Holiday politics for newlyweds

Parent Cafe
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<p>How do you spend holidays fairly with two families when the families live far apart?</p>

<p>I know we’re far away from the holiday season, but my husband and I have been trying to formulate a policy for spending holidays fairly with both of our families, and I was hoping to hear some good Solomonic solutions others have implemented.</p>

<p>The facts, briefly, are thus:
We live ~45 minutes from H’s family, and see them about once every three weeks for dinner. H has one sister who lives far away and has a job that requires her to work holidays, so she is not typically home for Christmas or Thanksgiving days. H’s large extended family lives in the same town and spends holidays with my in-laws.</p>

<p>We live ~12 hours’ drive (2 hours’ flight) from my parents, and see them about two times per year. I have one brother who is starting college 20 minutes away from home (and who will likely be home for holidays). I have very little extended family, so my nuclear family generally spends holidays only with my grandmother.</p>

<p>Last year, H and I spent Thanksgiving with his family. We spent the weekend before Christmas with his family, then flew to my family’s for Christmas day. This worked really well, and both families seemed happy, but I am reluctant to establish this as a permanent pattern and never have H spend Christmas day with his family again. On the other hand, I think it might break my mom’s heart if I didn’t come home for Christmas.</p>

<p>So what are solutions others have employed when families live far apart? Did it change when you had kids?</p>

<p>(And I realize the optimal solution is to have my family move to H’s family’s town – my MIL and I are working on it! :))</p>

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<p>Optimally, you declare two Christmas Days. I’m not joking. The whole idea behind 12 days of Christmas was that it be an entire season of rejoicing, and not confined to a single day. When traveling was more difficult, this made it more possible for extended families to visit each other during the period, without focusing on a single day. (The single day is a product of our culture’s predilection of getting it over fast, so we can get back to work.) Among Jews, there are two days of Seders (Passover), among other reasons so that both families can be whole. </p>

<p>In our household, as Quakers, since we don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday (early Puritans specifically condemned it as a form of paganism), my wife always works (she is a hospice nurse), so that others can take the day off. We “celebrate” as it were on Boxing Day (among other things, we join a very large Messiah sing-and-play-in.) </p>

<p>Your families understand this difficulty - see if you can work out something new that works for everyone concerned.</p>

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<p>I got lucky. I married someone Jewish. My Mom was happy that she never had to share us for Christmas. Since we didn’t celebrate Christmas in our home it was not an issue for our kids to not have Christmas morning in their own home.
How does your H feel about making the arrangement you did last year permanent? For some families Thanksgiving is more important then Christmas. You could also alternate.
Unfortunately no easy answer.</p>

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<p>How very sweet and thoughtful of you to want to please everyone. Are you going to switch Thanksgiving and Christmas this year? Parents do understand when their kids get married that there are now demands/expectations coming from other directions, and I’m sure your mom will be able to handle it. </p>

<p>We switched back & forth sharing the holidays with both sides, and then a few times we invited both sets of parents to our home for Christmas, which was lovely. </p>

<p>Once kids arrived, no-one wanted to go anywhere, so we mostly stayed in our own home, and invited anyone who wanted to see the grandchildren for Christmas to visit us.</p>

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<p>This was always a problem for us. We had one parent who was always trying to beat the other set of parents by inviting us 6 months in advance. We just did not play into that “early bird gets the worm” game, because it was ridiculous. Our families did live closer than yours, so we were able to have dinner with one set of parents, and dessert with the other set. Sometimes we had both sets of parents in one home (they did invite each other sometimes in the beginning of our marriage). We did end up switching off after a few years, but one set of parents was always unhappy, and feeling somewhat slighted. We ended up solving the issue by making many more holidays in our home and inviting all of the parents, their children (our sibs) and their spouses. As our sibs moved away, we rotated homes, and one set of parents were excluded from some occasions when it was not their child hosting the holiday. Again, that parent felt left out. I find that there are no easy answers, other than to make holidays twice. We have done this a couple of times for Thanksgiving out of necessity.</p>

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<p>MY DH had a divorced parent situation to deal with and essentially, his biodad got the short end of the deal, it was always an alternate day and had been DH’s entire life. We started out lucky with every one in the same area, but family politics had a MIL who wanted to dominate everything, claiming both Christmas Eve and Day. We did both parents on the day for a couple of years, then when I had our first DD, I proclaimed MY rules- every one could come to my house for Christmas dinner.</p>

