Celebrating the holidays

[jenntanis]

Well, I wanted to ask the other mothers on here how they handle celebrating the holidays.  My inlaws live 20 minutes from us, and my family lives 3 hours away, in NJ. My DH is now an only child, his brother passed away in 2006, and they don't have any other relatives other than his 88 y.o grandmother (Mom-mom). I have my parents, three sisters and a nephew who all live in NJ.  The holidays are always a fight with my inlaws. My family has graciously agreed for us to be down here for Thanksgiving every year because of Mom-mom, and we drive up that night and celebrate on Black Friday.  We also always spend Easter down here, and I have only had one Mothers Day in NJ, back in 2006.  My inlaws were very upset when we told them that we were driving up to NJ on Christmas eve, and spending the weekend in NJ.  Last year, we also spent Christmas day in NJ, but my high school reunion was the day after, so we had to be up there. Their argument is that Thanksgiving isn't a holiday, we were up there last year, and that it's Matt's first Christmas, and they won't see him at all.  My DH has taken a stand, finally, and said that he doesn't want his son spending his first Christmas in the car on Rt. 95!  If Christmas wasn't on a Friday, we would've been down here, because it's too hard to do the drive in one day, and come back.  We've also told them that we could do Christmas any day of the week, but they say they can't do that because by the time they get home from work, it's not worth it.  How does everyone else handle their holidays?  I'm so done with this fight every year, and I only see it getting worse now that Matt is here.

[Michele, Katy, TX]

Luckily my husband's family celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve.  They do it until the wee hours of the night, which we can't do because of Christmas day w/ my family and plus our own kids.  So (I usually have a baby; lol) so we go to his family's on Christmas Eve but in different vehicles.  I leave early w/ the youngest and he stays behind until about midnight or so.  Then he comes home w/ the other kids and then we play Santa Clause.  Then we celebrate Christmas day w/ my family.  I don't know how we would do it if we had to fit everyone in on Christmas day but I guess we would figure it out.  We did when I was little but the family that we celebrate w/ is all local.  They were when I was little too.

I really hope it gets better for you and kudos to your DH for standing up to his family.  Maybe you guys could alternate years for Christmas or maybe your family could come down and then you could all celebrate together.  Play it by ear and heck if his family feels that way about Thanksgiving, then spend every Thanksgiving w/ your family.  Especially since it always lands on a Thursday and typically has a long weekend to follow.

[Latrice414]

Luckly all my family is here in wisconsin except my grandmother(my moms-mom) she lives in California.  She flys down every Thanksgiving and this year we gathered at my house(we do a pot luck style dinner, everyone brings a dish).  This is actually her first time coming down for Christmas, she wanted to see Trinity again and her brother kid, kids.  Me and Trinity father is not together but i did invite his mother and brother in my home for 10 days during thanksgiving so they could met Trinity.  He is not even close with his mother or brother so if we were together i would be spending the holidays with my family, its only his mom and brother who are in Baltimore and they have not kept incontact with there other family members so its only those 2.

Also during Christmas we have dinner at our own homes and then around 3/4 pm we gather at someones house for deserts(we shud get the email soon to let us no which house lol).

I hope it gets better for you and not worse.

Happy Holidays to you and your famil:)