Do you travel on Thanksgiving/Christmas/major holiday?

[JoyfulMama]

Not FOR the holiday, where you are away from home for overnight, but travel a couple hours for part of the day?

DH was offered a job which is 2 hrs away from most of our families. Trouble is, I kinda like not having to travel on the holidays right now, since we are 1,100 miles away. Only last year we lived within 20 minutes of all that same family. So traveling on the holiday to one house wasn't a big deal. But I'm struggling with having to face driving 2 hours on Christmas Day and NYD or have one VERY upset MIL (my parents aren't there in the winter - it's too cold).

Looking to see what others have done.... :bigear:

[Chelle in MO]

I wouldn't want to travel that far just for the day with kids those ages. We used to do that and it wasn't fun. Would MIL be able to visit your house?

 

Chelle

[momofkhm]

That's four hours of driving - 2 there and 2 back home. Now that I look at the ages of your kids, definitely no.

 

I have a cousin who lives over in Winston-Salem. His in-laws live here in Cary. The in-laws have never spent the night. Crazy. I tell you crazy. It's a 2 hour drive. I've driven. It's an easy drive, mostly 4-6 lane interstate. But it's not a fun drive.

 

Now if you could spend the night that would change things.

[Rhonda in TX]

My in-laws are 20 minutes away. My dad is about 1.5 hours away.

 

We spend Thanksgiving with family. DH is an only child, so we either spend T'giving with his parents, or his parents are invited to spend it with my extended family.

 

For Christmas, we see my in-laws either Christmas Eve or later in the day on Christmas Day. Christmas morning is always at our house, with just us. (There have been a few exceptions to this.) We get together with my family at some point during the holiday season. There are a lot of us, with accompanying in-law holidays to be shared. We're all pretty flexible.

 

Two hours is a long way to drive for just a few hours' visit. If you have a MIL that would expect this, try to make it clear how you want the holidays to be. Kind of take control of it, if you can. Something like... "We'll spend Thanksgiving with y'all this year and Christmas next year." or "Let's get together at T'giving so we don't have to worry about bad weather at Christmas."

 

Good luck. Holidays with family can be tricky!

[TN Mama]

Not FOR the holiday, where you are away from home for overnight, but travel a couple hours for part of the day?

DH was offered a job which is 2 hrs away from most of our families. Trouble is, I kinda like not having to travel on the holidays right now, since we are 1,100 miles away. Only last year we lived within 20 minutes of all that same family. So traveling on the holiday to one house wasn't a big deal. But I'm struggling with having to face driving 2 hours on Christmas Day and NYD or have one VERY upset MIL (my parents aren't there in the winter - it's too cold).

Looking to see what others have done.... :bigear:

 

We travel for Thanksgiving. Every other year we spend Thanksgiving with my family - about 2 1/2 hours from where we live. We leave on Wednesday evening and usually spend the weekend. Dh's family lives within 30 minutes, so I wouldn't call it traveling when we go there. :)

 

For Christmas, I have explained to my family that I always want our girls to wake up in their house on Christmas day. So, we do that. We usually travel to my family the day after Christmas, but I'm not opposed to heading over that afternoon on occasion. But I love being with my family and letting the girls make memories of holidays with family.

 

My kids are pretty good in the car and always have been, so I would consider a day trip for Thanksgiving. However,there is no way I'd do that for Christmas.

Edited November 9, 2008 by TN Mama

[KJB]

You're the one with the small children. They should travel and you should hostess if you all want to be together. There's no way I'd spend a total of four hours in the car on a holiday with a young family. The focus should be on what's easiest for the people with little ones.

[percytruffle]

Well, we don't enjoy driving on holidays, but we have done it. For years we have driven 2-3 hours on the holiday or the day before and spend the night with my sister and her family. Since all of my family was in the same city and we were not, that made us the travelers. On the rare occasion they came to us, but it didn't happen often.

 

With dh's family we have traveled 11 hours on holidays. Most of his family are in the same state and it is not ours! The long trek there during holiday weeks and in holiday traffic was not fun, but it was worth it for everyone to come together.

