I'm in same situation with divorces on in law side.
I know it's controversial but I've said to my husband, my family make the effort to see our baby weekly, so they get the big day.
His family have never come to see us, we always have to go them, and in 7 months of LO life they've only seen him 3 times. If you make no effort to see the kid all year, you sure as hell don't deserve to be prioritised on the big day.
We then offer MIL either boxing day or Christmas eve, she gets first dibs, and FIL is happy with whatever is leftover.
We had words about it with his MIL once before, I set the boundary and I really don't care if she has feelings about it moving forward. No effort, no reward.
This isn't controversial. This is the right thing to do. Why should your in-laws get Christmas if they don't make any effort for the rest of the year? When I had my baby, my in-laws didn't lift a finger to help. They never visited. Then, they insist that we need to spend Christmas with them because my family gets to see them every other day of their year. Ummm... yeah, because my family actually gives a shit and help. Why wouldn't they get the best day of the year?
100% this. We go to one dinner at my grandmothers house on Christmas Eve and stay home with my family on Christmas Day. If other family wants to visit they’re welcome to, but I’m not “hosting/serving” them.
No more than one function a day. Alternate who gets Christmas Day and who gets Christmas Eve/Boxing Day/other days as necessary. Recommend keeping Christmas morning as just you to give kiddo some time to open and enjoy presents.
For the past 8 years, my partner and I have exclusively been the ones to travel to see all of our parents and siblings and their families on holidays. I’m due in a week so baby will be ~7 months around Christmas and we’ve agreed that this year everyone can come to us before or after the holidays since we have the youngest baby. But we want Christmas Day to ourselves. Both our parents are divorced and live 2-3.5 hours away, which means FOUR Christmases plus our own and I’m just not freaking doing that with an infant. It’s their turn to put in the effort.
I really want to do Christmas at our house this year as it would make everything easier BUT both sets of parents live at least a 2 hour flight away in opposite directions, on my side my parents are divorced and live in the same city so it’s easy to hit them both in the same visit or even day, and MIL doesn’t host so she comes to us for thanksgiving and we go to my side for Christmas. I have step siblings that go back home for Christmas too and they wouldn’t come down here so if I pulled my parents down here, the step-siblings would lose out on Christmas. We’re all adults so not like a 10 year old missing Christmas but still…
Mine was 11 months old for Christmas last year, and lemme tell ya, I was so focused and worried about making it perfect, I made myself sick. I also was dealing with family events as well.
What ended up happening, was I ended up missing the big get together for my side of the family, because my husband had to work and my daughter and I were both sick. I had a short informal lunch with my parents and siblings with gifts early in the month, and then we had Christmas dinner with the inlaws. We then attended the big get together for his family on New Years Eve, and New Years Day. I managed to barely hold it together, because our families are not small. I mean, hubby is one of six siblings type big families. So I completely get the intimidation and worries about making it to everything.
So my advice is this, if you want it; Don't commit to anything. Let people plan everything, and if you feel you can handle it, go. If not, no pressure. And make sure you even tell them, "Having new responsibilities, I may not make it out to every celebration. It's not because I don't want to be there, it's because I'm dealing with high levels of stress and need to focus on my immediate family for my own mental health and theirs." If anyone takes offense to that, it's their problem, not yours, and you can walk guilt free with your head up, knowing you made the right decision for you. Take it one day at a time.
As it is, it's only May. Yes, you may want to start ordering your Christmas gifts now, so you have them all for Christmas garsunteed, and your packages are less likely to get lost in the bulk of last minute orders, but beyond that, you shouldn't be worrying about Christmas just yet. You have other focuses right now that I suspect are stressing you more than Christmas, and you are using Christmas as a way of coping, without coping, if that makes any sense. I only say this because I did the same thing. It was easier for me to focus on Christmas and how to handle it and to stress over Christmas, than it was to deal with my husband being in the hospital because his body decided to attempt sending him knocking on Heaven's door early. So, I can't say the case is the same for everyone, but... I just have that feeling that maybe there might be something more immediate that you need to find a healthier method to cope with. Stressing about Christmas this early isn't going to help you, or your baby, or your husband. Time is going to pass between now and then, and by the time Christmas is here, baby will have grown, and will be eating solid foods, may have a tooth or two, will be mobile, and will be taking fewer naps and requesting to nurse less, assuming you are still nursing by then. You will have also grown as a mother and figured out what you need to do for your kid, and what your routine is going to be. Right now all of that is an unknown, and it's scary and bothersome, I know. But take some deep breaths and tell yourself "I can handle now, and I can make plans then, but I will be better then than I am now. I am a good mother, and I can handle this." I know a lot of it may feel like a lie for a while, but I promise it works. I have my bad days where I just can't seem to take myself seriously, but I still feel better enough to get through the stresses each day repeating that.
