Husband HAS to spend Christmas morning with his mommy

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We used to go to both parents on Christmas but then we moved and then one of them moved … which meant that Christmas became all about spending the day in the car! The kids hated it. So I suggested that we take turns having Christmas at each other’s homes so that the travelling was shared and so that we could all have a turn of having the pleasure of putting Christmas on for the family. They al seemed to think this was too hard because they didn’t want to leave home for Christmas! At that time I was the only one with four children and felt quite justified not spending 8 hours on the day in the car trying to meet family obligations. My parents could see it and we catch up on Boxing Day instead and exchange gifts then. The children enjoy this and we get two relaxing happy days instead of just one. My MIL isn’t happy but then, she rarely is about anything that isn’t done according to her ideal. No flexibility there.

So my suggestion would be:
1/ Have them come to you on alternate years, you go to them alternate years.
OR
2/ Have Christmas at home and go and visit them on Boxing Day.

Your husband might find it hard but he has left home now and his immediate family has to come first. They are extended family now.
 
Della’s comment cuts to the quick and calls a spade a spade, LSK’s suggest an approach for you and your husband to resolve this, and YingYang’s comments open the right perspective to be considered.

I was one of those kids who was always hauled off with my younger siblings to Grandma’s for Christmas until she died when I was 13. We always loved going to Grandma’s and getting the great gifts. However, now upon reflecting and talking w/ my siblings, we all agree the best Christmas’ were when we just stayed as a family in our own home. Based on my experience, even though my mother wanted to repeat what her MIL did to her and tried to guilt us to spend Christmas with her and my siblings and all the cousins, I’m glad that we created our own tradition of early opening of one present, heavy hors douvres and then going together to Mass @ 10 p.m. (thank God we didn’t have to wait until midnight as the kids never would have made it 🙂 ). On Christmas morning, we opened more presents and enjoyed Santa’s gifts, stuck around until mid afternoon as a family. Only after that did we travel anywhere.

Now after 20 years, we have wonderful memories, pictures, and home movies of OUR family growing up. Wouldn’t trade them for anything and grateful that we never lost those years with my mother, siblings and cousins as precious as they are. We celebrate my family Christmas with the siblings either a couple of weeks before and sometimes into January and leave Christmas itself for each family to celebrate themselves.
 
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YinYangMom:
My advise to you would be to not look at this from your perspective at all. You already know what that is. You already know your husband’s perspective.

What is the perspective of your children?
Are they complaining about the travelling?
Are they complaining about not being home for the holidays alone with you?
Are they complaining about not being home to spend the time off from school with their friends?
Are they complaining about having to live in someone else’s home for the holidays?
Are they complaining about haivng to share their gifts with their cousins?

It may seem life forever to you, but the grandparents will not always be here. When they go, so will the traditions.

Yes, by then it will be too late to set up your own for your kids, perhaps, but if your children are learning about loving extended family members, including grandparents in their married lives, and they seem to be embracing that concept - think about what that means for you when your children have married.

Granted, when it comes to your turn at being the ‘in-law’ you will probably insist your children establish traditions at home, and hopefully will plan to travel to wherever they are so that you can share their traditions with them. You’ll probably have to rotate which Christmas is spent with which child that way though…

Still, ask yourself if any harm is being brought on your children by continuing this way. If there is more good than harm, then recognize that your wishes to have them at home for your own traditions may be self centered, and may require you sacrifice that for what your children, husband and in-laws, cousins prefer.

A disappointment, certainly, I know all too well what a pain in the royal behind packing the little ones’ stuff as well as our own - and gifts to boot (let alone saving room in the car or bringing an extra piece of luggage to bring home the stuff they got during the visit!) is. And being pregnant with #4 on top of that?! WOW!

But if you can travel to visit your family, I don’t see how you can beg off from traveling to visit his.
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I’m definitely not begging off from traveling to visit his family. I have already stated that I am willing to travel to visit them as much as feasible, and have done so extensively.

Of course the children will not be worse off for things to continue as they are. On the other hand they will not be worse off to make the change I am requesting.

I am truly trying to not be selfish in this matter. It is hard to know the balance. I feel that I have been very unselfish in this matter for 9 years, at Christmas and at other times, since we travel to visit them so much. I’m not complaining about packing up and traveling. That is secondary. What I’m talking about is making our own family memories, as that is very important to me. I want my children to look back and remember Christmases at home with their mom and dad and brothers and sisters, to have special memories of traditions created by their mom and dad, like special breakfast, Christmas Eve reading the Christmas story, etc.

