Reply to Visiting in-laws for 3 major holidays

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[quote=Anonymous]
OP, there is zero mention in the post about how your husband, their son, feels about any of this. At all. They are his parents; they are his to deal with if there is a conflict like this.

Tell him, not them, that you really want to spend Thanksgiving at home and want to go to them on Dec. 26. See what he says. If he is from a family where everyone always and invariably went to the grandparents' house for these three holidays, you need to talk with him about how YOU were raised, if it was different, and about how it's not wrong or mean to want to establish some holiday traditions in your own home and to make some memories for just your family, not the extended family. Tell him there are other times the in-laws can see the kids too -- and tell him you'd love them to come to see a kid's sports tournament or school play etc. Show you do want to see them, just not to be expected to spend every single holiday with them.

I hope he can get on board with you. It is not unreasonable at all to have at least one holiday in your own house, with or without the in-laws coming as your guests.

Just curious - is there some reason why you didn't mention how he feels about this? Is he just interested in "keeping the peace" so he just says yeah, we'll do what we've done ever since we moved and just keep going over there? It's easy to go along to get along, but you have as much of a vote in your holidays as he does. That fact seems to get totally lost, a lot, when one person's parents are living close by; the other spouse ends up seeming to have no say in a holiday decision that is fifty percent his or hers too.

And OP, this has happened every year since you moved. If you don't establish some holiday time for yourselves soon, it will become a precedent, "But we've always done it this way!" for the in-laws, your husband and maybe even the kids themselves. Compromise is key but you're not getting any compromise right now -- it's all three holidays, always with them; however, if you have not brought this up with your husband at all yet, do so now, well before Thanksgiving, because his parents are now going to assume you'll come to them. But if you have never mentioned it to him previously, he can't read your mind, so think about how to approach it and talk.

In fact the easiest way to break the cycle could be to plan a trip with just you, husband and kids somewhere over all four days of Thanksgiving. "This year we won't be with you -- we are traveling as a family the whole weekend. It won't be many years until the kids are older and won't want to travel like this with us parents, or wont' have time." (and that's true, OP!) Your kids might love a trip more than a traditional dinner at grandma's or at your own house either...And a trip does away with the in-laws ability to say, 'You were in the area but still didn't come over!"[/quote]

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