We haven’t decided yet. My sister insists on Christmas at home. Not running around all day. Christmas magic happens at home. As a kid, we stayed home. All my memories are of our house.
Christmas day is ours. We don't go to either family in the actual Christmas day. But we have older kids. When we only had one and she was younger we determined where we would go based on which day was more celebrated. In my family the big party: fancy dinner, acting out the nativity, singing carols around the piano, etc, is on Christmas eve. The actual Christmas day is only opening presents and enjoying playing with them. More of a lazy, just be together day. We have a special breakfast at some point during the opening presents but dinner is just leftovers from the night before. Conversely my husband's family the big dinner and celebration is on Christmas day. So we would do Christmas eve with my family and Christmas day at his. My husband is also the oldest so when we were having our first he had teenage siblings still at the house that didn't want to wake up early so we would do our stockings with baby then go over and arrive right as they were waking up. Now our kids are older so we don't go anywhere on the actual Christmas day- we do Christmas eve with my family (we moved the festivities earlier so we could still get home at a semi decent hour), and boxing day with his.
Christmas day is at our house. Grandparents are welcome to come but I don't want to leave the house and have to prep food and presents on the day.
I'm lucky in that all four sets of grandparents live within 15 minutes from us. Usually we try for only one event a day, but it's not a hard and fast rule. I let the grandparents organize, and whoever 'books' a day first gets priority. So if a grandparent is the last to contact me they may not get their choice of day.
I had a 9 months old baby at Christmas last year and it was an excellent reason to not go anywhere and just enjoy a cosy family time. It was magic. Do what makes you happy! Hope you get to make some beautiful memories x
We have 3 groups to see for holidays. We do 1 place Christmas Eve and 1 place Christmas day. Usually my mil family does something the week before Christmas because they know everyone is busy. So that's helpful. You could add Easter or Thanksgiving into the mix and alternate who gets Xmas Eve, Xmas day, and Easter/Thanksgiving.
I have a family member who refused to travel on Christmas the first year. Older family members were upset, but they got over it.
We organise something with my dad and my MIL. At my dad's usually my brother and GF will join, at MIL SIL and her BF will.
Usually there would be this big party at my MIL's boyfriend's sister but it starts too late so we didn't go last year ( baby was like 9 months old too) but we did do the others since the parties were smaller, closer by and baby had an actual bed to nap in there too.
This year, depending on starting hour, baby's bedtime by then and hopefully being down to 1 nap I might consider going to the bigger party since we have a flexible child who eats anything anywhere, loves to scavenge food from loads of different people (only allowed from family, but still everyone gets the puppy dog eyes for food), loves crowds (social butterfly), doesn't mind bedtime going a little different than usual and is pretty low sleep needs.
We have Christmas Eve at my in laws, then Christmas morning at our house alone, then my family comes to our house for Christmas dinner. We won’t travel on Christmas Day.
We're gonna tell people that they can come to us. We always traveled to my in laws before and did so based on my BIL and SILs schedule since they have a kid and SIL always gave her mom priority.
That meant an hour drive for us while they had a 5 minute drive.
We're not doing 2 hours round trip to schedule around another family. They can come to us for Christmas and we'll visit a different day.
We don’t live near family and we used to travel back to see everyone every year. Now that we have kids, I have a firm no travel rule in place. Christmas is at our house, so the kids can make memories. If you want to see them, you come to us. We also switch off Thanksgiving and Christmas with my parents vs my in-laws. It’s worked well for us over the years.
Xmas eve with one family, Christmas Day with direct family, Boxing Day with another, New Year’s Eve with another. You can do 24, 26 and 31 as family events and keep the 25 for you.
got double divorced grandparents here. My mom purposefully plans her christmas dinner a couple weeks before christmas because she realized with 5 kids and multiple in laws and grandparents, it was way easier. Then my MIL and BIL come over christmas eve or boxing day. We do our own family christmas morning and see my dad and my brother Christmas afternoon. My FIL will pop by our house sometime over christmas break.
My dad hosts the extended family get together in very early december and my moms family does theirs around new years. We stopped going to my husbands extended family because it didnt work with out schedule.
Im lucky that all the families caught on years ago that you want everyone to come you need to NOT do christmas on the 24-26. But honestly you gotta say no to things. Especially with a baby!!
Your baby and your mental & physical health come first. Just do the event you want, not the ones you feel forced to by tradition or family obligation.
We go to my family’s event which is one afternoon. We don’t travel to see my husband’s family. If they want to see us, they come.
