Newly Married Kids: Sharing Time w/ In-Laws in same town? Dividing time?

[midwest-mom]

So we have a newly married son and DIL. Love them both dearly, and they live a little over 4 hours away. We live in the same town as her parents so they divide their time between both of our homes when they visit. Its usually fine because we often all go out together.

But its Christmas, and not only are her parents dealing with their in-laws (DILs grandparents), we have our parents (our son's Grandparents). And now the newlyweds are coming to town. Haven't heard where they're staying, although they said they'd take turns at both our houses.

So how do your married kids divide their time - especially IF both of their families live in the SAME TOWN.

 

[Pakey]

We have two married sons (one lives in same town, one is 3 hours south) and our third son is engaged. They all have inlaws in this area; 2 of our daughters in law have divorced parents which adds another set of family to see.

We don't try to plan anything; we see them when we see them. We rarely do it on xmas or xmas eve as they have so much going on. The date is not a big deal to us. We never make plans that include our parents (their grandparents) as it's too hard to coordinate. The holidays should be fun for the kids too and we are fine seeing them one at a time or sometime after the holidays when it's convenient.

 

[cheermom1]

I don't have to worry about as my MIL doesn't do "Christmas" ok she does but not on Christmas, she always has a get together ion Jan. for the first..this year it is on the 8th sooo what we do is do Christmas with my parents on Christmas then in Jan we do it with my MIL
Why she does this I'm sure but it works great


When I was married to my Ex we always spent Christmas and thanksgiving with my family as his family is well umm lets just say you can smell her house from the road...

I never liked going there so I refused

I am not making this up her bf told me once that she would let it get so bad and gross and have trash to the knees then she would move

 

[Stacerita]

Its easy in our family. We always get together on Christmas Day. Its been that way since my great grandmother was alive. It made it easy for everyone to schedule things with their inlaws. And we always started at 2 in the afternoon so everyone can have Christmas morning with their own families or in laws. No one has ever had a problem yet.

 

[crz4mm2]

I have been married 30+ years. My parents (now only mother) and his parents live about 15 miles apart. We live another 10 miles or so away from the closest parent (his).
We have always managed to get to BOTH sides at Christmas. Either on xmas eve at my parents and xmas day at his or some other day of the week.
I work at a job that requires call, so I am either on call xmas day , or xmas eve. Been that way for 20 + years.

DS just got married 2 years ago. We now go to THEIR house on xmas morning and then to DH's parents on xmas day at lunch.
My mom's is usually xmas eve.
This may change next year with a new job.
I know some people do every other year at one or the other, but we have not had to do that in 30+ years. Always managed to work things out.
DS and DDIL have Her side to go to also, that's why we go to their house xmas am. Her Dad comes there too so it saves them two trips to two different places
It will work if you want it to.

 

[Green Tea]

I guess I am still the kid, though I have college age kids of my own! God bless the moms here who say, no big deal, we will see everyone when we see them. It shouldn't be a nightmare.

After years of trying to keep up with MIL's demands that we see everyone ON CHRISTMAS DAY and we realized we never even ate come the end of the night we limited it to one visit for each side of the family. We always stay home in the morning then visit both sides later in the day. MIL is trying to creep into our Christmas morning by requiring us earlier and earlier at her house. I am standing firm.

BUT, now this ice storm is coming. She will NOT be forgiving of us refusing to drive on interstates in the ice to be there. She simply will become unglued and rant for the year about how I kept her baby boy from being with his mommy and sister for Christmas. Oh yeah, she is that bad.

 

[minkydog]

One of the hardest things about being a newlywed is trying to figure out what to do about holidays. Our parents lived about 45 minutes apart and they were pretty demanding about us being there for the holidays. We always had to spend Christmas Eve with one, get up, eat breakfast and open presents, then race to the other one so we could eat dinner and open more presents. Considering that we had to drive 400 miles to endure this ordeal, we didn't enjoy our stay very much. I vividly remember my mother calling my inlaws house and reaming me out on Christmas Day because we hadn't arrived at her house by 12noon.

So we solved that problem. We don't go home for Christmas at all. They were all upset for awhile. We invited them to join us in Atlanta, but apparently none of the roads run north so they couldn't get there. Now we have our Christmas traditions and they have theirs. I can't help but think that things could have been so different.

 

[nexttrip4us]

Oh my gosh...Pakey will you adopt my DH? Holidays are always a battle and we've been married for 15 years together for almost 20 and every year it is an issue.

