Reply to How to better manage hosting big family for holiday visit?

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[quote=Anonymous]It seems that the baton for hosting Thanksgiving has been passed to me and I need to figure out how to make the long weekend a bit less stressful. Last year, DH and I hosted 15 family members (19 including us + our kids) - his parents, his aunt and uncle, my parents, my sister, BIL and their 3 kids and my brother, SIL and their 2 kids.

While I really enjoyed having a big family thanksgiving dinner, the problem is that everyone lives a plane ride away so it was multiple days of hosting a massive group and entertaining them. Some stayed with us and others stayed in hotels. We tried to give everyone suggestions for things to do but they all just congregated at our house for 4.5 days and it was completely overwhelming to be responsible for figuring out meals and activities for everyone around the clock. Everyone was happy to contribute financially so that wasn’t an issue, but they all just wanted to hang out at our house and didn’t want to do separate activities yet couldn’t agree on group activities - so we literally did not leave the house expect for one dinner out. I was so frustrated on Thanksgiving day when I was trying to prepare a huge meal for everyone and our families had just taken over the house and messed up the kitchen making lunch for everyone, having snacks and not being helpful. Actually, my sister and SIL did try to help and broke a bowl and burned something which was annoying.

I am happy to host the dinner again this year but how do I get people to not move into our house for the whole time and also not expect that our group of 19 people has to do everything together or we do nothing at all? It would be great if they just came for 1-2 days but they all fly in Wednesday and don’t leave until Sunday/Monday and it’s just too much.[/quote]

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