Bottom line-- our current situation is for dh and mil. The kids of course LOVE visiting them, but wouldn’t care if we went there the day after Christmas. As long as they go, I don’t think they care when.
 
Della’s comment cuts to the quick and calls a spade a spade.
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Yes, I didn’t see any reason to pussyfoot around about it. 😉 😃
We celebrate my family Christmas with the siblings either a couple of weeks before and sometimes into January and leave Christmas itself for each family to celebrate themselves.
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And we do the same thing. My brothers, sister, their families and my dh and I (and our mom when she was alive) get together every year the Saturday before Christmas for a big family celebration. Then all of us have our own traditions in our own homes on Christmas Day. If a grandmom can’t see how that is better for everyone, she needs to be told that her feelings aren’t the only ones they have to consider. And that includes hubby, as well!
 
DH and I have similiar disagreements. Our problem is that DH grew up spending holidays at home with just his immediate family. I grew up spending holidays at grandma’s house with a houseful of family. (at least 40 people). I can’t even imagine spending Christmas at home all day without partying with family. I spend quality time with DH and the kids all year long, but on holidays I’m used to the chaos.

Maybe your DH is feeling the same way. He wants to have extended family around Christmas day. I can understand that. Maybe a way to compromise would be to alternate your holidays. Thanksgiving at his family’s, Christmas at yours. The next year you switch…Thanksgiving at your family, Christmas at his. That way your not stuck spending EVERY Christmas morning at your MIL’s house and you can establish some Christmas traditions for your kids with your family also. It may not be exactly what you wanted, but could be just another way of doing things.
Have you asked your kids what they want to do? How do they feel about staying home for Christmas morning? One of my best memories of my childhood were spending Christmas day at Grandma’s house. So your kids won’t be shortchanged at all if those are the memories they grow up with. Most likely, they will cherish those trips when they are adults.
 
It if were my husband and it meant that much to him I would go. Other wise you may end up with the tradition of having a crabby husband Christmas morning. I am very sentimental about Christmas so I can sympathize with him. I do understand you’re need to have your own family traditions as well.

This is a great opportunity to teach Christmas isn’t just about one day out of the year it’s the whole season of advent all the way to the epiphany. There is plenty of opportunity to start your own traditions. A special evening where you all put up the tree together, lighting the advent wreath, making cookies every year, taking a drive to see the Christmas lights, making cards for those in nursing homes, having a special celebration for the epiphany maybe excanging 3 small gifts symbolizing the gifts of the magi or better yet bring three gifts to a needy family.

As a child I remember the whole season having it’s own traditions. The same Christmas albums every year playing from Thanksgiving until Christmas, putting up the tree, the lights and that awful spray snow on the windows that never comes off. Driving to the neighborhoods that had amazingly beautiful light displays, midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

In my own situation if my husband used the words “couldn’t bear it” I would let him have his day with his family it wouldn’t be worth it to upset him that much on Christmas. I have him the rest of the year.
 
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aterrell:
My husband and I have been married for 9 years now. Sometime after the first year or so of marriage, we decided with our families that we would spend Thanksgiving with my family, Christmas with his. So it has been throughout the years. We live far enough away from both that this requires overnight trips. We usually stay through the Thanksgiving weekend at my family’s and at Christmas, we stay anywhere from one week to two weeks with his family. His mom goes crazy at Christmas–tons of gifts for everyone. We have 3 children now-- 5, 2, and 1, and I’m pregnant with #4. After we had children, I have started wanting to start our own Christmas traditions. Have our kids wake up in their own house, open gifts, have a leisurely breakfast, etc. As the kids get older, I want this more and more, but each year, I make my suggestion, then get in the car and start driving! This year I suggested that we stay here the weekend of Christmas, then drive to his family’s house Christmas day or the day after and stay the whole next week, through New Years. (It is about a 8 hour drive.) He says he understands how I feel, but he cannot “bear the thought” of being away from his family on Christmas morning. I’m hurt because I feel that WE are his family now! On his family’s end–his mom is just as nutty. Wants all her children and grandchildren there ON CHRISTMAS MORNING. Should I let this go AGAIN this year?
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You know you don’t have to have a condesending title to the thread to get opinions, don’t you? That being said, it is not unreasonable to spend some time at home and create your own memories. Getting together with his family the weekend before or after Christmas and having your own family time is perfectly reasonable. Just make sure that in the end, you don’t cut away too much total family time away from him. Maybe start by making sure during the year the total time spent with his family remains the same, even if it is not actually on Christmas day. You really need to talk to HIM and fully explain the importance of this to you so that you can come to an agreement. Make sure he knows that you respect and love his family also and don’t wish to take anything away from him and them.