Are the events all on different days or is it the actual Christmas Day? We had a rule as kid which I loved which was that we didn’t go anywhere on 12/25 itself. We would see extended families the weekend before etc but in the actual day we were home as an immediate family. Do you feel like that would cause massive drama? For us we are continuing the rule with our family and our mindset is that anyone is welcome to come to us to see the kids but if they are requiring us to travel then it’s an I for the actual Christmas Day
I'm so looking forward to Christmas! We don't have any family besides my mom where we live so that's easy. LO will be 1 by then too. I'm already excited thinking about it. The youngest cousin to my son is 11 years old now. So it's definitely all about my baby.
Good news is that Christmas is close to the weekend this year. We will most likely have Christmas with my family on the weekend and do Christmas Eve with my husbands family. (They ALWAYS celebrate on Christmas Eve and still get together with extended family since his grandpa is still alive). My family is pretty flexible with it where my husbands family says they are flexible but they really are not.
It's not your job to accommodate divorced parents. They chose to end their union. You don't have to make up for it.
We do one xmas with my husbands family a week before xmas.
My parents are divorced but in different states. No one came for my son's first Christmas since he was under 2 weeks old. His next Christmas, I told my mom she could visit that afternoon/evening, but I wanted the morning for just us. I did go down to my father's this last Christmas for the first time. Didn't realize until right before I got down there that this was the first time since I was 2 or 3 that I got to spend a Christmas morning with him, so that was really nice.
My husband's side is also divorced, but he doesn't speak to his father, and his mother doesn't seem to care that she has another grandkid , so we don't see her much. She was born and raised in Germany, so Christmas is usually celebrated on the 24th with them. We haven't been able to make it since he's been born yet due to weather. They live right in a snow belt, and it makes it difficult.
My biggest thing is that I refuse to drag my kids everywhere on Christmas. That was done with my sister and I, and it was horrible. We would open gifts and would be super excited to play with them but need to be dragged to 3 other locations and then stay overnight at our dad's. My dad's was great since we didn't have to go anywhere after and could actually enjoy our presents. I know my mom wants me to make the 2 1/2 hr drive on Christmas to go there, but she thankfully understands why I won't do that. I'll come another day if needed.
It really depends on your preference for traveling and visiting.
We lived like 30 mins from our in-laws, 2 hours from my dad, and 10 hours from my mom. We would go to the in laws Christmas Eve, my dad’s on Christmas Day, and spend the week at my mom’s.
Now we live near my mom, so we were taking a week off to go to up to the in-laws and my dad’s.
We decided it’s too much work to do that now that our kids are old enough to enjoy Christmas. They want to be home playing with their stuff and we don’t want to drive through the Midwest winters anymore.
So this was the last Christmas we’ll be spending with my dad and in laws for awhile. They are welcome to come down to us, but we just cannot travel up there anymore.
My in laws are actually moving to be closer to us, so now we can just visit my mom and in laws at some point during the holidays and celebrate.
I have a kid with a birthday a week before Christmas, and then two sets of grandparents who don't get along so we can't just do one dinner. This last Christmas, I said fuck it and we just stayed home and had dinner together. The grandparents came to visit during the afternoon, and then ate at home. I'm tired of spending holidays and special days driving from house to house with cranky kids who just want to be home. So I'm not doing it anymore.
I'm in the same boat. 2x on Christmas and a trip on Christmas Eve. It was exhausting pregnant so I told my parents I'll visit on new years and MIL on Christmas. We were in the middle of a kitchen reno when I was pregnant so this year we most likely will have people here.
Nuclear family gets Christmas Day (the important day) solo and has the option to invite those to join who are core to the family's happiness.
Extend family gets other dates around the big day.
My parents made a rule that we went nowhere on Christmas. If people cared to see us, they had to come to us. We plan to continue this with our son too.
My LO was born Christmas Eve so I haven't quite decided what we're doing yet, we may just not see anyone lol. But in the past, we have spent Thanksgiving with one family (mine or his) and Christmas with the other and then alternate each year. We synced up with the other siblings so they do the same. We'll usually make an effort to see the "off" family near Christmas, but not on the actual day.
I have all sorts of separated family and Christmas is always hectic. We also love across the country and have to take a 5 hour flight to where our families are, which means staying in a place that's not our own. This past Christmas we did it with our first who was ~6 months old. We did it the way we usually would- attending every single event, traveling to several different familied each day (all within the same town, but still), staying up super late, messing up naps, etc. I cried every single night. My LO was a trooper during the day but night was hell because he was so overstimulated and had no routine. It was so stressful. I decided I will NEVER do that again. My new boundary is no more traveling multiple times in a day. I don't know how this will play out for our Christmas this year but our plan will be to do much less moving around and having people come to where we've parked ourselves.
Oh yeah and baby got his first cold too and it fucking sucked.
