Poll about visiting family for Christmas......

[xxxxxxxx]

ok, here is our situation.

 

All family is 500 - 700 miles away.

They all expect us to come back for holidays.

Only 1 out of 5 siblings ever come to visit us.

The majority of family does not hold our Christian beliefs about Christmas.

A few siblings and inlaws won't even talk to each other.

My sil doesn't like my dh.

Two of the cousins I would rather not even have my dc around because of their behavior.

[Amy in Orlando]

We live in the same town as my parents and brother and we get along with them. Dh's family stopped speaking to us four years ago, so that's not an issue.

 

Could you plan a post-Christmas visit every couple of years as a compromise. There might be less pressure and fewer chances of large gatherings involving people who don't get along very well?

[abbeyej]

I'm so sorry going home is unpleasant. (( )) We go to my family every year -- but it's because it's one of my favorite times of year! ... I guess if it weren't something great for my own little family, I would rethink going. :(

[gardening momma]

We go every other year. My parents live about 6 hours away. His parents live 20 min. away :001_huh:

 

Growing up, my family always visited one set of grandparents one year for Christmas, and the other set the other year. But we didn't have the issues you have. Sorry I can't help.

[Parrothead]

On dd first Christmas I said never again. If they (both sets of our parents) want to see her on Christmas then they know where we live.

 

It was the biggest headache trying to find time to plan time with dh's three sets of family (his mom, his dad and his grandmother), my parents, and time together with the three of us. I was exhausted. I decided at the end of the day it was too much work. Dd was only going to get older and she needed time to play with her presents. I don't mind doing the cleaning, cooking and preparations for large gatherings. We don't travel for Christmas.

[TXMomof4]

I would have chosen other. At our convenience. It may be every year for a while, then we may not go for several years. We spent the first long part of our marriage catering to everyone else's families and schedules. Now, we have four kids to haul around plus a big dog. We get there if it fits into our schedule and plan, sometimes they come to us, but it's not a mandatory thing for our Christmas/Thanksgiving.

[Sarah CB]

Ok, I voted "never" but what I meant was that we have no obligation to go back. We have a large house and everyone is welcome to come and spend Christmas with us. We're the only ones with kids; hence our kids are the only grandkids. We both grew up in houses where Christmas was spent at home. You woke up in your own bed, spent the day at your own house and then went to sleep in your own bed that night. Added to that, for us, is attending our own church now.

 

We love our family and would like nothing better than to spend Christmas with all of them. We let them know that loud and clear and well in advance. Then we open up our home to whoever can make it here.

 

Dh's dad and step-mom have never made it for Christmas because their dog sitter is always booked for Christmas. :001_huh:

 

Dh's mom is pretty good about coming down.

 

My mom will either come for Christmas or will come shortly after Christmas - depending on the costs of the flights.

 

This is home :)

[mom31257]

It does sound like a tough situation. Is Christmas the only time you see this family? Do grandparents live there? I would think it is important for your kids to see them at least once a year.

 

We see both families during Christmas, but dh is a public school teacher and has 2 weeks off. My parents are 4 hours away, and his are 11 hours away. We also see them quite a bit other times during the year as well, both us going and them coming. I see these kids around here who practically live with their grandparents and wish mine could see them more.

 

My mom goes to a surgeon tomorrow about possible breast cancer. I guess I just realize we don't know how long we have with any of our family, so we should make the most of what we do have.

 

Whatever you decide, I would consider the kids feelings and make sure you and dh are in complete agreement over it. That will matter the most in the long run.

[Brenda in FL]

I'll have to face this question for the first time this year as we just moved out of state from both our families.

 

In the past, we spent most Christmases at home and had the big family gathering at my parents house 15 minutes away. We would go to my in-laws for New Years as they always had a large, family New Years Eve party anyway.