Go easy on them...I'm sure they want to see you but dividing up time and trying to make everyone happy is SO hard! I can suck the joy out of the holidays faster than a good vacuum cleaner...that's what it has come down to for us and it stinks...makes it really hard for us to just enjoy and have fun with our kids .

What we're down to now is alternating years around the hallowed hours between 4-8 on Christmas Eve with my ILs and my grandparents...it was the only way to keep my ILs somewhat happy...ugh...

 

[SDFgirl]

My parents and my in-laws both live within 40 minutes, so (for all intents and purposes) in the same town.

Here is what we do...

On Christmas Eve:
--About 3pm to 5pm, we go to my DH's extended family gathering. Exchange gifts, but leave before dinner is served.
--We come home at 5pm and my parents come over to our house. We have dinner and relax. They leave around 9pm.

Christmas morning:
--DH and I have "our" Christmas with our two DDs. Just the four of us...stockings, Santa gifts, etc.
--At 10am we go over to my in-laws' house for breakfast and more gifts.
--At around 3pm we go to my parents' house for (guess what) more gifts.
--Then around 5:30, my in-laws come over to my parents' house for dinner.

This is what we've done for the last 3 years or so. It works out nicely. I know it's tough to juggle everyone's family commitments, but hopefully once you find something that works, you can stick with it!! Merry Christmas!

 

[midwest-mom]

Wow, thanks for all the replys. We've been fortunate as a couple, then family, to work it out with both sets of our parents.
But this is their first Christmas married, which is always the big holiday for everyone.
Its just more complicated due to the extended family of grandparents and all.

So I will try to just wait and see them when we can
And I'll remember how demanding my MIL was back in the day and will pray I'm not like that!

I love reading everyone's stories though, so please post more everyone!

 

[Stephanie218]

I hate it. We live cross-country from both sets of parents, and end up spending the entire time home running between 2 houses 5 miles apart. It's nice to take one trip and see both families, but it can get really tiring trying to please both sets.

 

[BelleWDW]

For years we do extended family on SAturday and Sunday BEFORE Christmas...each side has people who live 30 min to one hour away

Christmas day used to be at My side & Thanksgiving at DH's.....but when things changed in our family-marriages to widowed or divorced spouce with huge "previous" family..it all changed again because of all the other family involved.

 

[kilee]

We had to pick and chose to when we got married. Then when my sister got married it became even harder. So now my sister's family, my parents, and us have our Christmas celebration the Saturday before Christmas every year. We've been doing this for about 10 yrs now. It's nice because we spend the whole day together and nobody is rushed to get to another gathering.

On Christmas Eve we got to the large extended family gathering on my dad's side of the family. I've been doing this since I was born. On Christmas Day we usually go to my dh's family gathering (though his family is a bit crazy and has been known to cancel at the last minute because of arguing).

I did stop going to my maternal aunts Christmas dinner on Christmas Day so we could spend time w/ my dh's family.

My ds is from my ex, so that throws another set of visiting for him to do in the mix.

 

[midwest-mom]

I'm just loving everyone's posts. No wonder we're all crazed by the holidays!
Tonight we rented the movie Four Christmases. I guess I should be happy we don't have that many! I really don't want our kids to feel stressed by going back and forth to each of our houses, but our DS has younger sibs he wants to see too, plus our DIL does also. Its just crazy. Maybe we should do a before Christmas gathering for one side, and then the other on Christmas. But then who gets what?

 

[Sparx]

DBF and i are going to his family for christmas eve (when they normally open their family presents) and my family is visiting us for christmas day. both families live in our home town, but we've moved about an hour away.

 

[Katy Belle]

My parents and In-Laws live 20 minutes apart. We live overseas now, and have always lived far away, so we've done this balancing act of dividing time for 20 years!

My mom always has a Christmas get together on a weekend either before or after Christmas, planned when the majority of the family can attend. MIL always has Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and just has whoever is available. There really is little pressure, it works.

One thing that helps is that when we come, we stay at least a week, longer now that we are living overseas. But both families feel like they've SEEN us by the time we leave!

I remember in the beginning that it was tricky and I felt that they were keeping track of how many MINUTES we spent with one vs the other. UGH! So glad we have moved past that now.

 

[aprilgail2]

My parents and my in-laws both live within 40 minutes, so (for all intents and purposes) in the same town.

Here is what we do...

On Christmas Eve:
--About 3pm to 5pm, we go to my DH's extended family gathering. Exchange gifts, but leave before dinner is served.
--We come home at 5pm and my parents come over to our house. We have dinner and relax. They leave around 9pm.

