How Do You Spend The Holidays - Family

[pyrxtc]

Thanksgiving is together but Christmas is just our family on that day. We celebrate Christmas in January sometimes with my family usually.

 

[Fantasmic23]

I have my own little Thanksgiving tradition that I started back in the early 80's when I was a child: When I wake up on Thanksgiving morning, I pour myself a small cup of egg nog (With just a dash of nutmeg sprinkled on top) and watch the beginning of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on NBC. I just watch the first half hour, mind you. In my opinion, it gets to be quite tedious after awhile. Of course, I check back in toward the end of the parade to see Santa's arrival. Afterwards, I'll put on my "March of the Wooden Soldiers" DVD while I finish cooking and cleaning (If I'm hosting the holiday) OR while I'm getting everyone ready (If we're going to a relative's house to eat).

We also begin the listening-of-Christmas-carols on Thanksgiving morning (Either CDs, the iPod, or on the Christmas music channel on Directv).

For the past few years, we've been going to my mother's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I'd love to host the holiday more often, but our house is just too small for large scale entertaining. The day after Thanksgiving, I usually make my own turkey dinner with all of the trimmings for my family. While the turkey is in the oven, we usually put up the tree and the other decorations (It usually takes me the rest of the weekend to decorate).

This year, however, we're leaving for Disney the day after Thanksgiving!!

 

[Fantasmic23]

I cooked for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. This year On Thanksgiving we are taking our own to kids to a Cinema pub for a kid friendly dinner and to See the New Harry Potter movie./QUOTE]

I love this idea!!

 

[golfgal]

We live 400 miles from the nearest extended family so we don't get to be there for most of the birthdays or holiday celebrations. Oh, we used to drive down there, carrying all the gifts and Santa, hopping from in-laws to in-laws, making sure everyone got exactly the same amount of time with us. Exhausting. The year our oldst turned 5 was the final straw. He was crying by mid-afternoon, having been jerked hither and yon for the sake of the adults(who should have known better!)

So, we changed the rules...No more traveling on holidays. There is an open invitation for our families to visit us, but unfortunately I-85 only runs south, it seems. About every 3-4 years we'll take the camper down to Florida to visit at Thanksgiving, but forget going at Christmas. Ain't happenin'

And my kids are FINE with that. They're all grown now(17 & 24) so it's pretty important for them to see their friends at the holidays. They love having the big Thanksgiving dinner and decorating the Christmas tree. We don't watch football(unless I can convince DH to turn on the Alabama/Auburn game--roll Tide!) so we watch movies while the kids and their friends pop in and out. I never know how many are going to be at the table. Could be 5, could be 15. I know when they show up.

That is how it used to be for us, especially the one way roads . We stopped traveling when DS18 was 3 (and his parents FORGOT his Santa presents ). We have just recently started traveling for Christmas (gone to St. Louis to visit my Dad and Step-mom). Thanksgiving we spent at home with just us more often then not-those dang one way roads again. We would travel every once in a while but after getting caught in some blizzards and just the plain hassle of traveling with little kids we chose to stay home.

Now we live closer to relatives and sometimes we get together for Thanksgiving and sometimes we don't. We do an "off day" for Christmas with DH's side and if my Dad and step-mom are visiting we will have something here for them and my sister's family otherwise we will be home on Christmas with just us.

 

[NMAmy]

My ex was in the military and was a cop when he got out and we lived across the country from our families. We got used to making our own holidays, either just the three of us or by inviting everyone who didn't have a place to go.

Now DH and I live near our extended family. Sometimes we have a big Thanksgiving dinner with my sister, her kids, and grandkids and other times, if the kids are all at the in-laws, then my sister comes up here and it's a quiet holiday with just us and my mother. DD is away at college and is staying on campus with her roommate who is from Hawaii instead of both of them making long flights with only five very busy travel days to make the jaunt. She has a friend of the family in her college town and the girls will be having Thanksgiving with them.