I wish you luck!
 
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Orionthehunter:
I’m glad that we created our own tradition of early opening of one present, heavy hors douvres and then going together to Mass @ 10 p.m. (thank God we didn’t have to wait until midnight as the kids never would have made it 🙂 ). On Christmas morning, we opened more presents and enjoyed Santa’s gifts, stuck around until mid afternoon as a family. Only after that did we travel anywhere.

Now after 20 years, we have wonderful memories, pictures, and home movies of OUR family growing up. Wouldn’t trade them for anything and grateful that we never lost those years with my mother, siblings and cousins as precious as they are. We celebrate my family Christmas with the siblings either a couple of weeks before and sometimes into January and leave Christmas itself for each family to celebrate themselves.
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Oh that sounds so wonderful!! That brings up another issue as well–I’m a Catholic convert of 1 1/2 years and no one else (including dh) has followed suit. His mother is an ex-Catholic and was very against my conversion and still asks my husband frequently if I am coming back to Protestantism yet. Soooo the past few years I have had to sneak out to midnight mass alone (well, I don’t sneak out any more, just go, but alone). She is excited about this year b/c Christmas is on Sunday and we can all go to church (hers) together.
 
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aterrell:
Oh that sounds so wonderful!! That brings up another issue as well–I’m a Catholic convert of 1 1/2 years and no one else (including dh) has followed suit. His mother is an ex-Catholic and was very against my conversion and still asks my husband frequently if I am coming back to Protestantism yet. Soooo the past few years I have had to sneak out to midnight mass alone (well, I don’t sneak out any more, just go, but alone). She is excited about this year b/c Christmas is on Sunday and we can all go to church (hers) together.
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Does she realize that you still need to go to a Catholic mass?
 
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aterrell:
TRULY. I am glad to be able to have them spend time together. I’m not trying to keep them away. They are aweseome grandparents and I want to see them and have the kids see them as much as possible. It just doesn’t have to be on Christmas morning!!

When will there be time to start our own traditions? When the kids are grown? These are the precious years! They will only be young once!
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Boy, can I relate! You don’t by any chance have an Italian MIL, do you? You will probably never get to establish your own traditions if you do. I remember that well.

I’ve been married for 20 years to my MIL’s only child. Since the beginning, I’ve never been able to spend a single Christmas with my own family. (I’m #5 out of a family of 10). Every year, the same old thing - we had to go to their house, because DH is an only child and his parents need him.

When we moved 5 hours away, they sometimes came to our place, but always my MIL brought her own food so she could still have her own traditional meal on Christmas Eve. She did allow me to cook Christmas dinner, though! In recent years we haven’t always been able to spend Christmas together, and then it has been very hard on her, and my husband feels guilty. Never have I been able to spend Christmas with my family because my MIL always taked precedence.

As for my family, I practically had to write them off, as least, that’s the way I feel. When you marry into an Italian family, better set down rules right away about important things like holidays and grandchildren. Otherwise, you get swallowed up whole!
 
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yochumjy:
Does she realize that you still need to go to a Catholic mass?
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I’m sure she does. I always do. I go to midnight mass at Christmas, but other weekends when we happen to be there, I try to go to Sat. night vigil so there is not a conflict on Sunday morning. I try to be very not “in your face” about it because I know it is a sensitive issue. But I do go.
 
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aterrell:
I’m sure she does. I always do. I go to midnight mass at Christmas, but other weekends when we happen to be there, I try to go to Sat. night vigil so there is not a conflict on Sunday morning. I try to be very not “in your face” about it because I know it is a sensitive issue. But I do go.
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Good for you! May God grant you an equitable solution to this problem!
 
We were so blessed, we both have 8 brothers and sisters and both of our parents lived until we were married for 11 years, then my father-in-law died, two years after that, my father died, then my mother. All we have left is his mother and we can’t wake up Christmas morning with her because she has altzimer’s and lives in a home that cares for her. We have woke up Christmas morning in my parents house, his parents house, his sister’s houses, my sister’s houses, his brother’s houses, my brother’s houses, our house, and each and every Christmas was beautiful because we were altogether and with people we loved. One Christmas he was in another country and it was the saddest Christmas we ever had. The children and I went to Mass, opened our gifts and spent the rest of the day with neighbor’s. We all had to call one another and it was just not the same at all. Of course it was beautiful because we got to celebrate it with Jesus, but I believe He gave us family to enjoy his Birthday with. The more the merrier.
Maybe you could start doing something like that. Tell them all how much it would mean to you to spend Christmas alone, with them and with your family too.
Now we have Married children and grand-children to spend Christmas with.
 