 

Last year we traveled to N. Car. with all the in-laws for Christmas - it was fun, the kids loved it, but I felt our advent season was lacking for me. I didn't like the stress of the packing, traveling, getting all the gifts ready, planning, etc. that went into the trip - not to mention forgoing our own personal traditions we would do if we were home.

 

So I am inclined not to go home for Christmas, even though I will really miss not spending the day with my parents and extended family. I am praying that my Dad will want to travel up here instead. Otherwise - I am not planning to travel until after Christmas. Sounds like that may be a happier option for you. At any rate - I'm hoping that staying home this year will set the precedence that our family will not be the one always traveling for the holidays. (I am not forgoing all holidays though - I definitely plan to be in S FL for Easter!!)

[Jami]

So far we've tried to see family every Christmas. Both sides if we can, though that's a tough trip since we have to go 600+ miles to my in-laws, then 600 miles to my parents and then back home in a giant triangle if we want to see everyone. But it's doable.

 

We love Christmas with my in-laws, even though they tend to be more "gifty" than I prefer. It's just a really joyous time. And we love to spend New Years and have a late Christmas with my family, my sister and I have 8 (soon to be 10) children between us in stairsteps and it's important to us to get together as often as we can.

 

But this year we'll be here in TX and I don't know if my in-laws will come down before Christmas or not. I'm due around New Years (as is my sister) so neither of us are traveling anywhere. But I expect my parents will come after the baby is born and we'll have a late Christmas then.

 

But for the most part, I'd rather travel to be with family on the holidays. Not that I don't love time with my own little family unit, but right now I think we all agree that our favorite holiday times are those we have are with our grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.

 

Jami

[lynn]

We decided when we had children we would stay home and start our own traditions. We see fil and my parents and siblings throughout the year. Which is less stressful for all not aiming for one day of celebration brining all the gifts, baking, packing, traveling, unpacking etc for 6. I love decorating, baking and everything about Christmas. We've enjoyed our stress free holidays. Now there is always an open invitation for anyone who wants to come to us is more than welcome. Everyone chooses to do their own thing for Christmas iwht their families. AFter years of making Christmas for everyone my mom and dad have not one living by them any longer so pretty much spend it alone. It's sad if I thik about it but they really are content after 40+ years. However, mother, bless her, is a nurse and volunteerily takes Christmas Eve/Christmas shift so the younger nurses with families can have off since many have taken those shifts for her in the past so she could be with the family. I think she will do New Years Eve also.

[WTMCassandra]

We battled this for almost 20 YEARS. Eventually it got so toxic we had to stop going to protect our children. We were not sorry to move 3000 miles away and lose that obligation. No relatives for Christmas, all of the time--it is sheer bliss. Please keep in mind that it was really awful and we tried various measures for a long time to mitigate the experiences before you bomb me.

 

If I were in your situation I would at least drop back to every other year, short visits, possibly staying in a hotel, and trying to be present with your children at all times. And I would add lots of prayer before, during, and after.

[*anj*]

I would have chosen other. At our convenience. It may be every year for a while, then we may not go for several years. We spent the first long part of our marriage catering to everyone else's families and schedules. Now, we have four kids to haul around plus a big dog. We get there if it fits into our schedule and plan, sometimes they come to us, but it's not a mandatory thing for our Christmas/Thanksgiving.

 

Yes, similar experience here.

When we were just a couple we'd travel all over the place to see both sets of relatives for Christmas. After the birth of our first child I announced that anyone was welcome to come to our home for Christmas, but we won't be traveling anymore. My parents and brother have come every year, no one in dh's family has ever come. That's actually perfectly fine with me/us. We always see his family sometime during the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Now that the kids are a little older and we've cut way back on our Christmas spending, we've considered traveling to another state to visit my parents. Still, I don't think I want to do that. They are kids and they will be happiest in their own home. My parents will still come here. Maybe we'll go to them some day if their health is poor, but not now.