For Christmas, we have a big family party but it's the weekend before or after Christmas. Christmas Day is just DH, DD, and I. Her boyfriend is coming with her this year. We also like to go to the movies on Christmas Day.

 

[LBAK]

DH's mom is in Fl. and I only have a 90 year old aunt who goes to her son on Thanksgiving. It's just DH and our 2 DD's (24 & 15).

We have a traditional dinner and then during dessert we watch ELf altogether and then we start decorating for Christmas. DD's friends usually come over to help Thanksgiving night.

Christmas, 90 year old aunt comes over and we have an open house Christmas Eve. Christmas Day my girls friends that are Jewish come over to open presents and have dinner with us. Then it's game night. We play Pictionary, Apples to Apples, etc.

 

[chellewashere]

Thanksgiving for me is just the day before Black Friday It is usually just my DH, DD and myself. Last year we did host with some of the inlaws but it was such a horrible experience for me that I said never again. Thursday night is my night for grabbing all my ads and getting my plan in order for later that night. Friday I come home early in the AM and take a nap then its off to go tree hunting. Saturday is spent decorating the tree.
Christmas eve is when I make my dinner with the ham. Then Christmas morning after my DD has opened her gifts I make Texas Eggnog french toast (yummy) with the left over ham.
We do the PJs every year so we look good in the pics the next day but I love the ornament tradition at Thanksgiving. This year turkey day is also my DD 5th birthday so Im thinking we might add a movie into the mix for that.
I wish we had family that lived close by but all my family is scattered across the US and in Afghanistan. Thankfuly most of my inlaws live far enough away they would never make the trek down to see my DD for any holiday anyway.
And the Christmas music has already started at my house. Love this season!!

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

Can't weigh in, just glad to see you over here!!!

 

[luvsJack]

Traditions have changed over the years. For years we switched Thanksgiving between parents; one year at my family's and one year at his (we live right behind my mom and 30 min. from his mom, so really not a problem). Christmas eve with his family, Christmas morning at home and a late Christmas dinner at my family's. The only time we ran into trouble was when the boys' father was home for Christmas and there had to be a switching of houses thrown in there somewhere and my family would change their time so that my sons could be there--really threw a wrench in the whole plan but we made it work.

After my Dad and brother died, mom wanted a change of things so we stopped a lot of the big family holidays.

Thanksgiving: We still try to even it out on spending the day with one parent or the other but we may go to WDW, we may have my family at either my house or my sister's house, or we have Thanksgiving at our home with just our kids. My favorites are, of course, the ones in WDW and at my house. Regardless of where we eat dinner, unless we are in WDW, Thanksgiving night is eating hot turkey sandwichs while watching a Christmas movie and looking at all the ads so that I can make my plan of attack for Black Friday.

Decorating is done on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Christmas eve is still spent with my in-laws, Christmas Day varies, sometimes we stay at home all day and my mother visits between my sister and me or sometimes we go to mom's. And now with dgd it will probably change even more!

 

[aunties]

Growing up, all our holidays were at my grandparent's house. Santa delivered the presents there. There were usually 15 or so for dinner and 25+ coming in and out afterwards. So we are used to very loud and crowded holidays. It never bothered us that we didn't have any of our own traditions. That was our tradition and I am so glad it was. My grandparents were the most amazing, loving people.

Now, my sister and I split the hosting duties. Her brother-in-law's family also joins us. My niece's best friend's family has joined us for many years now. Between the four families, we split the menu. Everyone brings their favorites.

When my niece and her friend went off to college, they brought home all the kids who couldn't be with their families. So in the past 9 years, we have met kids from 15 different states and 7 different countries. We range in age from 5to 89. There are usually 15 to 25 for Thanksgiving and Easter dinner, a few less at Christmas, but we never know exactly how many are joining us until we actually sit down to eat. We had two girls from Australia join us for their first Thanksgiving and first snow. It was a whopping 3 inches, but they were making snow angels on the front lawn at 8 am. The following year, they traveled 32 hours to surprise for their second Thanksgiving with us. We had one young man join us for Christmas when he couldn't get a flight home to Chile until the day after Christmas. He was so excited Christmas morning to find a "sock" with his name on it filled with goodies. After dinner, we give up counting how many join us for dessert.