<p>I will also say I did not realise as a young bride (20), the political games my MIL was playing and my mum was such a dear smart woman, she said nothing, even went to their holiday on a few occasions, even when she was seated at the 2nd string table :eek: Later, as I saw things more clearly, I never confronted, only circumvented by taking the lead. Hopefully you are not dealing with such ridiculousness!</p>

<p>Ever since then, it has always been Christmas Day at our house for any one who wants to come, family, friends, neighbors, some years 25-40 people, and a blast.</p>

<p>My siblings do not live near my parents, I am the closest to them in relationship, and for most of the years; however, the years when we had moved and my parents had not yet moved, we still did Christmas at our home.</p>

<p>By moving the celebration to my home I avoided my in laws games. There were some years, though, when one set or another could not make it, but our kids spent Christmas in their home. I am sure there were a few years when they were young that we traveled- after we had moved far away- but in general I tried to make it happen in my home for my kids.</p>

<p>You have time to figure all this out, but be careful about unknowingly setting up expectations</p>

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<p>Mollie:</p>

<p>A couple of scenarios:
Alternate spending Thanksgiving and Xmas with your H’s or your own family.
Or since your in-laws live close by, spend Xmas with your family and celebrate New Year’s Eve with your in-laws.</p>

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<p>At some point spend the holidays at your own house and invite your relatives to visit you. As newlyweds you’ll want to start some of your own holiday traditions.</p>

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<p>^^^ Totally and completely agree with ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad. In your first two or three years as a married couple, I think it is VERY wise to do some of the holidays at your house. And to <em>mix it up</em> year to year as to where you spend each holiday.

What you DON’T want is hearts breaking based on your decisions/needs as to where to spend a given holiday. The only way I know to do that is to diminish the weight of that decision. And the sooner you establish that your love for your families and desire to spend time with them do NOT hinge on where you spend a given 24 hour period, the better.</p>

<p>When you have children, you can certainly tote them, Santa’s presents etc. lock, stock and barrel to one family or the other. But you may really want to have the special pleasure of your kids waking up in your own house. And you may really want to avoid the stress and cost of traveling with a whole family on holiday schedules. So… if you start now to change things up, I think you’ll be glad you did.</p>

<p>Include the families in your plans at your own home. Invite them all. If finances are an issue for some and not so much for you (ha! on grad student stipends), help out with the travel costs/send a plane ticket.</p>

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<p>I also agree you should start some of your own traditions. If you don’t than the tradition becomes you will always travel to them…trust me Bullet and I learned that the hard way. It became an issue for us @ yr 6, when we had 3 kids and realized our children never got to wake up in their own home for xmas. People just made plans and expected us to be there.</p>

<p>As a military wife, we have seen many families do different plans. The people who seemed happiest were those who rotated. 1 yr home, 1 yr parents, 1 yr home, 1 yr in-laws. They than added in Thanksgiving or Easter so they spent at least 1 holiday per yr with ea family. This way it was a vacation and became more special.</p>

<p>Finally, once you do have kids, I suggest putting your foot down and say come to my home and rotate it that way…it is very stressful to travel with little ones and the holidays. It maybe a little depresssing not to be with them, but that is why you need to start your traditions now.</p>

<p>The reality you and your spouse are family now.</p>

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<p>I don’t celebrate XMas. However, this is a big issue for Thanksgiving. Each of our sets of parents live in other states from where we live. We established from the get go that every other Thanksgiving was at each of our parents’ homes. Then, once children came along (nine years into our marriage), we established a pattern of 3 rotations…one set of grandparents, the other set of grandparents and our own home (to which all were invited). I think we were very fair about it all. While the parents/grandparents would quibble a lot, I felt this was a set pattern that was equitable. </p>

<p>In recent years, this has become a BIG problem for us with a lot of aggravation from parents on both sides, even though we have been fair the entire time. For one thing, now both of our kids are in college in other states and are not home virtually all year round and Thanksgiving is one of the only times they can come home. We’d like to have them here. But that has not gone over well with grandparents. On several Thanksgivings while the kids have been in college, we have traveled to my mother’s and the kids have traveled there too (this is 7 hours from our home) and done that for two nights and then brought them all the way home for two nghts and then they traveled back to college. This was a LOT of traveling in one weekend. We would truly like to have Thanksgiving HERE. Then, our pattern of 3’s has taken a turn. One Thanksigiving, my Dad was dying and we all went there (which wasn’t their “turn”) and actually my Dad died on that very weekend. Now, my mom says it is too hard for her to come here (but she has done other travel) and insists we go there and then the other grandparents want us there and we have gone more times to my mom’s as of late. So, even though we have been very fair over the years about this, it is becoming a huge conflict every year.</p>

