what do people do for the holidays when their families live far away?

[caitycaity]

inspired by kay7979's post about vacation time.

dh's family lives 3000 miles away from us. my family lives 500 miles away from us and my dad is always away on business except for the holidays.

dh and i are still trying to fine a compromise that makes us, and our parents happy when it comes to spending time with them over the holidays.

since we only have 3-4 days for thanksgiving we decided that it's not worth it to make the coast to coast flight for such a short time. plus, thanksgiving is my birthday and i would rather spend my birthday with my family.

so, what we've been doing is alternating xmas's with our families. last year we spent it with my family, so this year we will spend it with his family.

i was curious - what do other people who live far away from their families do?

 

[Catzeyes]

That is how we handle it here. My family is 2500 miles away in Wisconsin. One year we go home for Christmas, and celebrate Thanksgiving here with his family. The next year we switch and do Christmas here and go to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving.
I usually will fly back by myself for Easter of one of the other spring or summer ones. The rest are all spent with his family just due to the cost of both of us going. It is hard but I am getting use to it slowly.

 

[Kimberle]

Now that I'm married, we generally spend it with dh's family (when they don't have other plans, that is.)

Before dh, I would fly home for Christmas. I went for Thanksgiving once. It was just to hard for such a short time. I was to stressed about snow/ice. A few times, I went over to friends. I rather felt like a "3rd wheel", so after a couple of times, I just opted to stay home. Sometimes I'd go in to NYC to watch the Macy's parade.

 

[mickeyboat]

My family is 800 miles away. Before kids, we tried really hard to see each family for Christmas. When the kids were babies, we tried to do Christmas with one and Thanksgiving with the other.

Now the kids are 3 and 4 and we want to be home for the holidays. We can't afford to fly, and driving that time of year is not always easy. So we stay home for the holidays. My mom came to visit us last year, and we had a great time.

Denae

 

[CEDmom]

DH's family is close in miles but not in other ways so we don't spend holidays with them. My family is scattered. My mom is in FL, one brother is in CA, another in MA and the 3rd in Europe. We used to go up to MA for Christmas but now that we have DD we stay home. Either my mom comes to us or we make it special just the 3 of us. We do have DH's family over but just not on the actual holiday. The other holidays I don't care as much if we're not home. For Christmas though while DD is young I want her waking up in her own house.

For the past few years we've been going to Hershey, PA for Thanksgiving. It's a nice easy getaway and it's already nicely decorated for Christmas. Last year we went to CA in early Dec and had an early Christmas with my brother and his family and then my mom came to our house when we got home. She'll be here again this year and we're thinking of doing CA again in Dec 2005.

 

[jwsqrdplus2]

Sometimes we try to get to family, but most of the time we stay put. DH's parents are divorced and both remarried. They live in 2 different cities, my parents live in a third city, and DH and I live in yet a 4th city. Travelling with 2 young children a lot is not my idea of fun.

Although, we are doing a sweep of all the g-parents in the 2-week trip refered to in my countdown timer. Then we take the kids from their centrally located home to AZ by the end of the year. Once we are out there, I do not know what we will do.

 

[SC Minnie]

DH's family is 500 miles away. We used to alternate every year spending Christmas there (a different sibling would host each year- one wanted it at her our almost every year). We had traveled to Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Chicago with a young child. The year we moved into our new house we offered to have his family here for Christmas. The sister that always wanted it at her house said she wasn't coming because she wanted her children to be at her house on Christmas (they were several years older than mine). Well, I told DH that I wanted mine to be at hers at Christmas too and we would no longer travel at Christmas. We have gone to visit at Thanksgiving and other times of the year but not at Christmas in 5 years.

 

[missypie]

We enjoy ourselves!!!

Seriously, our parents have standing invitations to come visit, but usually they don't. We don't travel over the holidays and everyone knows it.

 

[binny]

Last year we did both families and it was horrible!!!

We went to my moms ( 8 hours North of here) for Christmas and left the day after for dhs family ( another 8 hours further North).
It was so hard and the kids were SO tired it just wasnt fun.

I think we will be staying home from now on and they can come and visit us. We can visit them during the summer.

Thats just how I feel anymore. sad, but true

 

[rhanditresmom]

We used to alternate. We would spend Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with the other, then the next year switch it around. One day we sat back and realized that we are the only ones in either family doing the dreaded travel every holiday, SO we decided to STAY HOME! None of my brothers are married, neither is my sister. My parents are still able to travel, as is my DH's sister (her kids are grown). We just decided it wasn't really fair for us to pack our christmas up and move every year. Santa was really getting tired! Everyone knows they have an open invitation down here!

 

[Disney Ella]

My family lives 4 1/2 hours away and DH's family lives 6 hours away. Before the kids were born, we used to always spend holidays with one or the other family. After the kids were born, it just got too hard and the kids like spending holidays (especially Christmas) in their own house. I can't say I miss all the holiday traffic. I'd rather visit at other times of the year when the roads aren't so crazy.

 

[ScarlettO]

Once you have kids, things will change. My sis visits her family (here) once every 2 years in the summer. It takes them 2 days to drive here. They can drive to his family in about 8 -10 hours in Florida, so go there once or twice a year.

 

[helenabear]

We have it set up to alternate holidays (TG "here" and Christmas "there"). It seems though, that my in-laws time off never coincides with our time off so it hasn't happened that way in a long time. I usually wind up in town either with my side of the family or with my husband ourselves for the holiday.

 

[Jenn Lynn]

After we had DD we decided that we wanted Christmas to be at home. My parents live in Idaho (I am in WI). DH's parents only live 3 1/2 hours away. It was hard though because his family has always had this get together on Christmas Eve, but it got hard when all of the Grandkids moved away and had families of their own. So now we do it on a weekend before or after Christmas. My parents know that we won't travel for the holiday's, but that they are more than welcome to come to us.

I just did not want to do all that rushing around. I like DD waking up in her own bed and seeing the presents under our tree.

 

[disykat]

When I was single I found other holiday orphans and had potluck meals at my apartment. The year there were only two of us we went out to a fancy restaurant. We would even have progressive tree decorating parties to help us all decorate family style!

Now, dh and I have found a group of families from church that we celebrate with. All of our families live away. We generally spend Thanksgiving and Easter together, but our Christmas gathering is a party around, not on, the holiday. DH and I pack up the kids the day AFTER Christmas to go the 400 miles to visit our families. We enjoy having our own Christmas and celebrating at our own church etc. We started this tradition when we had our own children. (It was a bit of an adjustment for dh's family to accept this idea, but I stood firm and I'm glad I did!)

 

[auntpolly]

I always used to think it was silly to have to be so careful to divide holiday time between all family members but as DD gets older I'm getting this vision of her married and us not seeing her on Christmas! I know we'll be depressed!

As it stands now we do our best to see everyone we can, sometimes to the point of ridiculous arrangements - our parents and aunts and uncles are getting older and won't be around forever!

 

[caitycaity]

Originally posted by disykat

Now, dh and I have found a group of families from church that we celebrate with. All of our families live away. We generally spend Thanksgiving and Easter together, but our Christmas gathering is a party around, not on, the holiday. DH and I pack up the kids the day AFTER Christmas to go the 400 miles to visit our families. We enjoy having our own Christmas and celebrating at our own church etc. We started this tradition when we had our own children. (It was a bit of an adjustment for dh's family to accept this idea, but I stood firm and I'm glad I did!)

that sounds really nice!