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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I posted on the previous page about how we do Thanksgiving at ILs and Christmas at home. But I wanted to add a more general comment:

Your DH is likely like a lot of men and has a limited imagination about what family holidays can look like outside of their own family traditions. My DH was just like this. He just had no clue what hosting our own Christmas would look like. He was extremely reluctant to not go to his parents because (1) it was truly all he'd ever known, and (2) he didn't want to upset them.

Our first couple holidays at home were a bit hard for him. He liked some things but he missed certain traditions and just took time to acclimate. It took a bit of time for us to establish our own thing -- those first couple years, we had fewer decorations, I don't think we even had stockings yet, we weren't sure how to do meals or Christmas morning, especially when kids were too young to get excited. We tried different things -- going out to eat, cooking, takeout. It was tricky with babies and sometimes it didn't feel as festive as we hoped.

But then the year our oldest turned, I think, 3, everything clicked. She was aware it was Christmas and got excited. We did advent calendars, a tree, put up more decor. We invited friends over for "winter solstice" the week before, before any of them were traveling, and served mulled wine and pulled pork sandwiches (something we still do). We made pasta from scratch on Christmas Eve and had our oldest help. We did "Santa" and left out cookies and milk. On Christmas Day we put on old movie musicals, made a mess of pancakes, and then put the kids in hiking backpacks and did a Christmas hike. We had leftovers for dinner, put the exhausted kids to bed early, and had a quiet "date" in our living room just the two of us. It was, and still is, perfect.

And now DH wouldn't go back to his parents for Christmas if I paid him. He didn't know. We had to build the holiday from scratch. But that's *the whole point.* It's exactly what we want. It meets everyone's needs. It's designed for a family with young kids, unlike ILs Christmas which is designed for a retired couple in their 70s and their adult kids (no other grandkids).

I view this as a rite of passage for parents. I'm not completely averse to doing something else, and I think eventually we will (our kids will grow up and have other needs, families of their own). But we created this holiday for our kids and our family and we make amazing memories for all involve. It's about us, right now, and not about reliving the Christmases my DH remembers from growing up. He didn't get that before and now he does. Sometimes you need to pull them along a bit. He couldn't see it. I could.[/quote]

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