<p>Also, the grandparents seem to count how many minutes each set of grandparents get to see the kids! So, it gets more complicated when grandkids are involved and also when they are in college and want to go home but have to fit in grandparent visits all over the place (one of my kids is at one set of grandparents this weekend to make sure they get their turn…now the other grandparent is lamenting she did not get that same amount of a visit from that grandchild recently…we can’t win). It is also more complicated now as the parents/grandparents are getting elderly and don’t want to come here. Not to mention that our college/grad school aged kids have very intensive schedules, including in summers, and in other states (meaning two different states for their colleges, two different states for the grandparents and yet another that we live in) and it is harder for them to have the time to travel to the grandparents, let alone to come home.</p>

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<p>I thought Bullet and I were the only ones that happened to! My mom never counted the minutes, But 1 time when we flew back from England for a 3 week vacation…my MIL got into a fight with Bullet because we only spent 10 days and 2 hours with them and we would be giving my Mom an extra 10 hours that belonged to them!</p>

<p>I still laugh about that! What came out of it was a saying my mom taught me…the best in law makes themselves an outlaw! My mom has never strayed from that, which relieves alot of stress.</p>

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<p>

Agree.</p>

<p>When my S married we all lived in the same area, “children” and in-law families. It became apparent to me very quickly that my DIL was worried about accommodating both families for holidays. I knew the situation was especially difficult for her because she’s an only.</p>

<p>No shrinking violet, I. Took both S and DIL aside and told them both, very firmly, that they were now a family establishing their own holiday traditions. They should make their own plans, let us know what they decided, and we would work around them.</p>

<p>Now they live far from both sets of in-laws. We’ve fallen into a pattern of “our side” spending one of the holidays (not Christmas) at their place, which appears to be fine with everyone. Additionally, my DIL was wise enough to give birth to our adored grand-daughter near that holiday, so her birthday gives us a two-fer. :)</p>

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<p>So did I. But his parents got divorced and both remarried. To Christians. I also had divorced parents, both of whom were Christian.</p>

<p>You people whine about juggling two Christmases – consider what it’s like when you have to juggle FOUR, in the company of a Jewish husband who thinks that the whole fuss is ridiculous.</p>

<p>Fortunately, you tend to fall into patterns. And when you have children, you have the right to spend Christmas Day at your own home, inviting any relatives who find it convenient to join you for part of the day if they choose. Anything else is too hard on the kids, who really shouldn’t be expected to open their presents in the morning and then get in the car and drive to a relative’s house instead of playing with their new toys.</p>

<p>You may also find that there are some people in various branches of the family who might prefer to get together on a day other than the actual holiday. In the family I grew up in, there was an unmarried aunt whom we were very close to who worked in a hotel. She could get massive overtime and greatly please her supervisors by volunteering to work on holidays. So the branch of the family that she was part of got into the habit of celebrating on the day after or the day before the actual holiday. This worked out great because some of us also had other branches of the family to join on the real holiday.</p>

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<p>Mollie, I think it is great that you are being proactive and are thinking about this (and presumably discussing it with your H) in advance. </p>

<p>I concur with those who suggest that however you handle it for now, make sure both sets of parents know very well that if kids ever entire the picture, the entire system may very well change. Yes, it may be a good idea to start early having at least some turns at your own home.</p>

<p>On the other hand, with you both in school, you now may have greater time/flexibility for travel than you will later in life, depending on what you end up doing – and on where you end up living.</p>

<p>IMO what most matters is that you spend significant quality time with both families, no matter what time of year. I always especially enjoy the week between Christmas and New Years – less hectic but still holiday time. Remember, Jan. 6 is “little Christmas.” We would often visit some extended family through that time. As long as the tree was still up, that was what mattered. Also, regarding gifts and the kids, spreading this business out more was better than a big pile on one day. (We tried from the start to minimize gift-giving and keep this aspect simple in any event, but still.)</p>

<p>Thanksgiving eventually became “my” holiday in part because I have a somewhat better situation for cooking for a big group, and enjoy it more than other family members. My kids are now grown but we always spent Christmas morning at home yet would often travel later that day or soon after. None of our travel was air travel though – I would avoid that at the holidays at all costs.</p>

<p>My brother’s family sometimes liked to visit us over Memorial Day weekend.</p>