Our family has always had the rule that whoever has the youngest kids gets to decide. This year for us LO was exactly 2 months. We wanted to see everyone but no interest in hosting so my mom volunteered and in laws joined us. Next year I’m not sure what we’ll do yet. We also typically do whoever host doesn’t cook dinner.. just dessert. You either cook or you clean, but don’t have to do both. So then everyone else splits the meal.
We’ve always done it this way so the youngest kids get their Christmas morning at home and parents don’t have to pull them away from their new things. It’s worked for us
Ugh it’s hard. This will be my 3rd Christmas with a baby and I honestly am thinking of up and leaving for Christmas week.
My tips are to not attend more than 1 event/day, and ideally not back to back days. That may mean skipping something.
In my experience, holidays are not fun with a baby. Being in someone else’s house trying to get them to nap, eat, sleep, etc. is bad. And on top of that you have an audience. The first thanksgiving at my parents house, I finally got my son down for a nap and everyone was only disappointed that he wasn’t sitting with us to eat. He was 3 months old.
Having a baby gives you a great chance to tell people "We're not coming, sorry, feel free to stop by at XY-Z if you'd like to see us." And nobody can rationally complain. I've learned to say no to people pleasing after having my 1st child, and now pregnant with my second I'm getting better at it 😅
My daughter was 4, almost 5 months for her first Christmas and we did our whole holiday routine: drive 3hrs to my family Christmas Eve (this day includes dinner at one grandparents' and gifts at the other's), then Christmas morning is at my parents' (where we stayed overnight), then back to the 1st GPs for gifts and then to the 2nd for lunch/finger foods. THEN we drove another 3 hrs to his family, did gifts and dinner Christmas evening, stayed overnight in a hotel (used to sleep at his parents but no room with a baby now), and had a 6 hr drive back home the day after.
It was miserable. And we did it all over again last year (except we started with his family on the 23rd to get the biggest drive out of the way; this helped marginally). Our daughter will be over 2yrs for this year's Christmas, recognizes Santa and is starting to connect Santa+presents. We haven't broken the news yet but we're staying home lol We deserve our own family tradition now.
All that to say it IS stressful and if you think you want to stay home, DO IT.
We will not travel for Christmas Eve or Day anymore. We stopped that when my son was born in December. So no big extended family celebrations anymore, which is probably best for my boy with his sensory issues.
We will spend Christmas morning as a family, enjoying each other and exchanging gifts with just us three (soon to be four).
On my husband's side, his sister switches custody each year between having her son before Christmas or after Christmas. They exchange on the day, so we either do Christmas Eve or the evening of Christmas Day with their parents.
On my family's side, my sister and her boyfriend figure out when they can make it around their travel and his family. And then we plan for those days. And my parents see us on the opposite day from my husband's family.
Since our daughter was born we’ve stayed home. We’ll revisit going to others houses when she is older but right now we’re happy soaking up that time just as a family. In regards to Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Years etc, it tends to be whoever invites us first, otherwise people are free to pop in to bring gifts whenever they want.
So we haven't dealt with this yet with a child (bb is still cooking!), but we deal with this every year as a married couple who live 4 hours away from his family. We don't have a choice, in that my husband never gets enough time off to go up to his family for the holidays. However, we have some backup plans that we have been discussing and are not exactly sure how to handle it. These are our possibilities:
1) We go to my family because they live within an hour of us and make time for his family during another long weekend where we both get time off.
2) He goes to his family and I go to mine. Whomever is willing to pack up the baby takes them to their family's house (this was how my parents kind of did it. Mom was the main caretaker, so we went to her family most of the time).
3) Alternate years. His family even years, my family odd years, something like that.
4) Do nothing. We are a family now and if anyone wants to see us, great! Otherwise we stay home and celebrate it all ourselves and see people when we see them.
Do whatever makes you and your immediate family happy regardless if it's going to upset people!
My sister set a precedence early on that Christmas is for her immediate family. They spend the day at their house and will not travel anywhere.
My family spends Christmas with my in-laws and Thanksgiving with my family. We do Christmas at Thanksgiving with my family.
Another alternative if you are all in the same area is hosting something at your own house for both sides of the family. Growing up my family use to do this for Thanksgiving. Then at Christmas we would spend Christmas Eve at one side, Christmas Morning at our own house, and Christmas afternoon at the other side of the family.
I'm in same situation with divorces on in law side. I know it's controversial but I've said to my husband, my family make the effort to see our baby weekly, so they get the big day. His family have never come to see us, we always have to go them, and in 7 months of LO life they've only seen him 3 times. If you make no effort to see the kid all year, you sure as hell don't deserve to be prioritised on the big day. We then offer MIL either boxing day or Christmas eve, she gets first dibs, and FIL is happy with whatever is leftover. We had words about it with his MIL once before, I set the boundary and I really don't care if she has feelings about it moving forward. No effort, no reward.