 

My mom and dad are no longer with us and my sister whom I am closest to has moved several states away. My brother and sister who still live in our state are in very poor health. We won't be seeing any of them this holiday season. On the other side of the family, we won't be traveling to their state this year either. Now that our kids are teens they have to work during the holidays and aren't free to travel. Dh's parents are in their 80's and we don't know how many more holidays there will be where the whole family can come together.

 

All that said, yes, it was hard to do all the traveling. We barely stayed home for any holidays when the kids were younger. We begrudgingly made those trips. It was not easy. If I had to do it again though, I would in a second. Those memories and time spent together with family cannot be replaced. We will be staying home this whole holiday season. We will spend it with no family, just the four of us. It will seem very strange and lonely. It seems like it should be ideal, but in reality the holidays are about togetherness and that piece will be missing.

[Alice]

We don't now...my parents come to us from about 2 hours away. But when I was a kid we did travel about 2 hours to visit my grandparents each holiday. I think my Mom hated it which is why she comes to us now. :) From a kid's perspective I didn't mind. We would have Christmas morning at our house and then get in the car and drive. My grandma would make a huge meal and my grandpa would have huge fire blazing in the fireplace. I have good memories of the excitement of pulling up and seeing them and then going in to the house and the big fire and good food. I usually got some new books I would read in the car and on the way home I would fall asleep. It was always kind of cozy to sleep in the car with my parents talking in the front seat. So for me it was fine....I am an only child so it might have been very different with siblings in the car. :)

[Danestress]

but now I live within two miles of both of our families, which is great!

 

However, yes. I would certainly travel two hours on those holidays to bless my parents or my DH's parents if necessary. 2 hours isn't that long of a drive.

 

I know people will say that you have to do what is right for your family and for the children. And to a certain extent, I understand that. But I do think we should also remember that our older family members won't be here forever and should be treated as a priority.

 

I would do it, and I would do it with a joyful heart - at least some of the holidays though not necessarily everyone. I would demonstrate to my children that being with the people who love you is worth the inconvenience. Because someday your children could live 2 hours from you, and I know you will hope their spouses will sometimes say, "Sure, let's make the extra effort. She's your mother after all."

 

An alternative plan would be for your DH to drive up the day before the holiday and get her, and then drive her home a few days later - if she's not a driver.

[Just Another Jen]

We've flown on those days. Dh works for an airline and if we fly on the holiday we can all gets seats on standby. We had Christmas morning at our house and then go to the airport. None of us thinks its a big deal. Especially the kids who end up with more gifts and a yummy dinner at the other end of the trip.

I usually let them take something they've just opened with and that helps too.

[Parrothead]

If I lived in the same town as family I wouldn't mind traveling for Thanksgiving, Easter or other holidays with the exception of Christmas.

 

I'd travel on Christmas to visit family but only after 3 pm.

[EarleneW]

We live 2 hours from DH's parents. My parents have both passed away so that is no longer an issue. However, they used to live in the same area anyway.

We generally go home for Thanksgiving (Tue or Wed-Sat or Sun). Christmas Day is spent at our house always. We have 4 kids and to take all there stuff somewhere is not happening. We then go home either the wekend before or the wekend after for Christmas with family.

 

We just moved here last year and before this lived 7 1/2 hours away. We still did the go back for Thanksgiving, though for the entire week, and we did Christmas with them over Thanksgiving back then. We did not go back for Christmas. We tried it once and it was awful haveing to bring stuff back and forth.

[hsmamainva]

We always go to my MIL's house for Thanksgiving. She lives in Delaware, which is roughly a 3 hour drive from where we live.

 

We always leave on Thanksgiving Day -- we learned the hard way not to leave on Wednesday because that's one of THE worst days to try to leave the Washington DC area!!! One year, it took us 7 hours to get there!

 

We leave early Thursday morning and there's hardly any traffic, and we head home on Saturday (because Sunday traffic is just as bad as the Wednesday traffic!)

