Hard as it is, and I definitely relate to how hard these things are, tell your husband it’s his mother and he needs to figure it out. That your son needs to make travel plans unless he wants to pay a fortune for airfare.
And then try and let them make a decision. And if there is no decision, then that is a decision.
I think we are a lot alike. I’m always worrying and wondering. Making plans and back up plans. Worrying that I don’t upset someone. Worried that my mil will blame me (don’t worry, she does as it’s woman’s work to make plans).
From your original post, it sounds like your husband doesn’t want to go to his mothers for Christmas. You’ve seen her quite a bit this year and it sounds like he’s not wanting to go there, take time off. Using up the mental space of dealing with her.
But I truly understand the angst, worry and pit of the stomach feeling with all of this. Every year I try to please everyone and it never works. I feel like I want the holidays to be over, so I don’t have to worry for another 9 or so months.
Good point! I’m all about being flexible and having to adapt. Also, to put it into perspective, my grandfather fought in WWII, he had to miss several Christmases with his family. It stunk, but everyone dealt with it. It was part of the sacrifice people made. We need realize we aren’t in a war. Being OCD about the holidays and trying to make everyone happy and make everything perfect, really takes the fun out of holidays. I’ve seen so many friends have to deal with stress and friction over making the holidays perfect and it doesn’t seem fun or healthy.
I didn’t like flying over the holidays before and would definitely not want to do it (or ask my kids to do it) now.
D’s MiL made it clear that they get Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at their house every year and she goes along with it. D and SiL stay home on Christmas Day - no visitors allowed.
Next year, when our grandchild is old enough to notice, we’ll make a big fuss about St. Nicholas’ Day and Epiphany like we used to do for our kids.
H and I have often spent the holidays by ourselves. Compared to the years when I cooked and baked for a party for 80 - 100 of his coworkers, I prefer when it’s just us.
@abasket, I am with you. Also, at the risk of sounding like a you know what, I am so relieved not to have to deal with holidays or even just visits vs Covid with the faraway parents, now deceased. One set of parents who were 1300 miles away and expected lots of visits, and who put a huge focus on the holidays. Somehow they were winning in life if family was at their house on “the day.” I can only imagine the stress we would have been under the last year and a half as they called a dozen times a day to complain.
W are a family who does not care about the calendar date, we just want good times together. Luckily for me our kids like to be at our home. The hardest is the kid only 700 miles away, but the journey is crazy difficult, they are remote, roads get closed, flights get cancelled. It’s a tough place to travel to and from. If a job in her field was offered near us, she’d be there in a minute.
We made every effort to put no expectations on our kids at all, ever, for command holiday performances or any visits. I despise the artificial constraints combined with the ridiculous travel expenses, like Thanksgiving if you are going through snowy places, who knows what might be cancelled? And the tickets are ridiculously high.
We don’t have any of elder generation left in our family now, so it’s a matter mostly of us and our kids–and their people. I also want to accommodate my two siblings who have no one else. We don’t have standing expectations of holidays with H’s sibs, so that simplifies things.
Our newish issue is with kids’ families. We have had a working arrangement with D’s in-laws that has worked out well, though now D has two small kids, and going to her SIL and family C morning may be off the table. We traditionally have a small C Eve with her family, and hopefully that still pans out.
Ringer now is that S has permanent-seeming GF, so now we need to fold another family’s plans into ours. Last year, we got the GF because her folks were Covid-exposed (luckily not infected.) But we will need for a workable plan this year. We’re open to not “day of” if that is necessary.
A note about last year: someone mentioned doing the right thing in pre-vax days–our immediate folk–us, D’s family, and S and GF-- were able to get together because we all did absolute two-week quarantines ahead of time. We were fortunate that everyone could work from home, and did all shopping online. That’s how we were able to pull it off.
Remember those care-free, delta-variantless days of May-June, when we were told that because of vaccination, we would enjoy a close to normal holiday season? Yeah, those were good times…
No I don’t have any angst yet. That usually starts building up for me in November.
I am not really a winter holiday person. I loved them when I was little, but after my parents died, and really before then when they were unwell, it just started to drag for me. We had 2 good Christmases/Thanksgivings when my 20 year old was a toddler, but my dad was in a nursing home when my now 17 year old was born and all the family gatherings were a little sad after that. My folks have been gone for years now, but it’s still sad for me. I try not to let it show for the grown up kids and try to put on a good show, but I just don’t love the holidays so much any more.