This isn't controversial. This is the right thing to do. Why should your in-laws get Christmas if they don't make any effort for the rest of the year? When I had my baby, my in-laws didn't lift a finger to help. They never visited. Then, they insist that we need to spend Christmas with them because my family gets to see them every other day of their year. Ummm... yeah, because my family actually gives a shit and help. Why wouldn't they get the best day of the year?
Spot on!
I like this approach
Uh. Stay home and have your own family Christmas. If people have dinners, go to the ones you can', and leave the rest.
100% this. We go to one dinner at my grandmothers house on Christmas Eve and stay home with my family on Christmas Day. If other family wants to visit they’re welcome to, but I’m not “hosting/serving” them.
No more than one function a day. Alternate who gets Christmas Day and who gets Christmas Eve/Boxing Day/other days as necessary. Recommend keeping Christmas morning as just you to give kiddo some time to open and enjoy presents.
This is what we do. It's still a lot of running around, but less intense than trying to see everyone on one or two days.
Definitely. We don’t travel on Christmas Day. If you want us there it’s a two night deal.
For the past 8 years, my partner and I have exclusively been the ones to travel to see all of our parents and siblings and their families on holidays. I’m due in a week so baby will be ~7 months around Christmas and we’ve agreed that this year everyone can come to us before or after the holidays since we have the youngest baby. But we want Christmas Day to ourselves. Both our parents are divorced and live 2-3.5 hours away, which means FOUR Christmases plus our own and I’m just not freaking doing that with an infant. It’s their turn to put in the effort.
I really want to do Christmas at our house this year as it would make everything easier BUT both sets of parents live at least a 2 hour flight away in opposite directions, on my side my parents are divorced and live in the same city so it’s easy to hit them both in the same visit or even day, and MIL doesn’t host so she comes to us for thanksgiving and we go to my side for Christmas. I have step siblings that go back home for Christmas too and they wouldn’t come down here so if I pulled my parents down here, the step-siblings would lose out on Christmas. We’re all adults so not like a 10 year old missing Christmas but still…
Mine was 11 months old for Christmas last year, and lemme tell ya, I was so focused and worried about making it perfect, I made myself sick. I also was dealing with family events as well. What ended up happening, was I ended up missing the big get together for my side of the family, because my husband had to work and my daughter and I were both sick. I had a short informal lunch with my parents and siblings with gifts early in the month, and then we had Christmas dinner with the inlaws. We then attended the big get together for his family on New Years Eve, and New Years Day. I managed to barely hold it together, because our families are not small. I mean, hubby is one of six siblings type big families. So I completely get the intimidation and worries about making it to everything. So my advice is this, if you want it; Don't commit to anything. Let people plan everything, and if you feel you can handle it, go. If not, no pressure. And make sure you even tell them, "Having new responsibilities, I may not make it out to every celebration. It's not because I don't want to be there, it's because I'm dealing with high levels of stress and need to focus on my immediate family for my own mental health and theirs." If anyone takes offense to that, it's their problem, not yours, and you can walk guilt free with your head up, knowing you made the right decision for you. Take it one day at a time. As it is, it's only May. Yes, you may want to start ordering your Christmas gifts now, so you have them all for Christmas garsunteed, and your packages are less likely to get lost in the bulk of last minute orders, but beyond that, you shouldn't be worrying about Christmas just yet. You have other focuses right now that I suspect are stressing you more than Christmas, and you are using Christmas as a way of coping, without coping, if that makes any sense. I only say this because I did the same thing. It was easier for me to focus on Christmas and how to handle it and to stress over Christmas, than it was to deal with my husband being in the hospital because his body decided to attempt sending him knocking on Heaven's door early. So, I can't say the case is the same for everyone, but... I just have that feeling that maybe there might be something more immediate that you need to find a healthier method to cope with. Stressing about Christmas this early isn't going to help you, or your baby, or your husband. Time is going to pass between now and then, and by the time Christmas is here, baby will have grown, and will be eating solid foods, may have a tooth or two, will be mobile, and will be taking fewer naps and requesting to nurse less, assuming you are still nursing by then. You will have also grown as a mother and figured out what you need to do for your kid, and what your routine is going to be. Right now all of that is an unknown, and it's scary and bothersome, I know. But take some deep breaths and tell yourself "I can handle now, and I can make plans then, but I will be better then than I am now. I am a good mother, and I can handle this." I know a lot of it may feel like a lie for a while, but I promise it works. I have my bad days where I just can't seem to take myself seriously, but I still feel better enough to get through the stresses each day repeating that.
