How do you divide the holidays now that you have kids?

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How do you divide the holidays now that you have kids?

By Mrs. Bee Oct 19, 2011

My family lives in Los Angeles (we're in New York), and Mr. Bee's parents live abroad on a remote island so we've never really had to divide the holidays. Usually it's just our little family in New York for Thanksgiving and Christmas because it's hard for Mr. Bee's parents to come often, and my mom usually goes to Korea for Christmas.

I dream of one day having a home big enough to host big holiday get togethers. Until then, it'll have to be me, Mr. Bee, Charlie and Olive!

How do you divide up the holidays with both sides of the family?

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Tags: holidays

8 comments

hreichard
cherry / 159 posts

Oct 19, 2011

Well my sons father & I are no longer together. What we are going to do this year is I'm going to have his Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Then Christmas evening his dad is going to take him and keep him until Tuesday when we go back to work. For Thanksgiving, i'm going to keep him Thursday, then Friday & the weekend his dad will keep him. I have him everyday, so i dont mind sharing him for the weekend of the holiday.
Adira
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts

Oct 19, 2011

Although we don't have children yet, I suspect things won't change once we do. Currently we split the two major holidays (major for us anyway), Christmas and Thanksgiving, between my family and Hub's family, and we alternate each year. So this year we'll do Christmas morning and day at my parents, and Thanksgiving with the Hub's family. And next year we'll switch with his family getting Christmas day and my family getting Thanksgiving. UNFORTUNATELY, his parents are divorced, so it makes it a little more complicated. Generally we go to whichever parent his sister is going to, so the whole family (minus one parent) is together. Usually that means his mom kind of gets gipped, because she generally doesn't invite us beforehand and then complains about never seeing us, haha. But I just tell her she needs to make her claim early if she wants us. I'm such a bad daughter-in-law...
mamabolt
nectarine / 2797 posts

Oct 19, 2011

Right now we alternate spending Thanksgiving with one set of parents and Christmas with the other. Whoever we don't spend Christmas with we try and see shortly after. Once we have a kid we have decided we want to spend Christmas Eve and morning in our own house. Not sure if we will travel somewhere on Christmas day or keep up the alternating plans. I have a ton of extended family near my parents that we get to see if we travel to see them, but there is no one near MIL. She may end up traveling to see us more than we go to see her as a result.
sandsandmore
cherry / 242 posts

Oct 19, 2011

This is our first holiday season with the kiddo, so we're staying home. We want to start our own traditions and figure now's the best time to do it (gives us time to figure things out before DS remembers). Also, since my son is a preemie, we're not willing to risk traveling -- so if family wants to visit, they'll have to come to us.
Honeybee
pomelo / 5178 posts

Oct 19, 2011

We stopped traveling for holidays about 3 years ago, and it was the best decision we ever made. Anyone and everyone is invited to our house for all the holidays except Christmas; that's private time just for our little family. Usually, my family comes up for Thanskgiving and sometime around New Year's. My youngest sister is coming up this year at the beginning of December, instead of the holidays. My other sisters aren't coming up at all this year.

My in-laws don't travel to visit us, but they don't really celebrate the holidays, anyway. Last time we spent the holidays with them, we went out to eat on Thanksgiving and left early from their house at christmas because it was so depressing.
MaisyMay
GOLD / cantaloupe / 6703 posts

Oct 19, 2011

When we have to make this call, I imagine we'll do what we normally do: whichever holiday has the most time off we'll drive to L.A. The other holiday we'll either drive to Chico or stay home and have my mom come here.
mediagirl
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts

Oct 19, 2011

Great question. My folks live 2 1/2 hrs away, his folks live 12 hours away. We have normally spent holidays with my parents because they're closer. It's not fair but at the same time, his parents don't travel often. We will probably keep it the same and if his folks want to see us over the holidays, they can come to us. I have a feeling it will just be too much work to take a baby or a young child on a 12 hour car ride (with two dogs)!!!!
mrsjyw
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22646 posts

Oct 19, 2011

We don't have kids yet, but I don't think we will have to adjust too much.

Both of our parents live 20 minutes away, so right now and for the past several years we have spend Thanksgiving with my extended family (who all live near us), my parents, and his parents, since his extended family does their own Tgiving.

For Christmas, we spend Christmas Eve at home. We go to church service with his parents Christmas morning and have brunch with them. Christmas evening we spend with my parents/extended family. Christmas weekend we drive up north with his parents to spend with his extended family.

Once kids are here, we will probably shorten our Christmas weekend so that we have more time at our home for just us.

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