In normal times we go to see my in-laws, usually my sister-in-law for Thanksgiving, and my mother-in-law the day after Christmas. That’s fine. We can drive.
We don’t see my brother and sister much for the holidays. Lot of angst and stress around my brother (rough times when my parents were at the end of their lives). My sister is usually busy with her in-laws and leads a little more jet-setting life than we do (often flying for destination holidays). It’s good to see her when we can get together, though.
Our plans are more uncertain than normal, but I’m not overly stressed over it. For the last 20 years, we”ve gone to my mother’s for a Thanksgiving, along with much of our extended family. It was my grandmother’s favorite holiday, she looked forward to seeing everyone, and everyone looked forward to seeing her. She passed away last Fall (at 103) and everyone was virtual last year, so this is the first time we’ve had to make a decision. My brother and sister now have kids that have moved out and I suspect that might be their destination. It might just be us, my mother, and my father-in-law. Different, but we’ll roll with it.
Since the holidays are so close together, as noted above, Christmas has always been on the small side, given that everyone was together a month earlier. We burned expiring points on a 3BR condo in Myrtle Beach so my daughter in Raleigh, who only has 5 vacation days for the second half of 2020 (If she had started July 5 rather than June 28, she would have none) can join the same mom/FIL/family for a few days.
Honestly, the stressor for me is primarily related to various parties needing to book flights depending on what happens and who goes where/when. If everyone were all near to each other and everyone were driving, it would be easy to just not start thinking about it yet. But, that is not our situation.
My dad is famous for declaring we will celebrate holidays at off times when it will save us money. We have had “Lizardly’s Dad’s Thanksgiving,” for example, the week before the holiday.
I hear ya. I am not too stressed yet but I will be. I have already booked a big space for us to be together. No idea who will come! And now H is wanting a different, alternative space in addition. Aaargh! I found the perfect place last year, which was terribly expensive I thought, and is not available this year.
Our families live far away. For over 30 years, we celebrated holidays with our “holiday families” who also didn’t have anyone nearby. Last time that happened was Christmas 2019. The hosts are very Covid fearful and will only meet with groups outdoors. So I suspect we won’t be having our holidays with them again this year.
We did a good job last year of celebrating just the two of us. A Turkey breast at Thanksgiving, and a small standing rib roast at Christmas. We had plenty of leftovers!
OP here. We had a discussion with ds last night and then dh had a discussion with his mom today. Ds is incredibly flexible and willing to travel for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, we have collectively decided (because it’s best for dh work-wise) that we will go to mil’s for Thanksgiving and then ds will come to us for Christmas. Mil will come down here in February (her birthday month).
I’m pretty happy. One holiday where we have to share ds and one where we don’t. Hopefully, the Covid situation will be better by February when mil will be flying.
This will probably be our last Christmas in the home we’ve lived in since our D21 was two, so it will be very poignant. Even the Christmas tree will be a heartbreaker. We bought it a number of years ago at the supermarket - one of those trees that are theoretically alive but where they’ve cut off most of the roots. This tree magically survived and prospered out on our terrace, so we are very fond of it, but we’ll be moving countries and the tree will have to stay behind. Meanwhile, I’m struggling for gift ideas this year. Last year, I bought the kids lots and lots of clothes, but with the pandemic, they aren’t running through things the way they used to, so I can’t get away with that this year. Luckily my daughter still loves Lego even though she’s now 19! We don’t have any of the family complexities the rest of you are dealing with - the grandparents have all passed and my only sibling is in Europe. So all the pressure is on us!
We have a large “Thanksgiving family” including one couple and their kids who have been attending the holiday at our house for over 30 years. We do not make any demands or expectations regarding our kids but they insist on coming for Thanksgiving. This will be our last one before we move.
Christmas is very toned down. We used to try to go back to see family in the midwest (they NEVER came to us) and after a few disasters, we opted out. We also opted out of the over-the-top (in our opinion) gift giving expectations of H’s family. My stomach would start churning in September due to anxiety over that. I get that they enjoy it, but for me it ruined the holidays. Yes- his family was a little upset but they got over it. Now we do our own thing.
