OP again- it's mostly that I resent that I bring 6 people out there every year, when my parents (who have much more free time) can't visit us more than every 5 years.

Op here. Thanks all for the perspective.

-I don't mind paying, but every year is a lot. Honestly, I would be fine with only going every 3rd year, but they've established an expectation that we come in to celebrate with the whole family.
-We usually celebrate a week or 2 before or after Christmas, so airfare isn't as much as Christmas week. But sometimes, it has cost us $2500.
-We are not at all driving distance.
-We have invited family to come visit us for kid events, usually annually, and most of them decline.

I think we'll try every other year and then offer to host Christmas at our house for everyone (which everyone will decline)

We visit the ILs once a year, usually over winter break. 5 of us fly. We pay and I never considered that they would pay.
Usually I consider our visit part of our gift to them

Anonymous wrote:I never understand this. Adults pay for their own travel expenses. If you can’t afford it, you don’t go.

+100

We all pay our own travel, but our parents loaned us money for our downpayment and are currently paying for extra-curricular activities for our oldest, so they help out in other ways!

I would explain it to them: "Mom and Dad, it's getting beyond our budget to travel to you, and we'd really like it if some family gatherings could happen at our place." And take it from there. I'm sensing they're rather pay for your tickets than come to you, for some weird reason. If it's a reason you can remediate, like minor changes to your house, you could get them to change their mind.

Anonymous wrote:We pay when we fly. Grandparents pay when they fly. When we go on vacation, we pay for our transportation, activities and kid groceries - my FIL pays for lodging and meals.

+1

Assuming its a decent vaca with decent people, of course - otherwise I save my time off for (nuclear) family time.

Anonymous wrote:I never understand this. Adults pay for their own travel expenses. If you can’t afford it, you don’t go.

+1000

We pay when we fly. Grandparents pay when they fly. When we go on vacation, we pay for our transportation, activities and kid groceries - my FIL pays for lodging and meals.

You pay. It would be nice for them to offer, but you choose to have 4 kids, which is very costly.

Funny, my parents always pay for my family or my sibling's family to fly for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Anonymous wrote:We are working adults, so we pay.

+1 I simply cannot imagine allowing our parents to pay for our travel. We have way too much pride. If we couldn't afford to travel, we would stay home.

Anonymous wrote:We pay but my parent gift us a lot every year ($28,000) so it's not something we even think about.

Altruistic.

We are working adults, so we pay.

We pay for our family of four to fly, we pay for hotels as needed (my mom lives in an apartment and there isn't room for all of us), and we pay for a rental car (my dad lives far out of the way). If you're a grown up, you should be paying for yourself. Your parents should be long done paying for you.

Go every other year.