Marriage should consist of compromise & your husband should respect your wishes this yr.

After all, you have been seeing your in-laws the past eleven yrs!!

This yr should be about you.

I think this has more to do with you not liking them than the excuse of not being able to have your movie time. We have always had an early dinner with my parents on Christmas Eve and were always home early enough to have evening traditions with our kids.

The holidays are when people treasure spending time with family and it’s a time kids learn to appreciate having extended family. So many people live far away or don’t have family.

How late are you getting home that you can't do this?
We will go to my inlaws Christmas Eve, start "yawning" after the food and presents and be home around 8 pm, plenty of time to watch a movie and drink cocoa!

If you spend Christmas Day with just your family, I would give the in-laws Christmas Eve. Now that my sons are getting to be older teenagers, I remind myself that I need to model how I hope they and their future spouses will treat me. I certainly hope I can see them Christmas Eve or Christmas.

Anonymous wrote:Why not pick another evening to have as your Winter holiday eve where you read a book, drink hot chocolate, and watch It's A Wonderful Life. You could do that on the 23rd or 25th or 26th etc.

This was my instinct as well. So long as the other members of hour immediate family are enjoying their extended family tradition, which happens one night a year, I'd try to let them have that day, then deliberately plan my own cozy family-at-home tradition.

Is it just your ILs or a whole "Christmas tour" to multiple homes. If just ILs, I think you suck it up for a few hours and schedule your chill evening on the couch for the 23rd or Boxing day or something. Make it your tradition that the last Sunday night before Christmas is for this activity. But accept that Christmas Eve will involve an ILs visit.

However, if it's a whole tour visiting multiple relatives in succession, that sucks and I would talk to your DH about a better balance. Maybe he takes your son to visit his cousins and siblings and then you join at ILs for Christmas Eve dinner only. Or maybe your son stays with you if there aren't kids at those houses (bring dragged to visit a series of different adults on Christmas Eve as an only child sounds like torture). It doesn't make sense if your family is spending the day driving between multiple houses while everyone else gets to stay home and host, and I'd also be putting my foot down on that after a few years because no one wants to spend Christmas Eve driving around making small talk with every member of their spouse's family in their various homes. If this is what it is, why don't people come to you?

Anonymous wrote:When your DH is comments out of the year, he likely has no ability to participate in many family holidays and celebrations. I don’t think it’s that hard to govern up a night of being alone reading so that he can be a part of this family tradition.

That was supposed to say that when your husband is in commercial fishing and gone for months out of the year, he likely has no ability to participate in many family holidays and celebrations.

When your DH is comments out of the year, he likely has no ability to participate in many family holidays and celebrations. I don’t think it’s that hard to govern up a night of being alone reading so that he can be a part of this family tradition.

Anonymous wrote:Why not pick another evening to have as your Winter holiday eve where you read a book, drink hot chocolate, and watch It's A Wonderful Life. You could do that on the 23rd or 25th or 26th etc.

This.
Youre going to be an in-laws one day. Show some grace.
Christmas Eve isn’t about alone time.

Stay home OP! Or take two cars and leave early.

Just tell him you're sitting out the family tour this year and do your own thing. I wouldn't expect him to stay home with you, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're asking him to do.

Does your small child enjoy spending Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa’s? If yes, then you need to just suck it up and act happy, sorry to say.

Stay home
Tell your husband you’ve had enough
Husband & kid only attend

My mother in law lives 8 mins away, father in law 35 mins, my mom one hour, elderly unmarried aunt one hour.
So all these folks need their “turn” on every holiday. I tell myself that I am teaching my kids how I would like to be treated one day.

Have a discussion with him expressing your wish and right to spend holidays at home or with your family every other year. This way its fair to everyone.