Married children and Christmas -- need advice

[Tommy999]

Hello all,
My wife and I have two children (both young adult sons). One of them is engaged to a nice Christian girl. He lives in a city about two hours away from us where he got a job. He met his fiancé there, who lives with her family.

Our other son still lives at home with us for the time being.

Before Thanksgiving, my wife called our son to see if he would be celebrating it with us. He said that Thanksgiving was very important to his fiancé’s family, so he was planning on celebrating with them, which he did. It’s important to us, also, but we understood and decided to not press the issue. After all, compromise is part of life and we want to be reasonable in-laws and not be a pain in the tuckus.

Earlier this month when we discussed Christmas plans, he asked us if we could celebrate Christmas a few days before Christmas with our side of the family so that he could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her family. That upset my wife a lot. We finally told him that we are planning to celebrate Christmas as normal on Christmas Eve and that he and his fiancé can come celebrate with us or do their own thing, but that we were planning on celebrating it as we always have done, and what he does is up to him.

After talking it over among themselves, our son and his fiancé are now planning to stay with us on Dec 23 and Christmas Eve and attend Christmas Eve service with us, but that on Christmas morning they are planning to drive back to their city and spend the rest of it with her family. His fiancé will be staying at our neighbor’s home, with whom we are good friends. We have no trouble with this arrangement.

Question:
Just curious how other families split up time at major holidays. We don’t want to be selfish and insist that our son and his fiancé spend all major holidays with us, but we definitely want to share part of at least one holiday with them. We don’t think that is too much to ask.

Just curious how everyone else splits up the holidays when it involves married children. I would imagine it might get even more complicated with the more married children you have.

 

[AClaire11]

I don’t have any personal experience, as we can’t afford to travel to either set of parents during holiday price hikes, but I do know plenty of couples and families who do split the Christmas season in the way your son suggested. Could you elaborate on why that was so upsetting? Would you be open to it if they rotated who got the actual day? There was a fairly recent thread about holidays and visiting family, if you haven’t looked at it already.

 

[UbiCaritas]

Hello all,
My wife and I have two children (both young adult sons). One of them is engaged to a nice Christian girl. He lives in a city about two hours away from us where he got a job. He met his fiancé there, who lives with her family.

Our other son still lives at home with us for the time being.

Before Thanksgiving, my wife called our son to see if he would be celebrating it with us. He said that Thanksgiving was very important to his fiancé’s family, so he was planning on celebrating with them, which he did. It’s important to us, also, but we understood and decided to not press the issue. After all, compromise is part of life and we want to be reasonable in-laws and not be a pain in the tuckus.

Earlier this month when we discussed Christmas plans, he asked us if we could celebrate Christmas a few days before Christmas with our side of the family so that he could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her family. That upset my wife a lot. We finally told him that we are planning to celebrate Christmas as normal on Christmas Eve and that he and his fiancé can come celebrate with us or do their own thing, but that we were planning on celebrating it as we always have done, and what he does is up to him.

After talking it over among themselves, our son and his fiancé are now planning to stay with us on Dec 23 and Christmas Eve and attend Christmas Eve service with us, but that on Christmas morning they are planning to drive back to their city and spend the rest of it with her family. His fiancé will be staying at our neighbor’s home, with whom we are good friends. We have no trouble with this arrangement.

Question:
Just curious how other families split up time at major holidays. We don’t want to be selfish and insist that our son and his fiancé spend all major holidays with us, but we definitely want to share part of at least one holiday with them. We don’t think that is too much to ask.

Just curious how everyone else splits up the holidays when it involves married children. I would imagine it might get even more complicated with the more married children you have.

In our family, it’s a little simpler because we don’t have contact with my parents, but also a bit more complicated because my parents-in-law live across the country, and in a town which is a MAJOR tourist destination during the holidays–read, very, very pricey airfare.

We settle it by playing things year-by-year. If I’m heavily pregnant, we stay home so that I’m not trying to get my giant, sore, pregnant self comfortable on an air mattress. If not, we’ll go see them sometime in December or January, depending on airfare or family events. (Read: when there’s a family wedding in early January, we are not dropping the money twice on airfare for us and the kids to be there both for Christmas and for the wedding.) It helps that the whole family sees Christmas as very much the 12-day-long festival that it is, so if we aren’t there on Christmas itself but, say, a few days later, we’ll still have the tree up, still have a big family dinner, and so on.

We don’t go out for Thanksgiving, but we also will sometimes shift Thanksgiving to, say, the Friday after. This year, one of the local family members had a commitment he couldn’t miss on Thanksgiving, so I made a big game-day sort of spread on Thanksgiving itself (dips, snacks, chips, hot sandwich rolls, that sort of thing) and the turkey et all were on Friday, when we could all be here.

 

[UbiCaritas]

One last thing I want to suggest: please don’t have your son and his wife get into a position where in order to keep everyone happy, they have to spend most of the holidays themselves driving. I have a couple of friends who have to deal with this, and in order to keep the peace, it’s fairly standard for them to drive for an hour to go to Midnight Mass with her family (his is not only not Catholic, but pretty rabidly anti-Catholic), drive 2 hours to his family to spend Christmas Eve night/Christmas Day morning with them, drive another 2 hours back to her family for Christmas dinner, and then drive another hour to get back to their home. In a shocking turn of events, neither of them really likes Christmas at all because they’re spending hours and hours in the car.

(Were this me, I would have set a firm boundary years ago to the effect of Thanksgiving at one house, Christmas at the other, and swap off each year, but they don’t feel up to the resultant emotional blackmail from his family in particular that this would generate.)

Also, once grandkids get into the mix, it’s really, REALLY miserable for them to feel fought over/guilty for enjoying the celebration with family A as well as family B/like they don’t get a chance to play with their new toys because they spend all of Christmas in the car.

 

[wheelie]

We spend Christmas with my dad, have done for years.

But that is because we came to that arrangement many many years ago before kids and before marriage. We then spend Easter with my husbands family.
It works because Easter is my dads busiest time of year but Christmas less so. Both sides agree to this set up and are happy with it.

You don’t want to get into a situation where they are driving on Christmas Day, no one wants that, especially when they have children.
They may reach a point where they want to spend Christmas alone or invite people to them.
Most people I know alternate years between families or spend Christmas Day one place and Boxing day in another but that only works in places where Boxing Day is a thing

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I think its best to take each year as it comes. I don’t think you can always be fair and it’s not good if people feel they have to spend large amounts of the holiday in transit trying to please everyone nor get locked into custody like arrangements.

It’s better not to obsess over holidays and focus on spending time with loved ones in general throughout the year.

 

[Allegra]

If you have sons, I highly suggest you get used to the idea of having a family Christmas celebration on another day during the Christmas season, especially if at least one of your son’s family is going to be living in the city where his wife’s family lives. If you want to die on the hill of Christmas-MUS- be-celebrated-on-Christmas-Day-only, that’s fine, but there is a good chance that you will be celebrating without some of your grandchildren, or with them breezing in and out too quickly so they can get to their other families, or even just you and your wife alone. One the other hand, if you are flexible, you can plan a day where you and all of your children and grandchildren get to spend the whole day celebrating together however you want. We’re Catholic and there are twelve days of Christmas for a reason. Also, having your celebration on a day other than Christmas Day opens a whole lot of opportunities up for you. Everything is closed on Christmas, but if you celebrate the weekend before, you can include attending a light show, seeing a concert, iceskating, taking a sleighride, or attending an outdoor festival in your plans. Food could be whatever you want and you could even let a caterer or restaurant handle the food so you could spend the time relaxing with your family. You could use these as a selling points for your wife.

 

[Allegra]

One last thing I want to suggest: please don’t have your son and his wife get into a position where in order to keep everyone happy, they have to spend most of the holidays themselves driving. I have a couple of friends who have to deal with this, and in order to keep the peace, it’s fairly standard for them to drive for an hour to go to Midnight Mass with her family (his is not only not Catholic, but pretty rabidly anti-Catholic), drive 2 hours to his family to spend Christmas Eve night/Christmas Day morning with them, drive another 2 hours back to her family for Christmas dinner, and then drive another hour to get back to their home. In a shocking turn of events, neither of them really likes Christmas at all because they’re spending hours and hours in the car.

(Were this me, I would have set a firm boundary years ago to the effect of Thanksgiving at one house, Christmas at the other, and swap off each year, but they don’t feel up to the resultant emotional blackmail from his family in particular that this would generate.)

Also, once grandkids get into the mix, it’s really, REALLY miserable for them to feel fought over/guilty for enjoying the celebration with family A as well as family B/like they don’t get a chance to play with their new toys because they spend all of Christmas in the car.

My parents divorced when I was five and I grew up in this nightmare. “Two Christmases” generally results in no actual Christmas because you spend the whole day in the car. My parents would have been fine simply having separate celebrations on separate days, but it was actually my extended family that got all bent out of shape when we didn’t make our appearance at their celebrations. Then, after they got remarried, it became an even greater nightmare because we had to be displayed at FOUR different celebrations. Finally, they figured out that this was not working and we just chose one place to go on Christmas Eve and one place to go on Christmas Day and those who were disappoint got to be disappointed. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this now. My dad’s family celebrates on a different day and my husbands parents live in different states. We can’t travel on Christmas because of his job and neither can one of his sisters who lives in Florida, so we all get together in Wisconsin a couple days after Christmas and have another celebration.

 

[pianistclare]

I guess I’m the odd person out.
I see no reason why a families need to split celebrations or celebrate way earlier to accommodate a potentially new family. I suppose it’s good that your son is so welcome and already has a good relationship with them.

It’s only going to get worse and grandparents fight for time with the grand kids.

You’re in my prayers Tommy.
And I understand why your wife is upset, God love her. But realize that the menfolk go wherever the wives tell them they should go.

Just celebrate close to the appropriate time, and invite even the extended new in-laws.
Make it clear that you’re not choosing, you’re offering.
If they come great! They’ll be part of the family for years to come.
Don’t let it ruin your Christmas, as you well understand that Christmas is more than presents, a tree, and good food. It’s important, but you won’t want to get in a situation where people try to outdo each other.

God bless you. If y’all lived closer you could come to our house! :christmastree1:

 

[Allegra]

I guess I’m the odd person out.
I see no reason why a families need to split celebrations or celebrate way earlier to accommodate a potentially new family.:

Huh? Obviously, because a couple wants to spend holidays together and they can’t physically be two places at once. Therefore, the parents have to decide whether its more important to have all of their children and grandchildren present, or more important to celebrate on the actual holiday. Are you saying this because the young couple isn’t married yet and you think they should just split up and go to their own families’ celebration? That’s fine for now, but eventually they will be married and have children, so what then? Both families want their children present, but the couple can only be at one place at the same time.

 

[Tommy999]

. Could you elaborate on why that was so upsetting? Would you be open to it if they rotated who got the actual day? There was a fairly recent thread about holidays and visiting family, if you haven’t looked at it already.

Thanks for the reply, AClaire11.
It was more upsetting for my wife than for me. She was upset that our prospective in-laws would have them for both Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and we would only have a pre-holidayday with them, which made her feel like our family is less important than hers in the eyes of our son and fiancé.

I think we would be fine with rotating who got the actual day, although we are fine with having them on Christmas Eve because that is our traditional day for doing the most celebrating, while Christmas Day is the most important day for her family – so I think that works out well for both.

 

[Tommy999]

In our family, it’s a little simpler because we don’t have contact with my parents, but also a bit more complicated because my parents-in-law live across the country, and in a town which is a MAJOR tourist destination during the holidays–read, very, very pricey airfare.

We settle it by playing things year-by-year. If I’m heavily pregnant, we stay home so that I’m not trying to get my giant, sore, pregnant self comfortable on an air mattress. If not, we’ll go see them sometime in December or January, depending on airfare or family events. (Read: when there’s a family wedding in early January, we are not dropping the money twice on airfare for us and the kids to be there both for Christmas and for the wedding.) It helps that the whole family sees Christmas as very much the 12-day-long festival that it is, so if we aren’t there on Christmas itself but, say, a few days later, we’ll still have the tree up, still have a big family dinner, and so on.

We don’t go out for Thanksgiving, but we also will sometimes shift Thanksgiving to, say, the Friday after. This year, one of the local family members had a commitment he couldn’t miss on Thanksgiving, so I made a big game-day sort of spread on Thanksgiving itself (dips, snacks, chips, hot sandwich rolls, that sort of thing) and the turkey et all were on Friday, when we could all be here.

Playing things year by year sounds like a good idea, UbiCaritas. It’s always good to be flexible.

 

[Tommy999]

We spend Christmas with my dad, have done for years.

But that is because we came to that arrangement many many years ago before kids and before marriage. We then spend Easter with my husbands family.
It works because Easter is my dads busiest time of year but Christmas less so. Both sides agree to this set up and are happy with it.

You don’t want to get into a situation where they are driving on Christmas Day, no one wants that, especially when they have children. They may reach a point where they want to spend Christmas alone or invite people to them.
Most people I know alternate years between families or spend Christmas Day one place and Boxing day in another but that only works in places where Boxing Day is a thing

I agree with the bolded, especially. We definitely don’t want to make things miserable for my son and his fiancé.

 

[Tommy999]

I think its best to take each year as it comes. I don’t think you can always be fair and it’s not good if people feel they have to spend large amounts of the holiday in transit trying to please everyone nor get locked into custody like arrangements.

It’s better not to obsess over holidays and focus on spending time with loved ones in general throughout the year.

I like your perspective on this, Lucy. It’s not as big of a deal for me as it is for my wife, so I am mainly trying to be a mediator in this situation for the most part.

 

[Tommy999]

Thank you for sharing, please be assured of my prayers!

Part of the problem is that while your wife could insist that your son be present at holiday events, she will then have a son in attendance that really doesn’t want to be there and may even be a bit resentful so that doesn’t really solve the problem much.

Children are born to leave. I have dealt with this same problem it is HARD. I have been told “we are spending Christmas with so-and-so can we see you later” and believe me it is not easy. We have further complications in that the other side has divorces so there are multiple stops to deal with. Every year it is a calendar juggle and, yes I have two or more Christmases and Easters but I have grown to see it as a way to embrace my Catholic faith in that celebrating Jesus’ birth and resurrection is a multiple day celebration!

There is a lot more cleaning involved, but as far as my adult children are concerned I have told them flat out "I will take you when I can get you.’ and that is an exact quote. Others have mentioned spending the holidays in the car and that is also a consideration. We did that too when my first two children were little and it was awful. Two years in a row (in order to make my mother-in-law, my parents and a few others happy) we spent four hours in the car on Christmas Eve…YUCK! It was the two worst Christmas Eves of my life spending most of the day on the freeway I hated it. Your son is choosing to spend more time with his fiancés family though and that is extremely hard for you and your wife, perhaps she is closer to her family than he is to you? Now would not be the time to react in anger or irritability though, now is the time to invite your son out to lunch, now is the time to call him on the phone, send him an email, reach out to him and strengthen the relationship so that your son is attracted to spend more time with your family in a positive way out of joy rather than guilt. Hope this helps, God bless you.

Thanks for your prayers, Monicad. It sounds like you a giving person in that you agree to take them when you can get them. That sounds like a good attitude and approach. We definitely don’t want to create any resentment with them.

I think our son has always been very giving and he likes to keep his fiancé happy. She is close to her family and our son is close to us, so I don’t read anything more into it than that – his desire to please his future wife. My wife is a bit upset because she thinks he bends over backwards to please her and her family and isn’t as considerate to us. She is a bit sensitive in this area, but we have never been in-laws before, so this is new for us.

 

[Tommy999]

I guess I’m the odd person out.
I see no reason why a families need to split celebrations or celebrate way earlier to accommodate a potentially new family. I suppose it’s good that your son is so welcome and already has a good relationship with them.

It’s only going to get worse and grandparents fight for time with the grand kids. :

I agree. Our suggestion was for them to do Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with the other so it wouldn’t be so hectic, Yes, I definitely don’t want to fight with the in-laws and will do my best to prevent such scuffles.

You’re in my prayers Tommy.
And I understand why your wife is upset, God love her. But realize that the menfolk go wherever the wives tell them they should go. :

Thanks for your prayers, Clare. Yes, I reminded my wife that when she and I got married, we generally went to her family’s house.
She then smiled and playfully told me it was my fault we didn’t have girls.

Just celebrate close to the appropriate time, and invite even the extended new in-laws.
Make it clear that you’re not choosing, you’re offering.
If they come great! They’ll be part of the family for years to come.
Don’t let it ruin your Christmas, as you well understand that Christmas is more than presents, a tree, and good food. It’s important, but you won’t want to get in a situation where people try to outdo each other. :

Very good advice. I think I will do this.

God bless you. If y’all lived closer you could come to our house! :christmastree1:

From last year, you mentioned some of the dishes you make for Christmas that have a Southwestern flair. I think my wife and I would enjoy that cuisine very much as well as the company. Take care, Clare.

 

[Tommy999]

My parents divorced when I was five and I grew up in this nightmare. “Two Christmases” generally results in no actual Christmas because you spend the whole day in the car. My parents would have been fine simply having separate celebrations on separate days, but it was actually my extended family that got all bent out of shape when we didn’t make our appearance at their celebrations. Then, after they got remarried, it became an even greater nightmare because we had to be displayed at FOUR different celebrations. Finally, they figured out that this was not working and we just chose one place to go on Christmas Eve and one place to go on Christmas Day and those who were disappoint got to be disappointed. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this now. My dad’s family celebrates on a different day and my husbands parents live in different states. We can’t travel on Christmas because of his job and neither can one of his sisters who lives in Florida, so we all get together in Wisconsin a couple days after Christmas and have another celebration.

Ouch, Allegra. That sounds like a painful way to handle things and I feel badly for what you had to endure growing up. I will do my best to prevent this sort of thing with our soon-to-be extended family because I don’t want them to go through something like you had to do.

 

[Tommy999]

We spend Christmas with my dad, have done for years.

But that is because we came to that arrangement many many years ago before kids and before marriage. We then spend Easter with my husbands family.
It works because Easter is my dads busiest time of year but Christmas less so. Both sides agree to this set up and are happy with it.

You don’t want to get into a situation where they are driving on Christmas Day, no one wants that, especially when they have children.
They may reach a point where they want to spend Christmas alone or invite people to them.
Most people I know alternate years between families or spend Christmas Day one place and Boxing day in another but that only works in places where Boxing Day is a thing

Good advice, Wheelie. This seems to be a consistent theme in the replies so far. We need to think of the welfare or our son and his fiancé more than dwell on our own feelings in this matter. I agree with this. I will speak to my wife about this the next time the subject comes up. Also, on a related topic. will you come claim my body at the morgue?

 

[Phemie]

We were lucky, our families lived only 15 minutes apart. Since DH was in the military we didn’t get to spend every Christmas with our families but we went as often as we could. If we were home my parents usually took our kids to the early family Mass while we spent Christmas Eve with his parents at a party given by friends of his family.

From there we’d go to Midnight Mass in my parish. After Mass we’d head to my parents’ house and open our presents. That was followed by the Réveillon (traditional French Canadian party after Midnight Mass) either at my parents’ house, in the early days of our marriage, or at my cousin’s house two doors up the street.

On Christmas morning we’d head for his parents’ house to open presents there and have Christmas dinner. Then back to my parents’ house for another Christmas dinner. His mother had always served Christmas dinner at noon, my mom had always served it at night. That worked perfectly for us.

Mom died in 85, his Dad in 91 and his mom just before Christmas 92. We still tried to get home to spend Christmas with Dad. We did that until we were posted to a new Base in 1994. Our kids were 14, 12 & 10 at the time. The new house had a fireplace and the minute we walked in the 12 year old started talking about hanging stockings and a roaring fire on Christmas morning. This posting was the closest we’d been to home in 10 years so I said,

“Scott, we’ll be going home for Christmas.”
“No, you’ll be going home. We hardly get to spend Christmas in our home.”

As much as I wanted to spend Christmas with my dad, we decided then and there that our little family had to come first. In order not to hurt my dad by telling him we’d chosen not to come home and in order not to lie to him, DH volunteered to work 4pm shift every Christmas Day while on that posting. We could still go to Midnight Mass and have our Christmas dinner at noon. We’d head to Dad’s for New Years instead. Dad had all the cousins and my brother living in the area so he wasn’t alone for Christmas.

The last time we went “home” for Christmas was 2003, the year Dad was in the hospital, dying. We’ve been in this house since 1999. The last time we were all here together for Christmas was 2000 or 2001. The last child left in 2006.

In 2011 grandson #1 was born and we used our points to get everyone to DD’s for his first Christmas. We’ve gone there for Christmas every year since, except 2014 when we used points to get DD, SIL and the grandsons here. We leave on Dec. 23 to fly to DDs again. On the way back we spend a week with DS1 and his wife and our best friends. Maybe we’ll be lucky and be able to bring DS2 home for Christmas next year.

 

[Tommy999]

We were lucky, our families lived only 15 minutes apart. Since DH was in the military we didn’t get to spend every Christmas with our families but we went as often as we could. If we were home my parents usually took our kids to the early family Mass while we spent Christmas Eve with his parents at a party given by friends of his family.

From there we’d go to Midnight Mass in my parish. After Mass we’d head to my parents’ house and open our presents. That was followed by the Réveillon (traditional French Canadian party after Midnight Mass) either at my parents’ house, in the early days of our marriage, or at my cousin’s house two doors up the street.

On Christmas morning we’d head for his parents’ house to open presents there and have Christmas dinner. Then back to my parents’ house for another Christmas dinner. His mother had always served Christmas dinner at noon, my mom had always served it at night. That worked perfectly for us.

Hi Phemie,
Yes, that sounds like a more convenient arrangement for all involved. That must have been nice. However, it sounds like you had to adjust and come up with other traditions that worked best for your family later on.

I learn something new every day. I looked up Réveillon and that sounds pretty cool, although it also sounds like very little sleep that night going into Christmas Day itself.

Just curious… Did anyone get any sleep Christmas Eve night/Christmas?