Christmas morning:
--DH and I have "our" Christmas with our two DDs. Just the four of us...stockings, Santa gifts, etc.
--At 10am we go over to my in-laws' house for breakfast and more gifts.
--At around 3pm we go to my parents' house for (guess what) more gifts.
--Then around 5:30, my in-laws come over to my parents' house for dinner.

This is what we've done for the last 3 years or so. It works out nicely. I know it's tough to juggle everyone's family commitments, but hopefully once you find something that works, you can stick with it!! Merry Christmas!

Wow- sounds like to much running around for me!!!!

My friend married a guy whos parents are divorced and both remarried--she says she didn't realize how complicated that would make her holidays at first! She not only has to split the time between her parents and his parents...but her parents and BOTH his sets of parents! She says she doesn't get time to relax at all- and its not like she can have the holiday at her house because both sets of his parents would never be at the same holiday meal!

 

[midwest-mom]

I remember in the beginning that it was tricky and I felt that they were keeping track of how many MINUTES we spent with one vs the other. UGH! So glad we have moved past that now.

And thats what I'd like our kids to avoid, but just don't know how. They can only be in town this one week so we couldn't have had one family last weekend with the other today and tomorrow, but that would be a good idea, too.

They've only been married a couple months and we all want to see them and be with them, as they want to be with us, too. And both families have too many siblings, not to mention extended family who are close. But I don't want them going home next week thinking they want to skip ever coming home again
Thanks for everyones thoughts, keep them coming.

 

[puffkin]

My inlaws live 1 mile away and my parents live 10 minutes away. That should make things easier, right? Holidays are a NIGHTMARE and it has gotten worse since DS3 came along.

Luckily the inlaws host both MIL and FIL family and my parents host both sides of their family. That cuts down on the stress a little. But both families do the big celebration on Christmas Day at 2 pm. Sorry, but we can't clone ourselves. Let me also add that my parents are there for us 365 days of the year. They help us out all the time, truly enjoy being around us and son and are very involved in our lives. My inlaws (don't forget they live 1 MILE away and MIL is unemployed) cannot be bothered with us. We hardly ever see them. Everytime we ask for some help (ie can they watch DS for an hour because DH is stuck in traffic and I need to go to work) it is always a huge ordeal. But at the holidays they want to put on a huge show of what a perfect family they are. Gag me!

So, this is what we do:
Christmas Eve me, DH, and brother usually have to work until mid afternoon. After work I go home and finish any last minute cooking/baking/wrapping. Sometimes we order in, but this year we are going out for Chinese with my parents and brother. Then back to our house. My parents will give DS the bulk of his gifts then and we spend the evening playing games and enjoying DS. Sometimes mom and I go to the late service at church.

Christmas morning we do the whole Santa thing at home with just us (and DH and I exchange, though usually not much). I throw in a breakfast casserole. Late morning we head over to my parents house. This is when we exchange with my parents and brother. There is usually a gift or two reserved for DS too but he usually has so much other stuff to play with he doesn't really notice. Then the extended family arrives for the meal around two and then we do a small exchange after dinner. I really only buy for my grandparents, no cousins or aunts/uncles or their kids.

Late afternoon/early evening we head down to the inlaws. Usually everyone is still there, though we miss the meal and exchange. The only people I do like in his family are my SIL/BIL and their gilrs. We give the nieces their gifts and our son gets his. It is kind of nice because the main exchanging is done, so the nieces and DS can really focus on those few presents. My inlaws don't give their own children anything and only give my DS something if I provide it for them. We stay for our token appearance...then head home. Sometimes I head back to my parents if people are still there or if other cousins have shown up.

My inlaws hate this and argue with us about it every year. But it is our best compromise. We have told them on numerous occassions that we will spend the majority of the time with people who actually bother with us the rest of the year. Why should we punish my family on Christmas? The only reason we even go to the inlaws is to see SIL's family.

 

[LindaG4458]

DH and I used to live about 45 minutes from both families but in opposite directions. DMIL was famous for her Christmas Eve buffet and open house. She cooked for it for weeks in advance. My DU (uncle) also had a family get together on Christmas Eve. Attendance at both was compulsory. At DU's house there was usually the family drama, including DSIL having DB (not her husband) arrested and thrown in jail on Christmas Eve for some imagined offense. DMIL was known to lie to us about the reasons her other children couldn't make it to get us to join them for Christmas Day. She didn't want to be alone. Enough already!

We decided to travel over the holidays, just us. It was delightful! No fights, no drama, no feeling like a rope in a tug-of-war. We spent several Christmases at WDW, one on a cruise, a couple skiing, and it was great. We get enough drama the rest of the year.

Now most of the offenders are gone but we still do our own thing on the holidays. Works for us!