My family is far away and we travel to ILs for Thanksgiving and spend Christmas at home. I want my kids to wake up in they own beds on Christmas morning, and I wanted to (and did) develop our own Christmas traditions that draw from both of our backgrounds instead of just doing what ILs want to do. I also have very little interesting packing up all our gifts, stockings, etc. and taking it to ILs, plus all the cold weather gear, plus all the other stuff you have to bring for kids for an extended stay in someone else's home, right after I just did a lot of this for Thanksgiving. And you know 90% of that falls on mom because dad doesn't understand what has to be packed.

ILs are always welcome at our house on Christmas and have never come.

We already visit ILs 4-5x a year, including Thanksgiving, and then will visit us, at most once a year and often none. We see my family, at most, twice (one visit to them and them visiting us once). This is fine -- we live closer to ILs and far from my family. But that's an enormous amount of travel for us, with young kids, just to visit family. I want Christmas to be a "home memory" for my kids, as it was for both DH and I.

Also, DH's mom is very Catholic and her Christmas revolves around multiple masses, advent, etc. Neither DH nor I are Catholic (he is lapsed and is agnostic at best) so these traditions don't have meaning for us and when we have spent Christmas with his family, we participate in this stuff primarily to humor his mom. No way am I dragging my non-Catholic kids through all that just to appease her. They are not even baptized, I'm not sending them to multiple Catholic masses over Christmas.

Anyway, we have found "we are spending Christmas at home this year" to be a statement that comes easier the more subsequent years you say it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just do 1 either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

You both have to get over the idea that holidays are about extended family.They aren’t. How old are your kids and how many do you have? Do you like Thanksgiving food?

Personally I would travel for Thanksgiving and do Christmas at home. None of us like Thanksgiving food so making a bunch of food that we don’t even like when it would only be the four of us was silly. Though our best Thanksgiving was actually going on vacation and eating at a nice restaurants for Thanksgiving, no one ordered turkey.

Personally I also like having the house decorated for Christmas, doing Christmas stuff leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Day just staying in pajamas while the kids play with their toys. DH grew up with always going to Christmas at his grandmothers so his parents never decorated or did much for the holiday which he found sad. He loves that our house has all the Christmas bells and whistles.

Op here. Part of the reason I want the holidays to be about extended family is because I want my kids to remember that it’s important to spend holidays with grandparents too. I know DCUM is big on hard lines and boundary setting so this is not a popular view, but I would be very sad if my kids never wanted to spend the holidays with me when I’m old. I would absolutely travel to them though if they prefer it.

To all those saying my DH should do more, he actually does a lot on the actual holiday day (tgiving and Xmas) when he has no work. But almost all the days leading up and after it, he has to work for at least a few hours everyday. He runs his own business so he is never truly off- when there is work, there’s work. It feels unfair to ask him to then do hours of childcare after working.

I’m not sure what you want. You’ve admitted your house is too small for them to travel here and it’s apparent they aren’t going to. You can only control what you can control. So either go unhappily to their house for both holidays or say no to one, as most people have suggested. I don’t think I read one post that they should come to you, which it appears you still want?!

Ok, my husband owns his own business and works all the time too. But LOL to this “he worked 5 hours the day before TG, so he cannot do any childcare” nonsense. He parents when not working.

I simply refuse to travel with kids at Christmas.

End of story.

This started when my first child was born. She was a winter baby so traveling that year wasn’t an option because it was too close to my due date. After that, I just laughed if anyone brought it up and treated it as the absurd non starter that it was.

Step 1 is to grow a backbone.

That sounds awful to do every year. But it is important for you husband so I would try to at least think about how it might work better. If it were me, I would have an important work project that requires me to fly down a couple of days later (or earlier). Your DH needs to do more parenting and less vacationing.

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to travel for Thanksgiving. It’s one of my least favorite holidays so I really don’t mind who we see (although I have local family so I haven’t tested it out but I really think I’d feel the same if we didn’t).

I would prioritize the Christmas trip. And definitely try and make your husband help more. Book yourself a spa day while you are down for your one long trip. Plan to do something 1:1 with which IL you like best. No joke he likes flying down and having you handle everything. Don’t do one single thing to help him pack (I always do for my kids because I don’t think they should be punished for my husband’s shortcomings).

