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Nope. My in laws live 3 hours away, and my parents live 5 in the opposite direction, with all our siblings near their respective parent. Every holiday is spent at one or the other's house, and Christmas we drive to one on Christmas eve morning, do Christmas eve with one, and then get up Christmas morning and drive 8 hours to the other for dinner, and then home the next day. It sucks, and I said it was stopping once we had LO, but we didn't put the kibosh on it when LO was born last year, so pretty sure that ship has sailed.

We live 9 hours from both families so that really helps by way of excuses in our case but up until now I have never not gone home for Christmas and my husband has only missed it once when he was out of the country and flights were to expensive.

This year we are staying here for both Thanksgiving and Christmas because I am due in October. Realistically, we could travel for Christmas but are choosing not to for a lot of reasons. I am sort of leaning towards every other year going back for one of the two holidays and calling it good. They are welcome to come here.

If your husband is on board I suggest you guys give it a try to skip part or all of the festivities this year. Could you maybe invite people for Christmas/holiday brunch at your house? A lot of families start moving things around when the kids become adults, are there things that are holiday like that you could do with one or the other for Christmas Eve or during the weekend of Thanksgiving? Maybe just go to your in laws for dessert? Surely, that would cause a commotion the first year but maybe it would be a good compromise? I guess really I am just trying to their out ideas to help you think outside the box about how to handle it and participate in part of the celebrations or help create new traditions that leave the old ones in tact.

Good luck! I am sure it's not easy- it isn't with our families but I am hoping it will be worth it!

My parents live 5 hours away. We trade off holidays with them. This year we are doing thanksgiving with them. I feel strongly about my kids waking up in their own beds, so we do christmas here. The end.

Both sets of parents live an hour away, so we always spend holidays with them (diving up the time, which I don't like doing but nothing else seems fair). That being said, it's fairly easy for us because we drive down for the day and head home at night (unless we've been drinking, in which case we stay in town.... which is quite often, lol).

I cannot imagine not spending the holidays with my family. We don't have kids yet, but I really can't see that changing when we do. We're a tight-knit group!

My ILs live far from us so we don't generally see them for holidays. Before LO we went there for thanksgiving a few times but unless it's the only time we can visit, I doubt we'll spend any holidays there. They don't make a big deal out of holidays and it's all frozen or gross food and people who are getting together out of duty. Just overall not an enjoyable, festive place to spend a holiday.

My family lives close so we do spend the holidays together. My mom and I take turns hosting and we share cooking duties either way. We do our own thing Christmas/Easter morning with LO though.

Is hosting your families an option? That way you can serve what you want? Or if you eat somewhere else, maybe you can menu plan with the host and bring half the dishes so you have more of a say in how the day goes. Or maybe you can start a new tradition where you do holidays at home with your family and then go to extended family the next day for brunch.

@Skadi: can you offer to host Christmas eve? Or maybe Christmas morning brunch so you can do presents at least for your kids at home?

We let LO open one present Christmas eve and read twas the night before Christmas in front of the tree. Christmas morning LO opens one present just us. Then my ILs come over for brunch. They go home after brunch and we get just is family time. Then they come back for dinner.

There are lots of traditions you can create outside of day of festivities. You can making trees decorating special. Wrapping presents. Picking a angel family and involving LO with present shopping, wrapping and dropping off of presents, etc etc

We hosted Christmas for the first time last year and it was awesome! My MIL was born on Christmas Day and so was my Grandma. We usually do joint holidays with my parents and MIL and function as a whole family unit, so that makes it easy on us. But everyone lives wishing 45 minutes. I may even host Christmas again this year. You could offer to host every few years?

My sister lives in SFO and they usually fly in for Thanksgiving, and we go to the family beach house (without Ms side) this year I suggested we fly down there. They don't travel for Christmas, the boys are 5 and 18 mo. If my parents wanted to go down for Christmas I would go with, but my grandma is 93 and as long as she is here, Dad won't miss her birthday.