 

For Christmas, we stay home. Our extended family has a Christmas party, where we exchange gifts, and it's usually about a week before Christmas itself. The location rotates between my husband and his 3 sisters and we all live within an hour's drive of each other. So that's not too bad at all.

[Chris in VA]

We never travel for the holidays, because Dh has to be here to do the church services. As I've mentioned before, he does the TG service and his assistant does the Christmas Day service--that's so we can have a relaxed Christmas morning.

Now this year (and last, unfortunately) we will travel to see ds, who will be in residential treatment. But, as I really want to see him, it won't be so bad, and it's only 20 minutes up the street.

 

If dh didn't have to stay up the night before Christmas until about 1:30 am (because of midnight Mass), I wouldn't mind traveling on Christmas Day, maybe around 1 o'clock or so, but I'd rather stay over that night and come home the 27th, if it were an option. I've always wanted Christmas Day at home.

 

For TG, I like being with family, but they are very far. One year my parents come, the next they come for Christmas. For you, I'd say consider going and try to maybe stay the night on TG, so that you don't have to rush home.

[Ellie]

No, I would not do that for Christmas. I might do it for Thanksgiving.

 

If I couldn't go a couple of days before the holiday, I would just stay home. I want my dc to get up in the morning and open presents and be home most of the day to play with things.

 

Such is life.

[abbeyej]

I would do it. But 2 hours just doesn't seem like much to me... Would it make it easier to spend a night there, so you don't have to drive both ways on one day?

[JoyfulMama]

I know sometimes I don't give my MIL the benefit of the doubt about flexibility... but then again, my SIL calls her the "Holiday Nazi". We have the only grandkids, and it will stay that way, even though DH has two siblings who are married (or married-like). But they all live within that 20 minute radius we used to live in. So we would be out-numbered on the traveling end of things...

I've been feeling the guilt trips coming already, can you tell???

Thanks for the support that I just need to remain strong with the benefits of our family, and I do appreciate the reminders that we don't all live forever. I'm sure we will do a number of things over the years... loving some and not being quite so joyful in others.

[Holly IN]

Here is what we have done....

 

For Thanksgiving: We always traveled 2 1/2 hours away to see my grandparents. They are in their late 80's. We see them because we do not know if they will be around the next time. It is also the only time I see my dad's relatives.

 

For Christmas: We stay where we are at because both dh and my parents are in the same area. We go to my parents (next door) on Christmas day. I have to work on Christmas Eve this year so dh and kids will stay home and enjoy watching movies. This year we are going over to dh's parents on Friday the 27th. They live about 30 mins away. Now dh's brother do have a big Christmas party at his house every year. So we do go to that (he only lives about 25 min away. We do not travel to dh's extended family for Christmas at all. They expect you to buy a gift for everybody. So we do not participate in that (also they all smoke in the house which is a major no no for my ds who is a severe asthmatic). He already had one hospitalization this year that lasted 1 full week. No Thanks!!

 

We do not travel anywhere on New Years day or Eve. I have to work on New Years Eve this year.

 

Holly

[Guest janainaz]

I would not drive on the day. We drive before the day or after the day. Our family is 6 hours away and we don't stay home for the holidays. We did last year, it was lonely. I thougth I would love it, but it was just us staring at each other - too quiet.

[Brenda in FL]

I would, even with young children. Here's why - I'd get to see all the family and not have to worry about any of the beforehand housecleaning - preparing a meal , cleaning up after the meal - worrying about if everyone's needs are being met and if my house is being destroyed!! Well worth the drive there and back, esoecially if the kiddos may nap.

 

Now - if it is not pleasant at said family member's house - than I may not want to go. But, I think the drive with the kids is easier than everything that goes into hosting at your own home while juggling young children!!

[CactusPair]

We have always travelled for every holiday, driving from 1-2 hours depending on what area of the state we lived in. We drove 5-6 hours when we lived out-of-state, but we did stay overnight.