I'm the opposite! But I think it's because we grew up traveling at Thanksgiving every year and we never traveled for Christmas. I don't like dealing with schlepping around gifts, and I like the way I decorate my house for Christmas. Thanksgiving I don't need any decorations, just lots of food and drinks. But Christmas I'm more particular about. So one year I get Thanksgiving (to be spent with my family or not) and the next year he gets Thanksgiving (to be spent with his family or not). Christmas is at home. I actually negotiated this when we were dating because I loved turning Thanksgiving into an entire week trip and loved being home for all of December. Luckily he agreed!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've got to establish boundaries. Maybe you travel every other year to the ILs. Children are the perfect excuse to stay home. Tell them you want to create your own family traditions at your home. Get your DH on board, though.

Op here. I guess that is my question- how to get DH on board. He prefers to go to in laws for several reasons
1. They live by the beach in Florida so it feels like a mini vacation for him (doesn’t feel that way to me because I do the bulk of work with the kids, but let’s not derail the thread)
2. In laws have big house suitable for hosting his other siblings as well, we don’t
3. If they didn’t come to us, it would just be our immediate family which would feel lonely (kind of agree with him on this point, holidays are for family)
4. When we go to them, they are great hosts and there is always a ton of food, house is insanely decorated and it just feels festive. We’ve never done anything like that at our place.

So he has legitimate reasons to feel this way. How do I talk him out of it?

Easy.

You give him a choice:
A. He does all the kid-wrangling during the trip and while at his parents' house.
B. You all stay home.

Your parenting burden is VERY MUCH FRONT AND CENTER in this discussion. Because frankly, your ILs' house sounds heavenly. The only reason you're not enjoying it is that your husband's a jerk who leaves you with the actual work.

Yeah, this. He needs to help more. Get him on board with that or you don't go. Literally tell him he can do the packing, etc. It's his family!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just do 1 either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

You both have to get over the idea that holidays are about extended family.They aren’t. How old are your kids and how many do you have? Do you like Thanksgiving food?

Personally I would travel for Thanksgiving and do Christmas at home. None of us like Thanksgiving food so making a bunch of food that we don’t even like when it would only be the four of us was silly. Though our best Thanksgiving was actually going on vacation and eating at a nice restaurants for Thanksgiving, no one ordered turkey.

Personally I also like having the house decorated for Christmas, doing Christmas stuff leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Day just staying in pajamas while the kids play with their toys. DH grew up with always going to Christmas at his grandmothers so his parents never decorated or did much for the holiday which he found sad. He loves that our house has all the Christmas bells and whistles.

Op here. Part of the reason I want the holidays to be about extended family is because I want my kids to remember that it’s important to spend holidays with grandparents too. I know DCUM is big on hard lines and boundary setting so this is not a popular view, but I would be very sad if my kids never wanted to spend the holidays with me when I’m old. I would absolutely travel to them though if they prefer it.

To all those saying my DH should do more, he actually does a lot on the actual holiday day (tgiving and Xmas) when he has no work. But almost all the days leading up and after it, he has to work for at least a few hours everyday. He runs his own business so he is never truly off- when there is work, there’s work. It feels unfair to ask him to then do hours of childcare after working.

This isn’t the way this works. You are giving your kids memories of spending holidays in Florida with their grandparents and cousins. What you aren’t doing is creating holiday memories as a family. When they are older and have their own families, they get to pick where they go and what they do. This is the only time in your life where you actually get to decide what they do for holidays. You are wasting precious years doing things you don’t want to hoping it will work out for you later. It’s not going to.

JUST SAY NO

Seriously. My family lives on the other side of the country. My husband's was 45 minutes away (we have since moved). We decided that we each got a holiday to decide what to do. Even if we didn't go to see my family, that didn't mean we went to go see his. They got one holiday, period. And you could even give them one holiday every other year if you wanted to and then each year you two do whatever you want for the other holiday.

It's pretty easy to avoid traveling somewhere - you just don't do it! If they want to be mad, let them. That's petty and stupid but you can't control that.

Anonymous wrote:Just do 1 either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

You both have to get over the idea that holidays are about extended family.They aren’t. How old are your kids and how many do you have? Do you like Thanksgiving food?

Personally I would travel for Thanksgiving and do Christmas at home. None of us like Thanksgiving food so making a bunch of food that we don’t even like when it would only be the four of us was silly. Though our best Thanksgiving was actually going on vacation and eating at a nice restaurants for Thanksgiving, no one ordered turkey.

