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Your post makes it sound like the only reason you would invite them would be out of a sense of obligation/to avoid hurt feelings. If that's true, then no, you shouldn't invite them. On the other hand if you truly have a desire to be around extended family and you imagine it would be more fun to have them around, then sure, plan to host a whole gathering. But don't do it because you feel like you have to.

My mom was proactive about this after having to schlep us all to Mass and then her mother's house every Christmas. When my brother and sister had kids, they said that Christmas day was for families to spend time at home and they wouldn't expect family to get together then.

I would judge what you expect will happen if the family gets together. The first year we did this, there were so many presents that my sister's kids were seriously confused as to whether Santa had come or not. It was overwhelming.

From then on, we moved my mom's celebration to the day after Christmas.

DH and I still do Christmas day with his family, but it's nice to not have anything competing with my mom's brunch and we can always count on being able to go there and see everyone.

Or, growing up my mom and her sister took turns hosting Christmas Eve so one year we'd get to stay home, but the next my aunt would host us.

I think it's fine for a family to make a decision on their own that they won't do something or that they want to start a new tradition.

But if you want to make sure you see everyone in the family, I think they have to be in on the conversation. If everyone else has other plans (especially if they're traditions they've done for years), I wouldn't expect them to change them.

I just said the thing about being aware of not trying to change traditions because the first time my brother came home after he had kids, he declared we wouldn't be going to midnight Mass.

It was something that was really special and important to me that I've always really enjoyed (I made DH, a non-Catholic, agree that he'd go with me before we got married!). Had my brother made a better case and made a suggestion instead of declaring what the whole family would do that year, it probably wouldn't have been a big deal. But his approach and delivery made the situation all about him and his family (never mind what I'd done with my parents for the previous 10 years while he'd been in college/not living at home)

I'd just be mindful of what's important to people when either inviting them or when they respond.

Our parents are all 1 - 1.5 hours away so we've stopped traveling to them for Christmas. What we've found has worked out the best is to host Christmas Eve lunch. Our parents come the day before or Christmas Eve morning. We exchange presents, have lunch, then they leave as the kids are ready for their nap. It worked perfectly last year and was so much less stressful.

This is coming from a person that has already told her parents no visiting Christmas Eve or Day, extend the invite only if you WANT them there.

I'd just talk to them about it. I'd tell them that our LO is too young to stay out late but we would love to have them come over to do x, y and z.

My parents adapted to us and started coming to our house on Christmas Eve. Now we all do Christmas Eve service and Christmas Day together. Then they head home the day after Christmas. Works out well.

It seems weird to not want to see your families on Christmas Eve or Christmas. Kind of selfish to be honest. You don't need Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day to make memories or traditions.

@alphagam84: I think there's a difference between not wanting to see extended family and wanting to have traditions with your own family. They're not mutually exclusive.

Honestly, I'd prefer if DH and I didn't have to rush off for his family celebration on Christmas day. I'd like to have a day to spend together, just the two of us. And we enjoy having an easy Christmas eve at home just the two of us and catching up with neighbors during the day.

It's not that we don't want to see people, it's just that we'd like to do things our way.

Which my mom and dad understood...hence getting together the day after Christmas.

For me, Christmas is about immediate family. There's plenty of time to see everyone else. But different families think different ways. For my grandmother, it was super important to get together. For my mom, that was kind of a pain so it's not as important.

As long as families can be respectful and come up with something that works for them, I don't think it's fair to assume not seeing family is automatically selfish.

We only spent Christmas with my dad's family once or twice because they lived in Boston and we lived in Virginia. And the only reason we saw them twice was because we went there (they rarely visited us. Some of them never did).

They could claim we were being selfish for not coming up on Christmas, but we could also claim they were selfish for never visiting. But it wasn't brought up, because we all figured out what worked for each family.