I always make what we call our table favors for every holiday. Everyone gets an Easter basket. Everyone joins in the Easter egg hunt. My neighbors probably think we are crazy as we run around the yard. For Thanksgiving, everyone gets their new ornament for the tree. This year, they are also getting a reusable shopping bag (Disney of course) and plastic containers so that we are not eating left overs for the next three weeks. At Christmas, there is always a toy on their chair. The best table favor was mini remote control cars for Thanksgiving one year. We had 19 of those little things zipping around the dinners plates and bowls of mash potatoes in the middle of dinner!

 

[mom2travel]

Before kids and when they were little, we would switch every other year between my family & DH's for Thanksgiving and hit everyone for Christmas (some combination of Christmas Eve/Day). Then we started splittling Thanksgiving w/ one side & Christmas w/ the other, alternating each year who saw us for which, but would still see the other side at some time surrounding Christmas. Besides the fact that that was exhausting, we found we had no time for "our" family.

We have since moved and it is much further (8-10 hours vs 2ish) to visit either side of the family. DH decided (and I agree completely) that we are not going to travel to visit family for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. So we stay home for Thanksgiving. Anyone (from either or both sides of the family) are welcome to come visit us. We have gone away just the 4 of us to the Caribbean for Thanksgiving - and I must say that was lovely! We still had our turkey dinner, but got to swim after and could sit on the beach instead of cook! We will definitely do that again if our schedules allow. But otherwise we are home. We have yet to have a Thanksgiving at home just the 4 of us - someone always comes to visit. Which is fine. We are more than happy to host and to see our family, just don't like being the ones who do all the holiday traveling.

For Christmas, we stay home for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. We go to Mass on Christmas Eve, make something easy like Mexican or pizza for dinner and spend the evening playing games and watching A Christmas Story and whatever other holiday specials are on tv. On Christmas day, we make a big breakfast after gifts, sit around in our pjs playing games and watching Christmas movies, and then make a nice but easy dinner. At some point between Chrismas and New Years we trek off to see all the family - we are tired when we return home, but it is always fun to see everyone.

 

[luvmy3]

We spend Thanksgiving dinner with my whole family and then do dessert with dh's and then get together the next day to hang-out, either order pizzas or take-out.
Christmas day is just us, my dad comes to see the kids and spends the day. We visit everyone else throught the week between Christmas and New Years.
Before we moved out of the area, we would spend Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with his. I hope to go back to that tradition when my kids are older and Santa no longer visits

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

We spend Thanksgiving dinner with my whole family and then do dessert with dh's and then get together the next day to hang-out, either order pizzas or take-out.
Christmas day is just us, my dad comes to see the kids and spends the day. We visit everyone else throught the week between Christmas and New Years.
Before we moved out of the area, we would spend Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with his. I hope to go back to that tradition when my kids are older and Santa no longer visits

WAIT! He stops visiting?!?!?!?

 

[Angelhalo]

We typically in the past have spent both Turkey day and Christmas with my family. We live in NC and my family is in NC while DH's family is in FL. My family tends to have a little bit more festivities and excitement and traditions at Christmas so we usually stay here with them.

This year we are still doing Christmas with my family, but for Thanksgiving we're going to FL. We'll spend Turkey Day with DH's family and then we're going on a Disney Cruise after Thanksgiving. I'm pretty stoked! I'm excited to try something different for Thanksgiving. It'll be happy to see some of DH's family that we haven't seen in a while (some of them not so much excited to see! LMAO!), and who wouldn't be excited about a Disney cruise? LOL!

 

[MomofKatie]

We have a small immediate family- just me, DH, and DD. We also live 5 hours away from my family and 9 hours away from DH's.