Personally I also like having the house decorated for Christmas, doing Christmas stuff leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Day just staying in pajamas while the kids play with their toys. DH grew up with always going to Christmas at his grandmothers so his parents never decorated or did much for the holiday which he found sad. He loves that our house has all the Christmas bells and whistles.

Op here. Part of the reason I want the holidays to be about extended family is because I want my kids to remember that it’s important to spend holidays with grandparents too. I know DCUM is big on hard lines and boundary setting so this is not a popular view, but I would be very sad if my kids never wanted to spend the holidays with me when I’m old. I would absolutely travel to them though if they prefer it.

To all those saying my DH should do more, he actually does a lot on the actual holiday day (tgiving and Xmas) when he has no work. But almost all the days leading up and after it, he has to work for at least a few hours everyday. He runs his own business so he is never truly off- when there is work, there’s work. It feels unfair to ask him to then do hours of childcare after working.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We travel out of the country and bring a nanny so it's pretty low stress for us. But it sounds like that isn't quite your goal. Either make traveling to them easier for you (can you leave some stuff there in November so it's there in December?) or just decide to throw a Friendsgiving at your house and announce you're staying home. They're welcome to come to you if they want.

Keep in mind that old people (and sometimes this is physical age and sometimes it's state of mind) get frazzled out of their routines (kind of like babies), and at least they have the presence of mind to know that. Sounds like them staying with you would be cramped and uncomfortable for them.

The thing is, the older you get the less f**ks you give, and you do what you want. That's what your in-laws are doing. You can do it too - you can decide you're not going. Your DH might decide to take the kids there himself, or get really pissed at you, but when you give zero f**ks, you just ... don't care. So it's up to you.

Useless irrelevant and nasty humble brag. Oh, and do you ever take care of your kids yourself by the way? When they grow up they’re not going to give you the time of day. You reap what you sow.

NP. Get over it. Some people have a lot of money. It wasn’t a humble brag. It’s her life.

Just do 1 either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

You both have to get over the idea that holidays are about extended family.They aren’t. How old are your kids and how many do you have? Do you like Thanksgiving food?

Personally I would travel for Thanksgiving and do Christmas at home. None of us like Thanksgiving food so making a bunch of food that we don’t even like when it would only be the four of us was silly. Though our best Thanksgiving was actually going on vacation and eating at a nice restaurants for Thanksgiving, no one ordered turkey.

Personally I also like having the house decorated for Christmas, doing Christmas stuff leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Day just staying in pajamas while the kids play with their toys. DH grew up with always going to Christmas at his grandmothers so his parents never decorated or did much for the holiday which he found sad. He loves that our house has all the Christmas bells and whistles.

I know many people that have declared "we want our kids to spend the magical christmas years at home with traditions at our house and santa's delivery xmas morning. You're welcome to come to us but from ages x to y we won't be going elsewhere for xmas."

Did they get pushback? likely. but that's a value they wanted to have for their family and they held the line. I know at least one of the people (the dad) told his mom "you got to make christmas so magical for us as kids, now its our turn to do it for our kids" and didn't bat an eye at his parents protests

Anonymous wrote:Why is it stressful? We traveled every holiday. Once by car (6 hours to my family) and the other holiday by plane (to see ILs).

Do you make reservations, pack the suitcases and go. If you forget something he run to the store.
For Christmas I used to order things to be sent directly to parents or in-laws home.

If it’s stressful, once you get there, that is a completely different story.

Do you work? Do your kids do activities?

Anonymous wrote:We travel out of the country and bring a nanny so it's pretty low stress for us. But it sounds like that isn't quite your goal. Either make traveling to them easier for you (can you leave some stuff there in November so it's there in December?) or just decide to throw a Friendsgiving at your house and announce you're staying home. They're welcome to come to you if they want.

Keep in mind that old people (and sometimes this is physical age and sometimes it's state of mind) get frazzled out of their routines (kind of like babies), and at least they have the presence of mind to know that. Sounds like them staying with you would be cramped and uncomfortable for them.

The thing is, the older you get the less f**ks you give, and you do what you want. That's what your in-laws are doing. You can do it too - you can decide you're not going. Your DH might decide to take the kids there himself, or get really pissed at you, but when you give zero f**ks, you just ... don't care. So it's up to you.

You people are just. So. Clueless.