How do you pick where you spend the holidays?

[Anonymous]

Nobody in my extended family wants to get together for Thanksgiving or Christmas, so we spend Thanksgiving with friends and Christmas with my husband's family every year.

[Anonymous]

DH does not care where we spend the holidays as long as he can get some Golf in.

[Anonymous]

Thanksgiving lunch - our house with my mom and her husband. They are older and she is having health problems so she cannot visit her brothers and sisters for the holidays. She also would not be up to hosting anything.

Thanksgiving Dinner - my husbands relatives (mom, brother, aunts & uncles, cousins, etc.). Usually a big to do and a good time to reconnect and see them.

Christmas Day and Dinner - our house and anyone who wants to come is welcome. Sometimes we just have our moms. Sometimes we end up with 30 people. We started this tradition soon after having kids because kids want to stay home and play with their toys on Christmas.

[Anonymous]

My family was never big on traveling for holidays so we don't have a my family versus husband family for the holidays, it is more of me wanting holidays that we stay home. I agree with everyone else that you compromise and let go of the idea that you can only get together on the holiday.

We normally have a family celebration for our kids birthdays. My one child has a birthday near Thanksiving so we see our family for her birthday and spend Thanksgiving on our own. Christmas was more of the issue. We alternate so every 2nd or 3rd year we travel and we try to coordinate so we will see a cousin that also has kids. It has worked out for us because we have a bunch of family 3-5 hours away so we take that week off and see maybe 3 sets of family. It's crazy rushing around and packing up etc, but I appreciate getting to see people and for some people like my grandmother, we only see her if we travel there. At the same time we aren't putting a hosting burden on people every year. My MIL ends up having something like 20 people over and while I know she is happy that all her friends and family get to spend time together it is a lot of work. We also try to plan every other year to visit family as part of our summer vacation. That has worked out well because we get to see 1st cousins that live further away and that we may not see over Christmas when we travel. Fortunately for us they live in cool places.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of what you decide to do, it's probably a good idea (maybe in a month that doesn't put the pressure on as much, like in spring or summer) to talk over the fact that your agreement about holidays isn't the comfortable fit you'd like it to be, and what can you both agree on to be a new way to try it. It's fair that feelings about holidays evolve over time - the important part will be how to keep them a celebration rather than every time being some kind of dread or standoff. Good luck - I hope that you find a way to get some of your own traditions!!