These things leave me clueless.
Swapping families every other Christmas is reasonable. Normal.
Then what? Do you keep track of visits? Hours?
Do the hours count when its just mommy and kiddos and not the whole family?
No one told me that I should have gotten a family visit plan in a contract before the wedding.
{Just like no one told me that I would still look 8 months pregnant on the way home from the hospital. Yes, a cow in the first pictures with my child.}
I think I’ll soon have to take the tip from Kathleen and just stay home. Then we’ll vacation alone and the family can all come visit us.
So, what do you do?
Is this a real life problem for just about everyone?
Whenever I ask if people are thinking the same as me, I get an overwhelming feeling that I’m a freak child and y’all are gonna think I’m banana cakes. Then you tell me nice stories (maybe made up ones…hummm) and you make me feel all fuzzy. So, thanks.
On another note, forgive me for not reading your blogs as of late. We had the Verizon MiFi, but it was awful and had to return in before we got suckered into a 2 year contract. Last week my yard looked like this as they bored under the driveway to FINALLY bury the phone lines.
Lets just hope they get me some soon. I’m going stir crazy.
Ohh, don’t forget to enter my Rhoost giveaway!
I get so sick of scheduling family holiday & vacation times. I'm lucky that the in laws only do xmas on xmas eve so my family always gets the next day & we're all in the same town. But at the same time, I'm the one hosting the in-laws every.flipping.year. Just once, I would like to be able to not stress over how clean my house is or cooking for 20+ insane relatives.
UGH. My parents are divorced and re-married, and then John has a step-ford family. We have to alternate every other Thanksgiving and don't even get me started on Christmas! The smaller holidays such as 4th of July, Memorial Day, Easter… are all expected at my mom's. But no one wants to be there. At all. I would much rather spend every holiday with John's family. They at least like and want to be around each other. We probably go out to dinner once a week with John's family and probably once a year with my mom.
don't stress about it!! if worse comes to worse just say if you wanna see the baby & us then you need to come to us, because i am staying at MY house on the holidays!! seriously, my kids got to the point where they would cry on christams because thehy wanted to stay home & play w/their new stuff… you'll figure out what works for you guys. 🙂
My husband's parents are divorced. SO not only do we have to split holidays, but his family his split so that's hard too. I actually put my foot down before we got married and told him that my family wouldn't suffer and lose time because his parents chose to split up. He agreed. We honestly spend a lot more time with my family, but I think that has more to do with the fact that both his parents are dysfunctional. So normally we switch between Thanksgiving and Christmas between families and then swap years after that (ie Thanksgiving one year for my fam, Christmas the next and vice versa). It's awkward no matter how you look at it. Hope you figure out something that works.
You are not the only one. We just moved to Las Vegas… so now we have to visit two different states to visit both sets of in-laws and extended fam. Both families get deeply upset if we pick one over the other for specific holidays.. and both take it personal when you don't make an effort to visit as often as they believe is possible. I haven't been "home" for Christmas in my own bed in 6 years! If I wasn't such a selfless daughter/sister/friend/grand-daughter/d-i-l… I would gladly stay home and make all visitation rights a one way street. But I am thoughtful and considerate… so we sacrifice our holidays by travelling every year. The joys of marriage and moving away…
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I'm so glad I don't have to do that…both of our families live close BUT we still have to say we're going to go here first, then here later. Sometimes his family might not like the fact that we go to mine first…but I say get over it!
I never had to share Christmas growing up as I'm half Jewish, so we always did Christmas with my paternal grandparents.
I had to start doing two Christmases when my parents divorced when I was 18, but they were both in Ohio so it was doable. When I moved to Scotland we did every other Christmas US/UK.
Now my Mom is in California, Dad in Ohio, Mother-in-Law 45 minutes from us in Scotland and Father-in-Law inbetween Thailand and Glasgow.
Umm yea I have *NO* idea what we are going to do what we are going to do with Christmas/Blondie Boy's Birthday since they are within 11 days of each other. If you have any ideas I would LOVE to hear them!
Dude, don't even get me started on this topic. It has been all sorts of drama re: the holidays. No its not just you. Actually most of the drama has been with the hub's family, not mine. You may have heard about it already. I am not sure this issue ever really goes away, so good luck managing this year! In your case, its a good problem to have because you are close to both of your families now! 🙂
Girl how could you think no one else suffers this problem! We don't have kids yet but both of our parents are divorced and one on each side is remarried. My mom is here, my dad 4 hrs away in Louisiana, his dad in Zephyrhills FL and his mom in Spring Hill FL (about an hour from each other). I feel bad cause my mom and grandma here don't really have other family to spend the holidays with, so if we're gone, they're alone. But, I still think it's fair to share. My mom thinks she should get more of us since she's alone. John doesn't want to start a "timeshare" of us for the holidays and thinks we should be able to do what we want. Thanksgiving is not such a big deal, but I'm worried about Christmas. John says we should just go on vacation alone to set the precedence that we're not required to be at either fams. I think this is especially true with kids in the family. How can you start family Christmas traditions if you're not at home? Tell the fam to come to you!