<p>Nobody, including grandparents, should assume or *demand *anything. The LAST thing I would ever want from my kids would be a “forced march.” However, I would make sure myself to visit each part of the family that cared at some point each year. We were almost all in the Northeast/mid-Atlantic so it was doable.</p>

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I love that approach and hope to use it some day.</p>

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<p>After years of running back/forth between families on holidays—we invite everyone here. It can be fun!</p>

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<p>Thanks, everyone, for the stories and great advice. I really appreciate hearing how different families approach this issue.</p>

<p>

He thinks it’s the most fair arrangement, but it made him a little sad not to be with his wonderful, raucous extended family on Christmas morning. (It helped a little that we were able to “see” my SIL on Christmas morning – she works at Disney World, and we caught a glimpse of her in the televised Disney Christmas parade. :D)</p>

<p>His position is in line with many in this thread, that we’ll travel now, maybe alternating, and when we have kids (and a house!) we’ll invite everybody to come to us. We love having everybody together – my family always comes out to H’s family’s house for 4th of July, and it’s fantastic. (On that note, we could also consider having everybody take a trip together for Christmas, maybe even to Disney World so we can see my SIL.)</p>

<p>It’s tough because this is an issue that neither of us has had to deal with – when I was growing up, both sets of grandparents lived in the same town as my family, and it’s the same for H.</p>

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<p>soozievt, I just read your post. We have a similar situation, as do many families with students in college. My son does not want to go away for Thanksgiving. It is the one time that he can come home to his old hs friends, sleep in his bed, and take a hot shower in our house. We now have a lot of family scattered through several states. We basically just let eveyone know that they are invited here for Thanksgiving, but we won’t go to their homes for Thanksgiving since our son would like to be home for a few days. We told family that we will visit other times of the year, and we have. This has made for a bitter sweet holiday. We have quality time with our son, I delight in cooking for him as well as the rest of the family, but the first year it was just the 4 us (too quiet, and we are not used to that for a holiday. We are used to having 20-25 people), and the second year we had 3 family members joining us. Still, they were from my side of the family, and I think it was sad for my DH.</p>

<p>mollie, it is tough, and I empathize. As you can see, for some families this is a problem that evolves as people move around, families grow and needs change, but the problem can go on for decades.</p>

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<p>northeastmom, I agree with the reasoning and that was what we set out to do last Thanksgiving…to tell everyone it was going to be here at our house as it had not been in a while (we got off track a bit on the three year rotation given my dad’s death and so on). But my mom is very difficult and would not come up here and was very strong about how we must be there with her and she is a widow and so forth. We split the weekend in half with travel to her state and then travel to our state with the kids. My kids are RARELY home except Thankgiving and a week at Christmas, that’s it…and five days in May…this is pretty typical of their year each year now. It is also hard for them to travel to grandparents’ houses at other times of year given their schedules (ie., both even had requirements to be at school during breaks). Both made an effort this summer to visit grandparents. But they see them several other times…such as grandparents have come to performances of theirs or graduation, or gone to NYC to take them to a show, etc. I forgot, about a year ago, each child spent a week (their March break) visiting my mother in CA (her winter home). We also see our kids many times as we travel to all of their events and their many moves and so on. But they just are not HERE. But the thing with the grandparents and particularly with holidays (mostly Thanksgiving) causes a great deal of conflict now. They are older and don’t want to come here and also are very demanding about it, even though I don’t know what they want me to do as I have 2 families who want the same thing (for us to go to their respective houses), and my husband wants them all to come here. Either way, I can’t win. :D</p>

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<p>Soozie,</p>

<p>Your husband wants everyone at your house, and I assume you would not mind that either.
Your kids want to be home at Thanksgiving.
Your family can only be one place at once.</p>

<p>Seems clear to me. Here’s my suggested draft:</p>

<p>"Folks, the kids want to be home at Thanksgiving and not on the road. We will be having Thanksgiving at our home this year and for the forseeable future. You are all welcome to join us here. Let us know of any way we can facilitate that.</p>

<p>Whether or not you can make it, we and the kids will, of course, look forward to spending time with you at other points in the year.</p>

<p>Love, Soozie and Hubby"</p>

<p>IMO you have been doing the best you can, and were there at your parents’ house when your dad died, whlch was of course very significant. But now you need to make a plan for the new phase. Your kids have significant schedule constraints. You are entitled to call this one yourselves.</p>

<p>P.S. Can anyone travel *with *your mom to help her get to Vermont? My mom is an elderly widow too but she travels when she wants to.</p>