious. </p>
<p>Someone mentioned that flying across the country is no big deal to many people. I am not one of those people. To be willing to invest the time and money to do something like that signifies something important. I am concerned that things are moving too fast. Yes, it’s not my call. But I can still worry. Will it do any good? No. That’s why I came on here. I needed to have a sounding board to help me process this. Not all of us are good at just letting go and thinking that whatever happens, happens. I’m working on it.</p>
<p>Some of what I said about Christmas was misunderstood, but I’m really too tired right now to argue the point. Thanks for listening and for the advice. I do appreciate it.</p>
<p>sportsmama, keep in mind there is no way of telling how serious it is yet at this juncture (unless your D has given some other indications that you have not mentioned here). When young people go out and in the beginning of a relationship, they like to spend a lot of time together. Is your D planning to still be at your house over New Year’s? If so, that is a time a young couple might enjoy seeing one another (when my D was in college, she wanted to go back by New Year’s Eve to be with BF for example). Perhaps your D’s BF simply suggested he could fly out to where she was for New Year’s and be together and at the same time, was happy to meet her family. Perhaps he has the means to readily do so and it is not any more than what I just said…a strong desire to see one another for New Year’s. Their relationship could turn into something big or not and three months is likely too soon to know this.</p>
<p>Personally, if my D started a job in a new city where she barely knew anyone and in a few months, started a relationship, I’d be really happy that she was not lonely with a small social life. Seems like her life is taking off very positively and appropriately for someone her age. Time will tell if this is the one or simply a young man she dated at age 22. How old is the young man?</p>
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<p>To YOU. It would not be a big deal to other people, as you noted above. Maybe he comes from a family where they pick up and fly across the country at a moment’s notice and it has no more significance than driving. I don’t know, but my point is – you cannot extrapolate that because flying has great significance to you that it does to everybody.</p>
<p>I think the other thing is - I understand your concern that it’s moving too fast. Arbitrarily “holding him off” for the Christmas visit isn’t going to change that, though. It won’t make her slow down and if anything, it might make him more forbidden fruit (so to speak).</p>
<p>It’s hard for me to believe that the BF’s family wouldn’t care care if he was home for Christmas. I know if I was his mom, I would be very upset. I would wonder how he is going to treat my D if they were to be married some day (10+ years later). Maybe I am projecting too much.</p>
<p>OF, really, why is that SO hard to believe? Not everyone celebrates Christmas the same way. It’s not a huge deal to everyone. Not everyone even celebrates Christmas. Others are even flexible and celebrate it on another day.</p>
<p>We know nothing of the bf’s family so it’s very unfair territory to make assumptions of any kind. The first year we were engaged DH spent Christmas with my family. His parents went overseas to spend the holiday with his mothers family (she left home for the US at 19 married w a new baby). They were not able to do this when DH was younger due to finances and then tuition and finally had the chance as empty nesters. MIL missed her family desperately at the holidays so this was very special that FIL could finally take her for Christmas. If he was not with my family DH would have spent Christmas with his rm’s family. </p>
<p>Without knowing this my family could have made all kinds of assumptions about my DH and his family (what about his mother, etc). Actually, the year before his parents were several states away with his sister who had just had the first grandchild. DH couldn’t get vacation. He was with a friends family (we hadn’t met yet). We know nothing about the bf’s family so it’s best not to guess.</p>