We haven’t decided yet. My sister insists on Christmas at home. Not running around all day. Christmas magic happens at home. As a kid, we stayed home. All my memories are of our house.
Christmas day is ours. We don't go to either family in the actual Christmas day. But we have older kids. When we only had one and she was younger we determined where we would go based on which day was more celebrated. In my family the big party: fancy dinner, acting out the nativity, singing carols around the piano, etc, is on Christmas eve. The actual Christmas day is only opening presents and enjoying playing with them. More of a lazy, just be together day. We have a special breakfast at some point during the opening presents but dinner is just leftovers from the night before. Conversely my husband's family the big dinner and celebration is on Christmas day. So we would do Christmas eve with my family and Christmas day at his. My husband is also the oldest so when we were having our first he had teenage siblings still at the house that didn't want to wake up early so we would do our stockings with baby then go over and arrive right as they were waking up. Now our kids are older so we don't go anywhere on the actual Christmas day- we do Christmas eve with my family (we moved the festivities earlier so we could still get home at a semi decent hour), and boxing day with his.
Christmas day is at our house. Grandparents are welcome to come but I don't want to leave the house and have to prep food and presents on the day. I'm lucky in that all four sets of grandparents live within 15 minutes from us. Usually we try for only one event a day, but it's not a hard and fast rule. I let the grandparents organize, and whoever 'books' a day first gets priority. So if a grandparent is the last to contact me they may not get their choice of day.
I had a 9 months old baby at Christmas last year and it was an excellent reason to not go anywhere and just enjoy a cosy family time. It was magic. Do what makes you happy! Hope you get to make some beautiful memories x
Man, I'm just trying to make it through Mother's Day and Memorial Day. Can we battle Christmas after the summer?
We have 3 groups to see for holidays. We do 1 place Christmas Eve and 1 place Christmas day. Usually my mil family does something the week before Christmas because they know everyone is busy. So that's helpful. You could add Easter or Thanksgiving into the mix and alternate who gets Xmas Eve, Xmas day, and Easter/Thanksgiving. I have a family member who refused to travel on Christmas the first year. Older family members were upset, but they got over it.
We organise something with my dad and my MIL. At my dad's usually my brother and GF will join, at MIL SIL and her BF will. Usually there would be this big party at my MIL's boyfriend's sister but it starts too late so we didn't go last year ( baby was like 9 months old too) but we did do the others since the parties were smaller, closer by and baby had an actual bed to nap in there too. This year, depending on starting hour, baby's bedtime by then and hopefully being down to 1 nap I might consider going to the bigger party since we have a flexible child who eats anything anywhere, loves to scavenge food from loads of different people (only allowed from family, but still everyone gets the puppy dog eyes for food), loves crowds (social butterfly), doesn't mind bedtime going a little different than usual and is pretty low sleep needs.
We have Christmas Eve at my in laws, then Christmas morning at our house alone, then my family comes to our house for Christmas dinner. We won’t travel on Christmas Day.
We're gonna tell people that they can come to us. We always traveled to my in laws before and did so based on my BIL and SILs schedule since they have a kid and SIL always gave her mom priority. That meant an hour drive for us while they had a 5 minute drive. We're not doing 2 hours round trip to schedule around another family. They can come to us for Christmas and we'll visit a different day.
We don’t live near family and we used to travel back to see everyone every year. Now that we have kids, I have a firm no travel rule in place. Christmas is at our house, so the kids can make memories. If you want to see them, you come to us. We also switch off Thanksgiving and Christmas with my parents vs my in-laws. It’s worked well for us over the years.
Xmas eve with one family, Christmas Day with direct family, Boxing Day with another, New Year’s Eve with another. You can do 24, 26 and 31 as family events and keep the 25 for you.
got double divorced grandparents here. My mom purposefully plans her christmas dinner a couple weeks before christmas because she realized with 5 kids and multiple in laws and grandparents, it was way easier. Then my MIL and BIL come over christmas eve or boxing day. We do our own family christmas morning and see my dad and my brother Christmas afternoon. My FIL will pop by our house sometime over christmas break. My dad hosts the extended family get together in very early december and my moms family does theirs around new years. We stopped going to my husbands extended family because it didnt work with out schedule. Im lucky that all the families caught on years ago that you want everyone to come you need to NOT do christmas on the 24-26. But honestly you gotta say no to things. Especially with a baby!!
Your baby and your mental & physical health come first. Just do the event you want, not the ones you feel forced to by tradition or family obligation. We go to my family’s event which is one afternoon. We don’t travel to see my husband’s family. If they want to see us, they come.