Being that we live close to both our families, holidays can always get difficult because each side expects to see us. Thankfully my family does an early Turkey Day celebration for our extended family the weekend before so we are able to spend actual Thanksgiving with his family. Christmas is a whirlwind of family events…Xmas Eve day with at his Aunt's house, Xmas Eve with my family at my mom's or grandpa's and Xmas Day with him family. Our families our close so we always invite the other family to the events. It just depends if they have other people to visit. It's nice when we all get to spend the holidays together. I can't wait until we have a bigger house so we can host and invite them to travel to us!!
why not make everyone come to you? thats the way I would do it. its a good thing i have no parents and we only have to visit ians parents once in a while and they're willing to come see us.
Visiting family gives me a headache……..a migraine.
My DH and I live close to his family, my family is 1300miles away. I visit them every six months or so. My husband visits less often due to work. I get slack about it all the time. They(some of them) don't get that he works construction, sometimes that includes Saturdays and due to economy no vacation time. We spend every holiday with his family cause DH, BIL, SIL and I are all DH's Grandma has. DH has only missed one Christmas with her and I could not bare to put her through the holidays without us. My BIL missed Christmas once and it broke her heart. Families are complicated especially when you live in different states. Good luck.
When I was married, the issue was, how, when and for how long to send kids to another country to stay a summer or a few weeks with their grandparents. We made it easier by having them come to the US and getting them a green card so they'd come here when we wanted. Sadly no kids sprung out to make those arrangements that way. But the inlaws did stay.
My fiancee and I already ran into this problem with mothers day and fathers day. Mothers day is pretty much a stay at his parents because my mom passed away and fathers day is harder because we both have our dads and both are pretty local to us. I already worry about christmas, but we made a plan i think that on christmas eve we will be at my parents and than christmas afternoon we will go to his parents house that way we have christmas morning to ourselves. But I know a couple who just made it clear to the inlaws outlaws steplaws and such that while they love them dearly they are not going anywhere for christmas they stay home and spend it with their kids and they say its been one of the best things they have done they do christmas with family another day but christmas day they are at home.
the whole holiday thing is always so much drama!! umm I looked like 12 months pregnant when I came home from the hospital with my new born and I thought Id be walking out in regular clothes-ha!
My mom is not alive and my dad is a DB(douche bag(excuse the french)) so I don't really have this problem.
But I DO have the big problem of my in-laws living 10 minutes down the road…yeah. Luckily, they call before they stop by and the annoyance is kept to a minimum.
Our families work together so everyone gets equal time over the holidays. One one side, we have to work around my husband's schedule as a firefighter. One the other side, we have to work around his schedule and my uncle's schedule with the sheriff's department. this year, since we have a bigger house, we're having christmas here. i hope they're ok with that!
i hope you get internet soon. i feel your pain.
Ugh! I hate it! We used to do 2 thanksgivings in a day… it was too much. Now we alternate- whoever gets the Thanksgiving has Christmas Eve, and then the other parents get Christmas day. I can't wait until the day when our house is big enough that I can make them all come to us for holidays!
I hate, hate, hate trying to see both my family and hubby's for holidays. I just want to scream every year. Plus my parents are divorced so it's even worse trying to fit everyone in. Ugh.
We don't spend every holiday with my hubby's parents. They live almost 4 hours away and they also understand its hard traveling all the time with a toddler. Normally if we do Christmas we will either visit them or they come over to our house a couple weeks prior to Christmas and we celebrate with them then. Most holidays are spent with my side of the family (my mom's side). Thanksgiving last year we had hubby's family come down and they went to my familys house. Hubby's brother and his wife live out of state so we usually don't get together with them for any holiday. Hubby is a firefighter so there are times he works holidays anyway so going out of town is never really an option for us because he doesn't like taking vacation then. Hopefully you guys will be able to find something that works for you both. Its harder to travel when you start having a family of your own. Its somewhat easier if people come visit you! Especially at Christmas when your kids want to stay home and enjoy the new toys they get.
It's stressful. The families make it stressful tho. For instance, my mothers family lives in northeast Ohio. They have all of their lives. But my dads family has all lived down south. So for holidays, we would just stay at my mom's families.
This isn't an issue for me, but I had to remind my mother that things WOULD be different for BF & myself. His family lives in the same town as my family. Which means, switching holidays. She gave me attitude, but understands I won't be there for EVERY holiday party.