A lot of family visiting - logistics help
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| I hope you’re not working while they’re in town? I would go mad. Anyway, assuming you’re both actually free to host, divide and conquer the crowd. Each day sometime in the morning state at least one plan for the day “Larlo and I are going to the air and space museum” “I’m going to putter around the farmer’s market” “We’re thinking of going to see Junior’s friend’s baseball game” or whatever. Ask who wants to come with. One parent goes on the activity and entertains whatever guests join in; the other parent stays home and does chores/preps dinner or socializes with the more sedentary guests. I’m assuming the no siteseeing thing wasn’t about hating museums so much as wanting to visit with your family, so if you bring your family to a museum arc least some of them will come too. When out and about you aren’t expected to cover guests’ meals. For the guest who stay home incombe them in household chores — they are family after all! — and feel free to send them to the grocery store or whatever as needed. |
Anonymous
OP said that the family wants to get together and make a vacation out of it. Graduation is just the impetus to make it happen. |
Anonymous
OP also said no sightseeing so these seem to be in opposition with one another by common standards...it just seems to be the precursor setup to what DCUM would call a "hot mess". That notwithstanding, the PPs have offered some solid advice and part of it hinges on essentially "forced sightseeing" and some dining out. |
Anonymous
| Elementary school graduation? |
Anonymous
| Hope for Covid? That’s all I got. |
Anonymous
|
OP, we entertain both sides of the family sometimes. You are absolutely doing the right things by getting ahead of this. I definitely map out a schedule (with plenty of free time) and make it very clear so a big group of people aren’t looking at me wondering if I’m going to whip up a meal for 12-15 people.
Things like: Weds: morning on own, graduation at 2, free time or hang out at our house afterwards. Celebratory BBQ dinner at C at 6:00 Thursday: optional visit to zoo at 10:00 (meet at Y place in the zoo). Lunch on the go there. Rest of afternoon on own. Pizza at our house for anyone inyereted - otherwise dinner on own Friday: morning and lunch on own (recommend walking around monuments). Visit to Air and Space museum. IMAX movie at 2:00. Let me know by x and I’ll get tickets for anyone who is interested ($11 each). Grab a quick dinner at Y between museum and your. Nighttime monuments tour at 7:00. Let me know if you want a seat and I’ll finalize the tickets ($25 each). Saturday: we have plans with the kids’ sports practices so everyone is on their own for most of the day. Meet up at our house at 5:00 and we will do a casual grill out. Etc. Etc. |
Anonymous
| Maybe the kid is a childhood cancer survivor or transplant recipient. We don’t know, people. |
Anonymous
|
Are you both taking the days off to entertain them?
|
Anonymous
Maybe. But my kid is a childhood cancer survivor and it never occurred to me to have anyone at her elementary graduation (other than myself and my husband). This whole thing seems very unusual and OTT. “Graduating” from elementary school is really just a fun event for the kids — it isn’t something most people consider super meaningful. |
Anonymous
|
Are they (or can they) stay at a hotel with a pool? You could then suggest a couple of gatherings at the pool. Order pizzas etc...
Schedule some home repair thing that will take your house out of commission for a day or two. (Seriously - schedule something and say the conflict couldn't be avoided. If your husband is willing to play along the white lie won't kill anyone.) Pick the occasions/days you're willing to host and get that out there in a overly positive but clear way. "We are so excited and touched your all coming! We'll plan to host everyone for graduation evening, and brunch on X. And maybe we can have pizza night by the pool at least one day that you're here? Happy to make suggestions for fun things to see and do while everyone is here also. There's a great vineyard in Moco that has food trucks, room to run for the kids for instance." Just get ahead of things w/ lots of suggestions and be wide eyed and shocked at a suggestion of just hanging around your house for 5 days. "Oh, really?! Wow, no - I can't handle that much cooped up time, or feeling like I'm responsible for everyone for that long. Let's figure out some options." It's ok to be honest. Hosting 13 people nonstop for 5 days is not something you can take on. Period. |
Anonymous
|
This is so outside the normal that I'd feel comfortable telling my own family: we didn't expect all of you to come at the same time and honestly I don't think hanging out at our house every day for 5 days is going to work--let's brainstorm some ideas for things to do to make this a worthwhile vacation for you.
Or use the PP's suggestions. If you meet any resistance, hold firm. Only complete idiots would fail to understand that it's a lot of work to host this many ppl for multiple days. |
Anonymous
This but I would tell all of them this! They are expecting you to be their host for a 5-6 day family reunion which you never offered or suggested. If they all were interested in doing DC vacation things on their own then great but no way when they’ll expect to be at your house being fed all the time. |
Anonymous
|
Last summer my parents, siblings and siblings' spouses and kids all came to visit for a week. 7 days. 4 people stayed at our house and the rest stayed elsewhere but came over to our house every morning and spent all day every day with us. Never. Again. Even my kids were sick of having people here by the end, and they love seeing their cousins, aunts & uncles, and grandparents generally.
While I will never do such a thing again and even get kind of panicky thinking about it now, I do think some things we did made it more bearable than it would have otherwise been. 1) A few weeks before the "reunion" I sent an e-mail to everyone with meal plans for the week. Roughly, night 1 (arrival day): spouse and I provide dinner, night 2: sibling 1 and spouse are responsible for dinner, night 3: sibling 2 and spouse, night 4: parents, etc. For breakfast/lunch/snacks and misc items, I created a grocery list on anylist app and shared it w/ everyone so they could put whatever items they wanted on the list and then I sent a splitwise out where everyone contributed $ to the grocery bill. 2) In that same e-mail, I shared a list of ideas of outings/activities for the week with the plan that we would do 1 thing each day (museum, zoo, pool, hike in the woods, etc.) If someone wasn't up for an activity that the rest of the group was doing, obviously they could opt out and stay home/entertain themselves (i wasn't forcing anyone to go on these outings) but there were no days where we all just sat around the house all day. 3) Every afternoon I instituted a rest time for my kids/myself/my spouse where we basically locked ourselves in our rooms and had screen time or read a book or whatever for an hour or 2 and the rest of the group could do what they wanted. 4) Every night my kids and spouse and I went to bed a lot earlier than we do when people are not visiting and again, it was to have time alone, not necessarily actually go to bed early. 5) My kids didn't have to be there the whole time (if they got invited to a play date or wanted to go over to a neighbor's house last minute, I wasn't going to say "no, we have company" like I normally do when people visit). They needed breaks. 6) My spouse and I went out alone 2x. We had babysitters! Usually I feel like I have to be there all the time hosting but this week was different and we needed the breaks so felt no guilt taking them. |
Anonymous
My kid also survived cancer. Only DH and I went to his sixth grade promotion ceremony. Most of his friends only had immediate family there not every cousin and cousin’s cousin. |
Anonymous
Gals, I am talking about the kind of cancer survival where it’s on the fence whether the kid has any further graduations. If that’s not you, then it’s not about you. |