We live far away from our families. We knew when we got married that we wanted our future children to wake up Christmas morning in their own homes. So we always have Christmas Day at home, just the two of us. This was we don't have to change any habits or hurt feelings when we have kids.

@regberadaisy: I agree that there are many traditions that you can do! We've talked about it, and I actually think one of our traditions will be getting a movie Christmas morning to watch in the car on the way to my parents. Even if we eventually end up going the day after, I am pretty sure that the big prize will be going to see their cousins ( when there are cousins to be seen )

I should also add that we have decided for the most part that Christmas is with my family and New Years with his. That is mainly based on proximity, but also past experience.i cannot quite explain why, but the day of is so much more hectic and unenjoyable when we are there. The day after, it is fine. No idea why, though!

@LovelyPlum: haha yes! We watch A Christmas Story every year and will continue with our LOs.
We don't mind the hecticness of holiday travel or hosting. Holidays are about family and that includes grandparents and cousins!! besides *we* want to see our nieces and nephews around the holidays!

we had a guest pastor recently that did a really good talk on getting married and the meaning behind "a man leaves his parents to become united with his wife" from genesis - and the modern day thought is that we do leave our families - we're financially independent, we live in a different house, often a different city or state. but the real historical context didn't mean anything like that because you got married back then and still lived under the same roof as your family.

the pastor told his own children to be very firm when they got married to tell their parents that trips to visit family are NOT vacations, and that they need to tell their parents that they will not spend their first christmas, their first thanksgiving, etc with them.

My in-laws live a few states away, so we alternate every year on holidays if we go out for Thanksgiving or Christmas. For Christmas we do not go out there on the actual date. We go the week before and do a mini celebration and fly home.

Also, we are in a different situation because my husband's schedule means he is usually flying Christmas day, so Christmas is whenever he is home and the day we pick. We do our own dinner and traditions on that day. We've decided for our LO that he will get one gift from Santa on the 25th so he can still get something Christmas day.

If it's going to cause family problems to not go on the actual date and that's something you want to avoid, could you set Christmas Eve as your special day together as a family?

We've spent the past few holidays alone but this year we're doing it with family. With a LO, I can imagine the family will want us to visit but I won't really do it unless we want to. I love having our own holidays.

I am going to tell my mom that we are going to host Thanksgiving this year. She is sort of insanely aggressive about hosting Thanksgiving to the point where it drives me nuts. I don't think she will be especially happy about this decision but I want to own a holiday, and I'm Jewish so I don't care about Christmas. She can keep Passover.

We also do a little of both for the December holidays, my parents are local, my husband's are on another continent.

I don't focus on the "day" of the holiday, it makes it a lot less stressful when I am open to celebrating the season, rather than on a specific day.

We just do whatever we feel like for each holiday. Thankfully, our families are understanding and don't mind. If we feel like visiting, we will. If not, we'll do our own thing.

My family is extremely holiday oriented. We do Thanksgiving afternoon with mine and evening with DH's. Christmas Eve is my family, Christmas morning we open gifts at home and then go to my parents for breakfast (my dad makes biscuits and gravy every year) and then Christmas Day is spent with DHs family for dinner.

Ever since moving in together we have hosted Thanksgiving. This year we are going to my mom's house. Christmas has always been at my mom's, but this year maybe not. I think we may have a solo Christmas. Besides moms & half of our siblings living in our state the rest of our family is elsewhere. The holidays are not that important to me.

We are never home for Christmas which makes us sad. We were 3 hours away from family so we would always be gone for every holiday. Now we are 3 states away so we are not planning on going for Thanksgiving which will be nice. But, unless we just put our foot down, we will always have to be traveling for Christmas. I have such good memories of waking up and running out to see the Christmas tree and my kids will never have that.

@JMOM: if that is important to you, do it! It is not your obligation that you HAVE to travel.