Reply to First Holidays After New Baby

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[quote=Anonymous]Just looking for input. Our second is due in early October, meaning my leave will largely fall over the holidays. (We celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas.) In one sense, this is wonderful! In another, it means my leave could be stuffed with family/hosting.  Both my DH and I are looking for ways to keep things as stress-free as possible as we get into the swing of things with our new family of four. DH is self-employed so will take a few weeks but then will need to get back to it.

Holidays have always been a little fraught because we live quite close to my parents and my in-laws live across the country. My in-laws typically seem quite content to live their own lives and not be too involved with ours, but have a lot of expectation that holidays—scratch that, Christmas—will be spent together. (I once asked if they’d like us to always set aside Easter, for example, to be with “just” them and my MIL told me that was too inconvenient for them.)

Thanksgiving is a big one for my side of the family. My parents host and it’s a big party with a ton of family and close family friends and, honestly, is much more relaxing without all the emotional pressure and expectation of Christmas. I am also not the primary host, the way I have been for Christmas when my in-laws visit. Christmas this year also may be a bit more emotional than usual, with our eldest adjusting to her new sibling.

As a result, this year we’ve asked my in-laws to come up for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas—it gives us the opportunity to see a bunch of family all together but then enjoy a very quiet Christmas with my parents coming over for dinner as usual. I do understand my in-laws resent that last part, but we will be sure to get downtime with them 1:1 during Thanksgiving. I’ll also admit that my MIL can be difficult for me (as well as DH) to be around and has made judgmental comments about how we raise our children so, especially with the stress of a new baby, I think having some other folks around to entertain her and chat with her will help everyone’s stress levels.

This request is not going over well. My DH and I are on the same page, but he is taking the brunt of his mom’s frustration and I feel for him.

Any words of wisdom?
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