Marriage? Poll - How do you do Holidays?

[Disney Doll]

When my in-laws were alive, we used to do one with my side of the family and one with DH's side of the family.

Now that my in-laws have passed away, we are a little more flexible with the every other holiday thing. Sometimes we'll do one with each side, or sometimes we'll do the cooking here and have everyone over. Christmas Eve we usually go to my DSIL's house, so often on Christmas day wee'll go to my brother's.

 

[jajuan]

I always try to be considerate, but my family (DH, me, DS, DS, DS and DD) come first. We do what we feel is right for our family each year and then we always invite both sides to join us wherever we are.

 

[eeyoresmountainpals]

I chose other because we have a rather unique situation. DH and I are both only children and our parents are gone. We have four children and holidays are just about us. Sometimes we will invite neighbors or friends for dinner on Thanksgiving or Christmas but Christmas Eve is always just us. Sometimes works to our benefit being alone like we are but other times there is that yearning for an extended family! It'll be nice to see how it plays out when the kids are all older!

 

[EthansMom]

Two sides to split between. Try four. Both of our parents are divorced and remarried. Right now, we are living on the East Coast, near the ILs, and my family is all on the West Coast. We mostly do holidays with the ILS.

For the most part, everyone waits for an invitation to either our house or my SIL and BIL's house. Last year, I got stuck with both Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year, I'm willing to host Christmas, if no one wants to do it. For Thanksgiving, I'm making reservations.

 

[sissybells]

Me and DH's holiday's are split up between 4 families. My family we usually do the weekend before the actual holiday so that we can visit alot longer. We live an hour and a half away from our family and have a great dane so we can't stay in town for more than 6 hours unless we get the pet sitter and we try not to do that as much because of the cost of gas and then to have a sitter come over would cost $50 total for a day of visiting. So we just try and split everyone up even. His side we usually have an itinerary to go by from his Grandma so it makes it alot easier to plan for everyone else. We get pretty busy around the holidays with my family his mom his stepdads family and then his real dads family, but this is the only time of year that it is hectec and since we don't get to see everyone on like a weekly or daily basis I always look forward to this time of year to catch up with everyone. I can't wait for the holidays.

 

[SleepyMom]

In the past every year basically we would spend most holidays as well as Christmas Eve and Day with DH's family, because mine is 5 hours away we aren't able to split it up. DH's siblings that are married never had a problem with that because their spouse's family all live close so they were able to go to both. I was the only one with family that lived so far away.

Thankfully my family has always been very laid back in how we get together, as long as we were all together at some point it worked for us, so we usually would have a late Christmas around New Years, maybe the first week in January.

This year though, I don't know what we are going to do. We decided last year for the first time ever to spend Christmas with my family and MIL gave me such a hard time and really laid on a guilt trip on me. Then she ended up in the hospital a few days before Christmas and passed away in January. Obviously we did not spend Christmas with my family as we had planned, and the guilt trip worked because I feel horrible that I wanted to spend the first Christmas with my Mom in 16 years and then it was DH's last Christmas with his Mom.

Anyways, I am not looking forward to making plans for this year.