Marriage? Poll - How do you do Holidays?

[SleepyMom]

With the Holidays coming up I have been thinking about what our plans will be this year and it got me to wondering how others that are married and have 2 (and sometimes more) sides of the family to please, split their time up between them.

 

[agotta]

Dh and I take turns. This year it is Thanksgiving with mine and Christmas with his. Next year we will switch. We also switch Easter.

 

[FionaLovesShrek]

We spend Christmas Eve dinner with DH's folks and exchange gifts. We get home early to put DD in bed and wait for Santa. Christmas morning it's just the 3 of us. Christmas Day we spend with my family. Dinner is usually around 2PM and the gift exchanges happen later in the day. Sometimes, my IL's join my family on Christmas Day. But we made it clear once we had a child, we were spending Christmas at home making our own memories. It's nice to go visit, but there's no place like home

 

[saucymb]

DH and I are very fortunate in that we never had to alter any of our holiday plans when we married. Our families live within a one hour drive of each other, and Thanksgiving lunch is at DH's family's, dinner at my family's.

I always thought Christmas would be complicated, as my immediate family (brothers and parents) celebrated Christmas on Christmas Night, then Christmas lunch at my mom's parents and Christmas dinner at my dad's parents. But DH's extended family does everything on Christmas Eve, we have breakfast with his parents on Christmas morning, so it has all worked out rather perfectly.

I was worried that I would turn out like my cousin. I love his wife to death, but she is stingy with the holiday's. She insists that they celebrate EVERY holiday without exception with her family only. So in the 12 years they have been married, they have never once visited on Christmas or Thanksgiving with the rest of the family. It makes me sad.

 

[Crankyshank]

My family is about 20min away and his is about 1300 miles away. We spend holidays with my family (thank goodness!)

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Other...we moved 12 hours away! Not sure how we will do this. Visit, maybe or VACATION....we will see. I really, really want to vacation.

In the past we did a combo of everything over the years. When the kids were small we had people come to us. When they got older we started to visit.

Normally we did Christmas Eve with my family and then we were free on C. Day. We would see DH's family the day after Christmas.

Thanksgiving was at my mom's until she moved into a tiny apartment. (DH's mom doesn't cook.) That kind of made it a free for all and everyone did there own thing.

 

[got2lovedisney]

Thanksgiving "brunch" at my brother's house (they then go to his wife's sister's house for dinner. We then go to dinner at my BF's sister's house.

Christmas eve is usually at my house with my side and with my BF's sister's family. We then go to my BF's sister's house for Christmas day with the rest of BF's siblings.

Easter, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day is usually with my BF's sister and her family as she and I get together to plan those events (usually at the beach) and we invite my brothers to join us.

Friday the 13th (aka Black Friday) is spent at Happy Hour with my brothers and friends.

Halloween is a toss-up.

 

[Honu]

I schedule vacations every holiday, so we don't have to deal with this.

 

[delilah]

We live in Indiana, our families live in Florida. Because of our work and school schedules, we rarely have a chance to visit for the holidays. We would really only be able to go for a few days, and airfare to Florida around Christmas is frightful. I priced a flight to Ft. Myers for the time we would be able to go, and it was about $400 per person. Last year, we went to WDW the week before Christmas, and airfare was about $125. Big difference. The people who do schedule have major passive aggressive issues with the holiday schedule. Last year, I was on call Christmas weekend, and we had our office Christmas party the Friday before. I already had made our holiday plans to go to Florida a year in advance, but, the person scheduling the party was unwilling to budge. The person making the call schedule traded, but, only because he was on call the weekend he wanted to be on vacation, and he was sulky about it.

I could understand the attitude if I always had off during Christmas and went to Florida every year. However, this was the first year we had gone to Florida at Christmas since before I was in medical school! I think some of it stems from my son having two weeks off at Christmas, and somebody needing to stay with him. I usually take the days before Christmas off, and my husband has off between Christmas and New Years. I am on call the weekend between Christmas and New Years lots. Now, I just don't plan on doing anything, and catch up when I am able to see family.

 

[NMAmy]

Moving across country solved a lot of these problems when my ex and I were married. We celebrated by ourselves because he was a cop and it was difficult for him to take time off during the holidays and we lived 2000 miles away. Problem solved.

Since I've remarried & moved closer to home, DH's family lives in England so that's not an issue. My mom is getting older and prefers to have the holiday celebrations at my house so she can enjoy them without any of the hassles of being the hostess. DD divides her holidays up between my ex and I so we've learned to just celebrate on different days. I've spent many years recreating an entire Christmas celebration a week early. It's not a big deal to me--as long as we get our celebrations, I don't care if they're on the actual holiday. Plus it allows my grown niece and nephew to attend without any issues about their in-laws.

 

[mtemm]

we used to divide things up, then we had kids. the first year we had our eldest, we moved 5 hours away from family but still decided to come home and divide things up as usual. That was such a nightmare that we vowed to stay home from then on, whomever could come to our house was welcome. Its worked out nicely, but now we are moving back. We still intend to keep it to come to our house, but not sure how that will go over. I just think with 3 little ones its easier for them to be at home.

 

[MinnieM3]

We go to both for everything because we all live within 5 miles of each other along with all my siblings. Actually I usually end up hosting all the holidays at my house and everyone comes here....but hopefully one of my siblings will pick up the slack! I love and hate hosting at the same time!