 

In the case of the OP, I would not go spend Christmas with the family under those circumstances. Every reason you gave could stand alone as sufficient to excuse you from attending. I really wish that this holiday didn't have such a huge emotional draw for so many people.

[Mrs Mungo]

I voted every other year but that's not really the case. It really depends upon where we're living and what we have going on at the time.

[Heidi @ Mt Hope]

If 'going home' for Christmas involved a deal of travel to see family that wasn't pleasant to be around, I doubt we would put a bunch of effort into it.

 

We are *blessed* to have my whole family within 15 minutes. We drive to my parents house (2 miles down a country road) to spend every Christmas day. I don't think we have ever had a Christmas in 13 years without both of my sisters, their spouses, and eventually all the grandkids. I can't think of anyone else I would rather spend the time with. My family is *awesome.*

 

Dh's family situation is a little strange, but he has 'adoptive' parents that live in town. They don't expect us to spend Christmas with them (and they are often out of town themselves), but we always have them over for a nice dinner during the Christmas season to spend time together and exchange gifts.

 

Come to think of it, I might try to schedule a separate Christmas get-together *not* on Christmas day if we did decide to visit family out of town that might ruin our celebration.

[linders]

Prior to DC, our parents expected us to go home every Christmas. It was a 3-4 hour drive in good weather over mountain passes to DH's family, another 2 hours further to mine. It being December, it usually took hours longer. We went, doing this juggling thing between houses, even when the passes were a blizzard...even when I was having a very bad time during my first pregnancy...even when we really didn't want to (lots of negative stuff at my family's).

 

The instant first DS was born we let both families know that we would be starting our own Christmas traditions at our own home. No packing up little ones for a difficult trip, no missing out on our own place. Our DC would wake up in their own beds and come down wide-eyed to the tree they had decorated and the train Daddy had set up overnight. But our parents were welcome to come here!

 

The families grumbled but, gee, they were too busy with their stuff to come here. 'Nuff said.

 

I voted "every 5 years" just because I imagine that someday we might go. But we never have.

[Ellie]

If I were you, I wouldn't want to go, either.

 

In the last 30+ years, I have spent Christmas with my family just a handful of times, as most of that time we lived at least 14 hours apart or on opposite coasts. We spent many years with my mil, but then she lived in the same town.

 

I would love to be able to visit with family at Christmas; that would be part of our traditions. But it would only happen if (1) dc were able to open their presents on Christmas day and actually spend time playing with them, and (2) we all got along.

[Jenne]

This one hits home. After last year, I finally put my foot down and said NO MORE. I had grown to hate the holidays. It was always visiting DH's family, because they live close enough to drive to. That wasn't the real problem, though. That would have been fine. But there were definitely some issues. Not the least of which is the repeated comments that "I didn't think DH should marry you." (We've been married 14 years this month) and the pitting of my sons against each other (implying that I favor my younger son, who is biologically mine, over my older son, who is not) and the constant complaining about any child who didn't make it to the event.

 

Three years in a row, I have ended up crying in an upstairs room. We're still going to try to visit them around that time, but never again on Christmas Day. Plus, I missed my own house, my own tree, and being able to give my kids gifts without being judged. And, we could open presents from *my* family on Christmas Day, instead of hurrying to open them before jumping in the car, and not showing the gratitude and respect the gifts from my family deserved.

 

This is a very emotional subject for me.

[akmommy]

We have gone to my parents every year for Christmas since we've been married. They live ten minutes away and we are not expected till mid afternoon so we still have time to enjoy our Christmas at home. But if we had to travel out of town and/or deal with a situation like you described we absolutely would not go. :glare:

[Rosie_0801]

For that amount of travel time and cost you could go the opposite direction and have a great time. Or do you think Christmas is all about duty, obligation and pleasing everyone except yourselves? My strongest memories of childhood family Christmases are of being sent outside with the little kids while the aunts argued. Tell your relatives that Christmas is about the children, and you are staying home to recreate your favourite memories from childhood like decorating the tree, waking up to the special Christmas breakfast, for your own kids. I realise you are Christian and believe the holiday is about Jesus, but you said your folks aren't so "about the children" is probably a better line to use. Mothers in particular can be placated by hearing that you are doing the same special things for your kids that they did for you. Have your kids make a special phone call before they go to bed on Christmas Eve, take photos of the kids through the day and send them to her, ask her to send each of your kids a special ornament for them to hang on the tree before they open their presents.