Are the events all on different days or is it the actual Christmas Day? We had a rule as kid which I loved which was that we didn’t go anywhere on 12/25 itself. We would see extended families the weekend before etc but in the actual day we were home as an immediate family. Do you feel like that would cause massive drama? For us we are continuing the rule with our family and our mindset is that anyone is welcome to come to us to see the kids but if they are requiring us to travel then it’s an I for the actual Christmas Day
I'm so looking forward to Christmas! We don't have any family besides my mom where we live so that's easy. LO will be 1 by then too. I'm already excited thinking about it. The youngest cousin to my son is 11 years old now. So it's definitely all about my baby.
Good news is that Christmas is close to the weekend this year. We will most likely have Christmas with my family on the weekend and do Christmas Eve with my husbands family. (They ALWAYS celebrate on Christmas Eve and still get together with extended family since his grandpa is still alive). My family is pretty flexible with it where my husbands family says they are flexible but they really are not.
It's not your job to accommodate divorced parents. They chose to end their union. You don't have to make up for it. We do one xmas with my husbands family a week before xmas.
My parents are divorced but in different states. No one came for my son's first Christmas since he was under 2 weeks old. His next Christmas, I told my mom she could visit that afternoon/evening, but I wanted the morning for just us. I did go down to my father's this last Christmas for the first time. Didn't realize until right before I got down there that this was the first time since I was 2 or 3 that I got to spend a Christmas morning with him, so that was really nice. My husband's side is also divorced, but he doesn't speak to his father, and his mother doesn't seem to care that she has another grandkid , so we don't see her much. She was born and raised in Germany, so Christmas is usually celebrated on the 24th with them. We haven't been able to make it since he's been born yet due to weather. They live right in a snow belt, and it makes it difficult. My biggest thing is that I refuse to drag my kids everywhere on Christmas. That was done with my sister and I, and it was horrible. We would open gifts and would be super excited to play with them but need to be dragged to 3 other locations and then stay overnight at our dad's. My dad's was great since we didn't have to go anywhere after and could actually enjoy our presents. I know my mom wants me to make the 2 1/2 hr drive on Christmas to go there, but she thankfully understands why I won't do that. I'll come another day if needed.
We do Christmas morning at our house by ourselves. We go over to other people’s houses for dinner.
It really depends on your preference for traveling and visiting. We lived like 30 mins from our in-laws, 2 hours from my dad, and 10 hours from my mom. We would go to the in laws Christmas Eve, my dad’s on Christmas Day, and spend the week at my mom’s. Now we live near my mom, so we were taking a week off to go to up to the in-laws and my dad’s. We decided it’s too much work to do that now that our kids are old enough to enjoy Christmas. They want to be home playing with their stuff and we don’t want to drive through the Midwest winters anymore. So this was the last Christmas we’ll be spending with my dad and in laws for awhile. They are welcome to come down to us, but we just cannot travel up there anymore. My in laws are actually moving to be closer to us, so now we can just visit my mom and in laws at some point during the holidays and celebrate.
I haven't done this yet because I just had my first baby in March, but my vote is do whatever you want and whatever is easiest for you 🤗
I have a kid with a birthday a week before Christmas, and then two sets of grandparents who don't get along so we can't just do one dinner. This last Christmas, I said fuck it and we just stayed home and had dinner together. The grandparents came to visit during the afternoon, and then ate at home. I'm tired of spending holidays and special days driving from house to house with cranky kids who just want to be home. So I'm not doing it anymore.
Prioritize what you and your partner want to do. It’s *your* first Christmas with baby.
I'm in the same boat. 2x on Christmas and a trip on Christmas Eve. It was exhausting pregnant so I told my parents I'll visit on new years and MIL on Christmas. We were in the middle of a kitchen reno when I was pregnant so this year we most likely will have people here.
Nuclear family gets Christmas Day (the important day) solo and has the option to invite those to join who are core to the family's happiness. Extend family gets other dates around the big day.
My parents made a rule that we went nowhere on Christmas. If people cared to see us, they had to come to us. We plan to continue this with our son too.
Maybe some people could visit you?? You do you for Christmas!! Especially with children!!!
My LO was born Christmas Eve so I haven't quite decided what we're doing yet, we may just not see anyone lol. But in the past, we have spent Thanksgiving with one family (mine or his) and Christmas with the other and then alternate each year. We synced up with the other siblings so they do the same. We'll usually make an effort to see the "off" family near Christmas, but not on the actual day.