 

[Kermit]

I voted that we stay home, but that's just what we do most often, not what we always do. We're actually going to Texas to visit both of our families this Christmas.

My sister and I both live her in SC, and our parents live in San Antonio. It's easiest for my sister and me to stay home and our parents to come to us, and my parents, though they love their grandkids, are very happy not having two 2-year-olds and a 1-year-old in their house. DH's parents live in Fort Worth, and we do go visit them every once in a while, but they literally never come here, so we don't knock ourselves out trying to get out there. The last time we were there was Christmas 2 years ago.

 

[jennyl772003]

Oh my gosh, I remember crying the first Christmas me and my DH were 'serious'. It just seemed like I couldn't make ANYBODY happy!

Now we alternate holiday's between his and my family, with the exception of Christmas.

Christmas eve, we go to church and then my extended family (mom's side).

Christmas morning we wake up about 5 and open presents just the 3 of us.

Then we go to IL's to open presents and have breakfast around 10.

Then in the afternoon we go to my extended family (dad's side)

But wait! It's not over yet!

Finally we visit my parents house to open presents. We usually wait for this until the weekend after Christmas, so that we can take our time and enjoy ourselves.

 

[ThAnswr]

We spend the holidays all with my family, so I checked off "other".

My in-laws are long gone and my DH's sons are scattered between Missouri and Rhode Island. All of my family are here and we split the holidays this way:

Thanksgiving - my sister's MIL

Christmas Eve - my house (I'm an Italian-American and Christmas Eve is a very big deal)

Christmas - My niece.

New Years Day - Chinese take-out wherever.

 

[Bob Slydell]

We divide up some of the holidays. Ever since we got married, we made Thanksgiving "our" holiday, meaning it was always at our house and whomever wanted to come was invited on both sides of our family.

Easter we usually go to my parents. New Years, we go to MIL's.

Christmas, since we've had kids, has always been at our house, at least as far as Christmas morning goes. We usually either go the weekend before or the weekend after to my parents.

 

[malibuconlee]

I answered "Other".

Growing up, it was Christmas Eve at my Dad's house. With us opening presents before step-mom's family all came over. Then Christmas morning (early, before dawn!!) opening with my mom, step-dad and sister. Off to my Aunt's for Christmas breakfast (mmm - breakfast casserole!!) then to step-grandparents for lunch and the rest of the day. Playing in the snow if lucky enough to have it.

Now that I'm married, and since my dad passed away, it was Christmas Eve with my new step-dad's family. Christmas morning with mom, step-dad, and assorted full, half and step siblings and their kids. Then on to DH's parents for Christmas with MIL's side of the family usually for lunch (kind of depends on schedules as DH's uncle works at the prison and usually has to work at some point on Christmas Day, and FIL recently retired as a sheriff's deputy) or dinner. Have meal and open presents. OH, I made breakfast at my mom's for several years, but quit when my step-sister told step-dad that she was going to feed the kids at home after I had bought and made most of it ahead of time only to show up with kids who were hungry about half an hour after we cleaned up from breakfast.

Then we have a dinner on a night randomly picked by however the schedules work out at DH's grandmother's on his dad's side.

Somewhere in there we have a separate night usually with DH's immediate family.

DH and I have run the gamut of exchanging gifts at 5 AM, to exchanging them randomly at 2pm on Christmas Eve since we couldn't figure out when to do it, to exchanging before we left home since we couldn't fit things in the car!!

Oh, did I mention we lived 12 hours away for 6 years and always had to travel?

Last year we moved about 40 miles away from family and spent Christmas Eve at home (DH wasn't feeling well) watching A Christmas Story on TNT. We exchanged gifts the next morning and had breakfast at home, it was the first time we had woken up in our own beds on Christmas morning since I lived with my mom DH's last year in college in 1995. HEAVEN!!!

This year should be equally interesting as DH's parents have decided grandma's eyesight isn't good enough for her to live alone anymore and are planning on moving in with her (she IS 94) sometime between now and Christmas.

I actually did tell DH last night that if he wanted to offer to do his mom's side for either Thanksgiving or Christmas at our house we can.

Wow, that's really long, Sorry, and if you're still with me - Thanks for reading!!

 

[disykat]

Before kids, we traveled to where our families live (same town) and alternated. Since kids, we don't travel on holidays. We travel after Christmas and spend the week between Christmas and New Years visiting both families.

We spend holidays with several friends who also live away from their families.

 

[Pooh67_68]

Thanksgiving they come here, christmas dinner with my parents and sister, than over to visit family.

Now that dh's mom has passed his family never gets together.

 

[ZachnElli]

We always spend Christmas Eve with my side and Christmas Day with dh's side.So I picked other. We are 1200 miles away, so we have to fly there. Fortunately, I bought our tickets before the hurricanes this year. They won't be happy the years we can't make it. This year will be interesting because my bil and sil are taking over Christmas and we are staying there instead of my fil and mil's and they are NOT happy! But it is time they give it up, mil is disabled and always complaining that we are disrespecting her house (basically nothing makes her happy even on Christmas), they both smoke 3-4 packs of cigarettes a DAY, they have 2 enormous dogs (we love dogs, but they are just too big and unruly), and they don't let there 10 grandkids play in the house. What else are 10 kids gonna do? It'll be interesting, I'm sure my mil is gonna have a tantrum before it's over, she usually does anyway!