 

If they still complain, take your phone off the hook until after New Year.

;)

Rosie

[gamommy]

Thank you for starting this thread and to all those who responded. I am in a similiar situation. We moved from New England to Georgia 2 1/2 years ago. A few months later my father followed us down but my mother, stepfather, siblings, and dh's entire side of the family still reside up north.

 

Honestly we made the choice to travel home for Christmas that first year in 2006. GA didn't quite feel like home yet and we wanted to spend Christmas with familiar faces and places. DH is a p/s teacher so we have been visiting twice per year (summer and Christmas) since.

 

Our last couple of visits have been tense to say the least. The 1100 mile trip has become expensive, we've since had a baby (15mths now) who doesn't enjoy long car rides, and there just seems to be conflict when we get there. It's frustrating that agreeing to visit isn't enough! Dh's family continues to push us once there about how to divide our time. They are quite possessive of us when there and give us a really hard time about visiting with any of our friends or with my side of the family. We tried to assert ourselves a bit last Christmas and this past summer, but failed miserably. Dh's family doesn't share our Christian beliefs either so one of the largest conflicts was over our wanting to attend services on Christmas Eve at our former church in NH. It was one of the planned highlights of our trip north and we ended up missing it because MIL literally threw a teary tantrum and got our children all upset thinking that they were ruining grandma's Christmas by going to church! The reality was she was going to open presents an hour or two later than she wanted to... grrr.

 

Since returning home from a disasterous summer trip last month we have no desire to go back in December. Dh and I have been praying and discussing just how to break this news to everyone and are resolving not to 'cave' when the fireworks and teary tantrums begin. We need to resolve this soon as my in-laws are planning to join us for Thanksgiving this year (their decision, not our invitation persay) and we need to let them know up front that our decision is final and is not to be discussed or debated during their visit. I hope once we get beyond this that OUR family can enjoy a truly blessed and peaceful Christmas this year.

[momofkhm]

At the beginning of our marriage we traveled 2 years out of 3. And then the year we didn't travel, people came to visit here. Then one year, the first year in a new house for us and my parents it all came to a head, a bad head. It was to be a year spent at the IL house. I wanted to be at my house. My mom wanted us at her house. I could make no one happy, even my self. Then there was a power outage at the IL house. My folks live 20 minutes away but there power was fine. IL sent us to go to my folks for the night. My mom was suddenly thrilled. I was still unhappy. I told dh that night (Christmas Eve) that the next 3 years would be spent in our house and the following year would be alone. Well the 3 years was up years ago! We are still spending Christmas in our own home. The reason we give our folks is that we are very involved in our church and we need to be home. No one has mentioned coming to their house since. Now I am happy.

[SnowWhite]

Sorry. I voted before I read your explanatory post. I voted every other year (for us), but change that to NEVER for your situation.

[PariSarah]

Usually we're the ones traveling, although once or twice family has come to us.

 

For Christmas, we alternate which family will get us for Christmas week. The other side gets a quickie visit just before or after New Years. We put our collective foot firmly down at the idea that we would rush around T'giving weekend to see both families. At T'giving, we visit whichever family won't be seeing us on Christmas Day.