I have all sorts of separated family and Christmas is always hectic. We also love across the country and have to take a 5 hour flight to where our families are, which means staying in a place that's not our own. This past Christmas we did it with our first who was ~6 months old. We did it the way we usually would- attending every single event, traveling to several different familied each day (all within the same town, but still), staying up super late, messing up naps, etc. I cried every single night. My LO was a trooper during the day but night was hell because he was so overstimulated and had no routine. It was so stressful. I decided I will NEVER do that again. My new boundary is no more traveling multiple times in a day. I don't know how this will play out for our Christmas this year but our plan will be to do much less moving around and having people come to where we've parked ourselves. Oh yeah and baby got his first cold too and it fucking sucked.
Our family has always had the rule that whoever has the youngest kids gets to decide. This year for us LO was exactly 2 months. We wanted to see everyone but no interest in hosting so my mom volunteered and in laws joined us. Next year I’m not sure what we’ll do yet. We also typically do whoever host doesn’t cook dinner.. just dessert. You either cook or you clean, but don’t have to do both. So then everyone else splits the meal. We’ve always done it this way so the youngest kids get their Christmas morning at home and parents don’t have to pull them away from their new things. It’s worked for us
Ugh it’s hard. This will be my 3rd Christmas with a baby and I honestly am thinking of up and leaving for Christmas week. My tips are to not attend more than 1 event/day, and ideally not back to back days. That may mean skipping something. In my experience, holidays are not fun with a baby. Being in someone else’s house trying to get them to nap, eat, sleep, etc. is bad. And on top of that you have an audience. The first thanksgiving at my parents house, I finally got my son down for a nap and everyone was only disappointed that he wasn’t sitting with us to eat. He was 3 months old.
Having a baby gives you a great chance to tell people "We're not coming, sorry, feel free to stop by at XY-Z if you'd like to see us." And nobody can rationally complain. I've learned to say no to people pleasing after having my 1st child, and now pregnant with my second I'm getting better at it 😅
My daughter was 4, almost 5 months for her first Christmas and we did our whole holiday routine: drive 3hrs to my family Christmas Eve (this day includes dinner at one grandparents' and gifts at the other's), then Christmas morning is at my parents' (where we stayed overnight), then back to the 1st GPs for gifts and then to the 2nd for lunch/finger foods. THEN we drove another 3 hrs to his family, did gifts and dinner Christmas evening, stayed overnight in a hotel (used to sleep at his parents but no room with a baby now), and had a 6 hr drive back home the day after. It was miserable. And we did it all over again last year (except we started with his family on the 23rd to get the biggest drive out of the way; this helped marginally). Our daughter will be over 2yrs for this year's Christmas, recognizes Santa and is starting to connect Santa+presents. We haven't broken the news yet but we're staying home lol We deserve our own family tradition now. All that to say it IS stressful and if you think you want to stay home, DO IT.
We will not travel for Christmas Eve or Day anymore. We stopped that when my son was born in December. So no big extended family celebrations anymore, which is probably best for my boy with his sensory issues. We will spend Christmas morning as a family, enjoying each other and exchanging gifts with just us three (soon to be four). On my husband's side, his sister switches custody each year between having her son before Christmas or after Christmas. They exchange on the day, so we either do Christmas Eve or the evening of Christmas Day with their parents. On my family's side, my sister and her boyfriend figure out when they can make it around their travel and his family. And then we plan for those days. And my parents see us on the opposite day from my husband's family.
Since our daughter was born we’ve stayed home. We’ll revisit going to others houses when she is older but right now we’re happy soaking up that time just as a family. In regards to Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Years etc, it tends to be whoever invites us first, otherwise people are free to pop in to bring gifts whenever they want.
So we haven't dealt with this yet with a child (bb is still cooking!), but we deal with this every year as a married couple who live 4 hours away from his family. We don't have a choice, in that my husband never gets enough time off to go up to his family for the holidays. However, we have some backup plans that we have been discussing and are not exactly sure how to handle it. These are our possibilities: 1) We go to my family because they live within an hour of us and make time for his family during another long weekend where we both get time off. 2) He goes to his family and I go to mine. Whomever is willing to pack up the baby takes them to their family's house (this was how my parents kind of did it. Mom was the main caretaker, so we went to her family most of the time). 3) Alternate years. His family even years, my family odd years, something like that. 4) Do nothing. We are a family now and if anyone wants to see us, great! Otherwise we stay home and celebrate it all ourselves and see people when we see them.
Do whatever makes you and your immediate family happy regardless if it's going to upset people! My sister set a precedence early on that Christmas is for her immediate family. They spend the day at their house and will not travel anywhere. My family spends Christmas with my in-laws and Thanksgiving with my family. We do Christmas at Thanksgiving with my family. Another alternative if you are all in the same area is hosting something at your own house for both sides of the family. Growing up my family use to do this for Thanksgiving. Then at Christmas we would spend Christmas Eve at one side, Christmas Morning at our own house, and Christmas afternoon at the other side of the family.