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aterrell:
Oh that sounds so wonderful!! That brings up another issue as well–I’m a Catholic convert of 1 1/2 years and no one else (including dh) has followed suit. His mother is an ex-Catholic and was very against my conversion and still asks my husband frequently if I am coming back to Protestantism yet. Soooo the past few years I have had to sneak out to midnight mass alone (well, I don’t sneak out any more, just go, but alone). She is excited about this year b/c Christmas is on Sunday and we can all go to church (hers) together.
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Regarding you having to go to Christmas Mass alone, aren’t your kids Catholic?

This is a point of personal preference so it might not apply to all but somethng to think about. For our 20 years of marriage, we have celebrated 100% of the two High Seasons (Christmas and Easter) in our home and never travel. It has helped us keep the emphasis on the real reasons for the season. For us, travel and the chaos would be a distraction from Christ’s Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection.

We too come from a typical CAtholic family. Many get togethers with siblings and cousins. I’m so close to some of my cousins, they are hardly distinguishable from siblings. In fact, my kids call my cousins Uncle and Aunt and they visit my Aunt and Uncle who live a block from our parish like they would a grandparent as they must not have been able to tell the difference either. However, we have shifted these extended family gatherings to Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, and the 4th leaving the religious holidays to Christ, immediate family, and our parish family.
 
I only wish it was possible for us to see my in-laws so often. We live in Los Angles and they live in southern Indiana, so we have no choice but to fly. And flying at the holidays is expensive and stressfull. My mom moved out here, about 75 miles from us, after my dad died so I (thankfully) get to see her often. I’m an only child and we are very close. But my hubby doesn’t get to see his family very often. And being an only child, I won’t leave my mom alone on a major holiday (she would be truly alone, the rest of our family is in KY, IN too). You can imagine what it would cost for all 3 of us to fly back. It’s really difficult. So, in a way, you’re very lucky to even have such a problem.
 
Maybe your husband doesn’t realize that he’s denying his own children the very thing that means so much to him…Christmas at HOME. He’s made Christmas morning all about HIM and what HE wants. That just seems a little selfish. I’m sure he’s not meaning to be, but it still is.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
We have the opposite problem. My mother-in-law died 3 months before our wedding and my dad died 3 years after our wedding. When my dad died my mother would go into a deep depression every holiday a have to stay in bed for a week. My wife’s brothers were unmarried at this time so we just started having all the holidays. With our kids growing up and having families of their own and my brother-in-laws having their own families Christmas is now about 30 to 35 people at our house. Thankfully one of my brother-in-laws has Thanksgiving and we all go out on Easter. My wife and I want to scale back on Christmas and just have our own family but don’t know how to tell her brothers and their families so we just keep doing it. On the other hand it is nice to get all the families together and the cousins are now having their own kids who all seem to love the big get togethers.
 
You stay for a week or more? Wow, my husband doesn’t even get that kind of time off, he had to work last Christmas and he has to work this Christmas too, he is a Electrician at a plant that runs 24/7 and must have people there at all times day and night, I can’t even imagine staying that long with my inlaws, your a saint 😃

We have every other Christmas in our family, one Christmas with hubby’s family and the next year with mine and so if it’s hubby’s families Christmas that means it’s my families turn for Thanksgiving. The nice thing for us is also, we live only 45 minutes from my folks and about 2 hours from his mom, so, we head out late morning and get there for noon dinner and we are home that evening in our own beds, it’s great.

Sounds like you really have a tough situation, I really feel for you 🙂
 
It’s going to be interesting this year - my brother is divorcing the second wife (first one died), is in the new relationship, the second wife is in HER relationship and there are three kids. My mom and I are kind of standing here looking at each other going “hmmm, well…uh…hmmmm”…so, it’s in the Jesus Box (yup! following my own advice!) and it is in God’s Hands. No matter where we end up on any holiday I know that we will start the day with the Eucharistic Celebration in the community of Catholic Christians. And maybe it is time for me to truly begin my own home traditions. After all, at some point it is going to be just me and my cats and my new scotty and so …I always wanted to be one of those really cool widow ladies who makes a great dinner and invites those in the parish over for a meal that otherwise might end up alone too.
 
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