 

Having control over our Advent celebration--having Advent be the time that we really pass on our beliefs about Christ's birth, the time that we make just-our-family traditions, the time that we protect from negative influences--makes it easier to do what other people want us to do on Christmas. I get them for 358 days out of the year, and I spend the four weeks before Christmas doing an intense focus on the meaning of the coming of Christ. They'll survive a week with cousins who are a bad influence, the grandparent that just doesn't seem to get it, the aunt that always has something nasty to say. It's just part of being a family. Unless your family is positively abusive, it's worth preserving, warts and all.

[EarleneW]

We get together with family for Thanksgiving generally and spend Christmas at home. My kids want to be at home with their new stuff, not going from house to house all day. It is a fun relaxing, lazy day about our family.

[3lilreds in NC]

When we moved to NC from MI, we went home for every holiday - before we had children. Once the children were born, dh and I agreed that we did not want to travel on holidays. It was dh's thing, really, because I love being with extended family so much that I probably would have traveled.

 

My inlaws have always been difficult, but now our relationship is such that I have nothing to do with them except when they visit, which is as infrequently as I can make it. It's probably good that we don't travel for holidays, because that would have made an unpleasant situation even worse.

 

We've been fortunate that our parents come for every other year at Thanksgiving and Christmas (they trade off years). It's just too far, though, to deal with driving.

 

In your situation, I wouldn't do it. I would let people come to you if they want to. Maybe once every 5 years or so. Just because there is an expectation that you will travel doesn't mean you have to do it. Sounds like time to revisit that plan and make some new traditions.

[Carrie12345]

We don't have a very big travel situation for Christmas. My inlaws live an hour and a half away (which we already drive every couple of weeks) and most of my family lives 1 hour away. My parents and sisters usually travel up from GA at Christmas.

 

Still, we made big changes a few years ago.

 

Dh grew up with all of his family coming to his house for Christmas.

I grew up going to one set of Grandparents in the afternoon, and the other in the evening (We did the same for Thanksgiving, and alternated the time of day each year.)

 

We attempted to follow my family's tradition when we got married, and it was a disaster. My inlaws HATED the idea of their grandchildren spending the day with anyone else. It was ugly. They were actually sabotaging us into losing time with my family.

 

Now we have a tradition of taking the kids swimming at the hotel my parents stay in on December 23rd. The kids then stay at my inlaws from the 23rd to 24th. We're home as a nuclear family on the 25th. My family comes over on the 26th (they spend the 25th with my big extended family), dh's family comes over on the 27th.

 

Not doing the big shindig with my parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandmother is a BIG sacrifice for me, but it's brought an enormous peace to dh and the kids and me. I no longer have to feel guilty about who we're with and when, and I don't have to drag my kids around until they drop.

 

And we avoid most of the family drama!

[Murphy101]

My family = never. literally and that's fine for a good dozen and more reasons I won't go into

 

DH however is an only child whose parents tend to think we should always do what they want at thier home for. every. single. holiday. mother's day, 4th of july, thanksgiving, labor day, easter, father's day, you name it.

 

Well due to my lack of childhood, I've always been less than thrilled with christmas and adding the helter skelter of the christmas insanity to it just makes it worse. seriously I'd love to just skip the month between thanksgiving and new years.

 

After 5 kids I threw a hissy fit extrodiare and said never again. It's the ONLY thing I've ever asked my dh to give me for christmas. They get every single holiday except christmas eve and christmas day. For that one, they can come to our house or not as it suits them. It's wonderful. We have some traditions now. A big homemade Christmas buffet at about noon and are still enjoying it at 5 o'clock. The kids eat the stuff in their stocking for breakfast. We can stay in our PJs. The kids get to play with their stuff for more than 5 minutes and don't have to load it up usually losing half or the pieces before they've even had it a day. If we get tired, we take a nap instead of getting cranky. No one is griping about the kids making a mess. No kids are griping about not being able to play and being bored. Dh and I can relax and be lethargic after staying up all night for santa and waking up at 4 am to kids' screetching in joy.

 

It's bliss I tell you.

Absolute bliss.

:001_wub: