Balancing Family Commitments at the Holidays
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The holidays can be a wonderful time to get together with family that you don’t often see. It can be an enriching opportunity for your children to visit with cousin, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. It can be “the most wonderful time of the year.”
Or, it can be a tad stressful.
Family holidays can bring out the best in us — or the worst, depending on our circumstances, our finances, or our moods. And when we’re parents of young children, it can be really difficult at times to balance family commitments, our desire for tradition, and our need for sanity.
A reader wrote with the following question:
My husband’s family and my family both live locally. My parents are divorced. Each year, for Thanksgiving in particular, we seem to attend and/or host some combination of 3-4 Thanksgiving celebrations between all of the sides of the family. While I would like to think that we could bring everyone together for a large family holiday, this just has not been feasible in the past. What suggestions do you have for keep our sanity in regards to time and efforts during this time? I have come to dread Thanksgiving over the last several years because of all of this.
Wow. I can understand this situation in many ways. Our family has experienced divorce as well and in the early years of our marriage, we did the dance from one turkey dinner to the next. While it was manageable during our pre-children days, we knew that it would get tough once we had kids.
And even if divorce is not an issue, balancing family commitments can be tricky. In-laws’ or parents’ or your own house? Multiply that by your siblings and their respective family/in-law situations, and the mental gymnastics to get all the family in one place at one time can be a death-defying feat!
Some ways to approach it:
Some ways to approach it:Be united – Whatever you do, you and your spouse need to be united about how you will handle holiday get-togethers. I can’t stress this enough. If you’ve got an in-house debate going, it will be hard to handle any outside friction gracefully. Begin the conversation early and not during stressful times.
In fact, you may start talking about next year now, instead of trying to enact change this month. Find a moment that is not “in the heat of the moment” and address your goals for the holidays and other family events.
Be willing to say no and to disappoint – Before you can make decisions about where you’ll be when, you need to be willing to say no — and be okay with the idea that you might disappoint someone. But, if you and your spouse are united, then you can tackle anything! Just season your words with gentleness.
Alternate sides each year – Some extended families tend toward the switch off technique. Spend Thanksgiving with one side of the family, Christmas with the other. Keep New Year’s to yourself! Rotate positions next year. In the case of a third or fourth branch of the family, you may need to do a little fancier footwork or combine groups that get along.
Keep one holiday to yourself and alternate the others – This is the route that we’ve taken since FishBoy13 was one. Our kids have always spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning at home. We don’t. go. anywhere.
While it was probably difficult for our families at first (Sorry, Mom), it has proven to be a very good practice for our kids. It builds traditions for them. And they love the continuity of celebrating Christmas at home.
We have had family come to us at Christmas, but we made it a point early on not to move our kids around on a day when they just want to play.
Invite everyone over to your house – This makes more work for you in some ways, but in other ways, it enables you a little more control over what your family does.
If you don’t think the different branches of the family will blend well, consider hosting an open house. Family can stagger their visits throughout the day; your kids can play in safe and familiar surroundings; and you won’t run yourself ragged all over the place.
There is no “one right answer,” unfortunately. In fact, what works for you this year may feel like a train wreck next year. Such is life as MOM.
Be willing to roll with the punches, love your family despite the demands on your time, and enjoy the season with your peeps.
We struggled a bit at the beginning with the sharing of our time during the holidays with extended family. Unfortunately, my mil took it personally (and still does) if we don’t put her first. My dh has gotten better about focusing on what works for his family over what the extended family wants. It also helps that other family members want to stay home on Christmas with their kids. Now we have a day where extended family gets together to visit.
However, we’ve been thrown into a slightly different issue. My mom and stepfather have been spending time with my stepfather’s brother and his family on Thanksgiving because the brother is sick. The brother has been sick for at least 5 years now. If I don’t make a big deal about getting together, it doesn’t happen, and my dh thinks we’re not welcome at my mom’s house. It’s an issue I need to address after the holidays.
Thanks so much for this post. It addresses the problems so many have during the holidays. I totally agree about solidarity with your spouse. Of course sometimes that’s easier said than done. It’s worth working on though!
Understandably all the responses are from mostly young moms. And admittedly one must have control over their own traditions etc. As an older mother with 2 grown sons who it would seem have become mutes as all decisions regarding holidays (and most everything else) are entirely up to my DIL’s. So for those who have sons, enjoy what you have today while they are young.
We also have the holiday craze…for what it’s worth, here is what we do. We still run around like crazy, but we know what is coming each year!
Thanksgiving – we go to hubby’s family
Black Friday – shopping and dinner with my family (and my mom and I go shopping again in the afternoon while Turkey cooks!)
*We don’t see my father on Thanksgiving – just too many places to be
Christmas Eve – Church and then my mom’s house for celebration
Christmas Morning – HOME
Christmas @ noon – My father’s
Christmas evening – Dinner with hubby’s family (whole extended)
We also have a celebration with hubby’s immediate family following Christmas so that we can have a more intimate gathering with them. It is usually the day after Christmas and we do a brunch (even if it is at nighttime) and everyone HAS to wear PJ’s!
Then the 27th is my twins’ birthday so I switch gears into birthday mode and get ready for the party that follows on the Saturday afterward!
I wish I had a big house and I would definitely host, but we have a tiny house that can’t accommodate.
Good luck to everyone! Coordinating can be SO hard!
Thank you so much for this post. What a difference it makes for my hubby and I to be on the same page. We are trying to have our own family traditions, even though it’s just the two of us, while balancing the family traditions of his family (x2) and my family. What a relief to read that lots of other readers feel that same way I do. I have noticed that being upfront about what our plans are this year has been a lot easier and less stressful.
This is such a hard thing. I don’t know what’s worse, the guilt trips if you don’t go or the stress of traveling the interstates with a million other crazy people. I feel like it’s a suicide mission every time we do that. We finally stopped traveling for major holidays a few years ago when my son was born. It’s just too much. But, to make up for it, we make sure to travel a lot during other times of the year. The first few holidays alone were weird and kind of sad, but so relaxing. Do you know how awesome it is to not get dressed until 2:30 PM on Christmas day? Over the years we’ve developed our own holiday traditions and I have to admit we would feel pretty put out to miss any of them at this point!
Oh boy … this will be the FIRST Christmas in 25 years that we are going back north for a week … with the two teens. We will stay at my BIL (not an issue) and visit the MIL&FIL, and then visit MY parents and THEN visit my brother and wife. Uggg. I’m already getting anxiety … my parents are exactly outgoing, lets go spend time with those we don’t know well type of people … I think my brother & inlaws would get along fine but my parents will NOT come to anyones home. Which puts me in such a situation 🙁 I’m 46 and still feel guilty if they aren’t participants in happy extended family gatherings. It’s not something I have control of, and I’ve doen everything from extending the invite, offering to drive, etc. to no avail (“why is so and so sending us an invitation in the mail?” “because you won’t answer the phone when they call” “well I wasn’t in the mood to talk” this is the type of drama I get to deal with :)) Then I look at Hubby and the kids and think, heck, its family time in Indiana! There better be snow (sorry for all you midwestern people who had more than your fill last year!)