Thanksgiving has never been a big holiday for us- either DH or I (or both) have worked in retail for as long as we've been together, so we can't go anywhere on T'giving and be back in time for Black Friday. We usually just have a few friends over or just the 3 of us eat together. I do make a nice meal, but we don't eat turkey (DD won't eat it for moral reasons ).

Christmas is a bit of a problem. DH's parents do a HUGE celebration, always on Christmas Eve day. All of the aunts/uncles, cousins, etc live within an hour or so of each other, except us. We get incredible pressure every year to drive there- "You know, Great Grandma is almost 90- this could be HER LAST CHRISTMAS..." and we do go about every 3rd year or so. DD and I usually try to make it to my mom's house for a few days every year sometime while DD is on her Christmas break, but DH rarely comes along- working retail is hard during the holidays.

On the years we stay home, we just have a low-key day. Nothing fancy or special- I do make pannetone bread pudding for b'fast on Christmas morning every year. We always welcome the extended family to come see us, but as a PP said, I guess 77 and 85 are one way AWAY from us that time of the year!

 

[funkychunkymonkey]

were a together kinda family BUT my tradition is to go out with a few family menmbers thankgiving night to see a movie (we have one theater thats alwalys open). It started the a few of us went to see rent and stuck. Thankgiving traditonally is held at my aunts (where I live) and its tradition that I slave for days baking pies with out acient recipie. As far as Christmas, we do a early Christmas eve (with dinner) at grandmas in our pjs. We open the gifts from her and a few from each other. Then we drive around and check out Christmas lights. Christmas morning we open santa gifts and gifts from each other and our mommies. This spreads the gifts over two days. We also bake cookies every year, make some sort of ordment, and go sledding.
Last years Christmas balls were my favorites ever, I went to dollar tree and bought some of those balls filled with errasers. I took out the erasers and dumped in a couple colors of paint and we shook them. beautiful!

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

Christmas Even we decorate sugar cookies for Santa, have dinner of cheese fondue and dessert of chocolate fondue while sitting by the first. We watch A Christmas Story and everyone opens one present, new matching jammies. The kids before going to bed leave out Reindeer feed and cookies for Santa a carrots for the reindeer. Then the fun begins!!!

The next day they wake us up early and we do stockings. Then we wait till great-grandma and great grandpa and great-great grandma wake up, then we do presents one at a time to make it all last a little longer. Then we spend the day relaxing, eating, often napping and of course playing games and watching Christmas movies and the parade.

 

[bookgirl]

Honestly, my natural personaility is such that being alone does not bother me, I see my family every day, except my dad who lives on the other side of the state but I see him every ohter month or so.

I tend to spend holidays with my parents, brother, and nephews and sometimes one or two family friends or my best friend. I like to spend time with them but if for some reason I needed to skip a holiday , my world would not crash.

I don't need a day on the calendar to enjoy fellowship with my family and friends and I don't need a specific celebration to validate my love for them or theirs for me.

 

[Kitzka]

Thanksgiving is always spent with my parents (or it has for the past 4 years). I am very close to my parents and it's the one holiday i know my brother will be home. My mom loves and hates having a full house. My 2 grand mothers are in their 80s and have health concerns so I don't know how many Thanksgivings we will have left. Also, my father's 9 (yes 9) brothers and sisters live nearby and we viist them when we are at my parents.

Christmas eve is spent with my SIL, BIL and DH's parents.

Christmas day is for DH, DD and I.

Lara

 

[jemmouse]

WOW some great responses...FOr me Christmas represents such a magical time and am glad to read from others it does as well. I also watch the Macys day Parade and really never thought of it as tradition just habit, but I am wrong it is a tradition, one that I did as a child and now my child does, love it...Family to me all year is important but there is just something about Christmas that makes it even more special. Its a time to BELIEVE in the magic, you can't see it but its there...The hustle and the bustle, the caroling, the putting up the Christmas decorations and having the Christmas tunes on and laughing with neighbors and the children looking at all the lights once they are turned on. It truly is magical....