I’m curious if you’re gathering with your family over the holidays what everyone wears.
Is there a stated or unstated, “dress code,” for your family gatherings?
Do you lean more formal or informal or is it anything goes in your family?
I asked this because I’m a big baby.
I really like to get dressed up, but dh’s family is all very casual. My mil is usually dressed a bit nicer than everyone other than I in black pants and a sweater. Everyone else has on jeans. This one aunt almost always wears a sweatshirt with a collegiate logo on it. The men are in sweatshirts, t-shirts, or rather tired flannel shirts depending on the temperature.
What I really dislike is how incongruent all the photos wind up looking. I mean, I don’t expect everyone to be all coordinated as one might expect for professional family photos, but it always looks like a mish mash. Not a fan of looking bummy on Christmas 
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I’m actually a bit envious that you are able to gather with family at the holidays. (Tis harder for me, 2000 miles away from most of them. When we do meet, it is usually a July reunion … used to be camping, now picnic). The gang is fairly casual. But I’d be fine with gathering and photo that was casual, dressy or messy mix of both. To me it’s all about the actors, not the costumes.
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I’m sorry. I did not mean to be insensitive.
Maybe that’s part of some underlying issue I have going on. This is my husband’s family.
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Pretty casual. However, I’ve been going through old photos (cleaning out) and my grandfather always had a tie on. Short sleeved whit shirt and a tie. Same every year, and you can only tell what year it is by how the kids look.
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The rule in my house is that on Thanksgiving day and Christmas Day, if you want to spend all day in your pajamas, you can. No questions asked. You can even sit down to the fancy dinner in your PJs.
It’s pretty darn great.
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Anything goes. I’ve hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas for 25 years and we take family photos by the Christmas tree after dinner at Thanksgiving. Two of the families, including mine, wear nice shirts or sweaters with dark jeans or pants, while other families wear sports team gear. My focus is having photos of our gatherings to look back on fondly, as it becomes harder and harder to gather entire families together.
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We dress up unless we are just the three of us, and then it’s pjs all day on Xmas.
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If our family gatherings were dress up, my guess is most of our family would not come. 
Not really, but clearly my answer is casual. We are all cooking, chipping in with cleaning, on the floor if there are little ones playing and we always end up playing a couple of games where we all sit on the floor or nearby couches so we want to be comfortable!
Sometimes on Easter one family drives down to our house almost directly from church - if so, they bring casual clothes to change.
My thought is that any one who wants to dress up should feel free to do so! BUT - and I feel pretty strongly about this - DO NOT tell me what I have to wear. As @Colorado_mom sort of said, then I feel like I’m not being me (I really don’t like dressing up at all) and my outfit of the day is more of a prescribed “costume”.
I actually kind of love to see old pics of people wearing “branded” clothing. There is one pic we have from the early 90’s before any family members died and it’s such a mis-mash of clothing. But I can look at it and see "oh, remember when so and so was into the Red Wings and look, so and so wore that Winnie The Pooh hoodie everywhere for years and look at Dad, he always wore a flannel shirt, tucked out, top 2 buttons undone. " 
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We wear whatever is clean, and if we can get everyone in a photo at the same time, it’s a win. We tried that whole Instagram and coordinated once, and it was so not us we abandoned the fakery.
“Together” looks great on everyone.
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30 years ago, we used to get dressed up. Now, it’s way more casual…jeans and a nice top for dinner if we have guests or are going elsewhere. Otherwise…just very casual everyday dress.
On Christmas, my husband still wears a nice shirt and a Christmas tie.
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We wear regular ordinary clothes. A tad better than what we would wear working in the yard, but nothing special. I don’t think we’ve ever taken a photo at Thanksgiving. We take candids at Xmas opening presents and the like, but nothing formal. We aren’t formal people at all. I haven’t owned a formal dress in many, many, many years. Maybe decades now…
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In thinking more about this, I think it’s probably a function of family culture too. Holidays were always really big deals when I was a kid, especially xmas and Easter. My mom had beautiful holiday tablecloths, used the good china/crystal/silver, and they made a “fancy” meal. People dressed accordingly.
Thanksgiving was usually at a friend’s mountain house so that was more casual but still people wore slacks and nice sweaters.
I tend to host in the same way that we make the holiday meals elegant and special, so we dress.
Again, the only exception is Xmas day if it’s just H and D. Then we dress and do fancy dinner xmas eve, and spend the xmas day in pjs taking our time to open gifts, eating left overs, and playing games. (A nice reprieve from the years where I hosted both xmas eve and xmas day when it became too much for my parents to host day).
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I’m going to go with “smart casual” - dressier than if we were just hanging at the house on our own, but not as dressy going to work. Pants or nice jeans and on-trend tops for the women, chinos or nice jeans and button down shirts for the men.
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We use the fancy silver, china, and crystal, and table decor…but we don’t get all dressed up as much as we used to.
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We’re in pjs or sweats until it’s time to eat; we like to be comfy when we cook. Then we do a quick change to jeans and some type of non t-shirt/sweatshirt top, not fancy, but not sweats either. After dinner it’s back to sweats though 
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See? I feel like I am not being me if I am not a little dressed up. But, if I am the only one, then I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb.
I think this is it for me. It’s the culture, upbringing.
My mama liked to get dressed up. I like to get dressed up. Our neighbors across the street, who had a son the same age as I, always hosted a Christmas Eve gathering that was very formal - as in, long dresses on the women. It was such a special event that I got to attend from a very young age. It was special to me. Maybe it’s my nostalgia for that.
The whole world is just so casual these days. Sigh.
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I’m telling you, you’ve got to embrace what you love. And share that with H’s family! “I know I’m dressed a little more formally but I LOVE getting dressed up - it enhances my day with all of you!”
I hope they wouldn’t judge you for dressing up. And vice versa. Life gets easier - and more friendly - when we stop judging others for vanity choices.
But maybe don’t wear the long gown. 
When we were kids I suppose we dressed up more. Like Easter dresses, Christmas sweaters, etc. To be honest, I didn’t love it then either!
For me, it’s what you wear on your face that matters - and sets the tone. And I’m not talking about makeup (I don’t really wear that either…) - I’m talking about a smile or a frown.
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We are in the neat but casual category – typically khakis or nice jeans. I’m grateful when the family is together for a happy occasion.
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