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With couplehood comes the inevitably tough decision: Where will we spend the holidays? For the newly engaged and newlywed, it’s often a tough choice, many of us leaving our parents for the first time for the holiday season. It’s tough to talk about who you’re “ditching” this season, and our parents are equally pained when their little ones grow up and leave the nest around the holidays. I guess I consider myself lucky; I work with my parents year-round, so leaving them at the holidays every year to spend Christmas in Minnesota with Mr. Peng’s family is not a totally painful decision.
However, just to make it as painless as possible, my parents usually vacation in December through January, leaving us with a little less guilt. They hardly know it’s Christmas when they’re off sipping from coconuts on a beach somewhere.
Since I’m an only child, it means if I’m not here for the holidays, Christmas is pretty much “off”. It’s really sad to think about, and I know that many of you and your parents are going through the same issues this (and every) holiday season.
Are you spending the holidays this year with your SO’s family? If so, how are your parents coping with having one less child (or no children at all) around during the holidays?
Last year, before we were engaged, I spent Christmas Eve & Christmas morning at my mom’s, Christmas afternoon at my dad’s (same city), and Christmas night at my then-boyfriend-now-fiance’s parents’ house (3 hours away). It was way too stressful, so this year we’re staying home (his parents’ city) for Christmas and traveling to see my family on the 27th. It will be less stressful, but I’m still so heartbroken that I won’t be spending Christmas day with my parents this year. I’ve already warned him that I’ll probably cry on Christmas morning.
We’ve been living together for 3 years now so we have a system. Every Christmas Eve we spend with my family, and on Christmas we go to his parents house. We’re lucky that we all live within half an hour of each other. I’m hoping that once we have our own house (instead of a tiny apartment) that we’ll be able to have both families over to our house together for Christmas.
Luckily both of our families are in chilly Minnesota so we do not have to choose. The hardest part is being able to get all of our family together at once. My siblings are married and it is hard to coordinate with their families as well. Now if we can just get everyone to relocate to somewhere warmer!
This year, being engaged, we are spending Christmas with FI’s family, we spent Thanksgiving with mine, and next year we will switch… My mom wasn’t too happy about it at first, but I told her next year we’d be married and she’d have us then.. and she liked that idea!
My family lives pretty close to us though, about 15mins away, so I get to see them whenever I want to, FI’s Family likes 3 hrs away so we don’t go up there as often.
Plus, we are going to have our own “Christmas” with my parents the weekend after Christmas (it was supposed to be the weekend before, but because of FI’s job, we had to rescedule).
We try to be as fair as possible, but it doesn’t always work. His family is from Jersey and we live in MA where my family is from. So we said we would switch off Thanksgiving and Easter and since his aunt lives in MA and they have always spent it up here, we see both families on Christmas day, but his family got us for both Easter and Thanksgiving this year due to my fiance’s work schedule. Christans Eve my family gets us and we do a huge travel day on Christmas. I soemtimes wish we could stay in one place but then I realize it is better seeing everyone so here is our day this year:
morning presents with is family
breakfast with my dad
afternoon with my mom
dinner with his family
maybe late night with my mom and extended family…It will be busy!!!
My parents are 3.5 hrs away and his family is 1 hr away from us, but our plans have been the same for years.
Xmas morning is spent with our immediate families, separately. My family drives an hour north to my grandparents to meet the rest of my extended family. My husband drives down partway through to hang out with us, and then we leave to drop on his parents for a little while longer and then come home and close the night together. It works out well for me b/c the driving is chunked up nicely between all the homes, so it doesn’t feel as long.
This year, our first married Xmas, is different. The Mr works for the power company in NH and has been restoring power to the rest of the state - 17 hour days for almost the past 2 weeks - because of the ice storm. He does not expect to be released for Xmas, so I am doing the traveling alone this year.
We have agreed to pick a date after he is released to have our Xmas together, and I am looking forward to it!
This is my first Christmas since getting engaged and it really hit me today that I won’t be spending Christmas with my family. We spent Thanksgiving with my side and also made a quick visit this past weekend, so it’s completely fair that we spend Christmas eve and day with my fiance’s family, but it’s still an adjustment 
What a great post!
My FI and I will be flying out to D.C. to spend the holidays with his extended family.
This is the first year I’ve ever spent the holidays away from home and it’s SO HARD. I feel like I’m ditching my family.
At least if we were in town, we could split our time between the two families.
I’m not feeling in the Christmas spirit yet this year and I think it’s probably because I don’t get to have my traditional Christmas.
I think the adjustment is tough, but once you have a routine then it doesn’t seem so bad. We are lucky enough to have our families in the same city (about 15 minutes apart). So while we will be spending Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with his, we would still have the option to party hop if we wanted to. We did that for Thanksgiving and were so exhausted after the day that we decided to make it easy for Christmas.
Luckily my FI’s parents and mine live 15 minutes from each other, so there’s no hassle (or shouldn’t be). We live about four hours from our parents and while I sit here typing this, he’s already back home. I can’t leave until tomorrow because of work. So once I get back it’s Christmas with his family, then driving over to my folks for presents with my family. Then on Christmas day we’ve got my grandparent’s Christmas with the rest of my extended family and soon after that we’ll be going to his grandma’s house for dinner with his mom’s side of the family. Oh yes, even our grandparents all live within 15 minutes of each other!
We thought this was going to be a difficult proposition, but since my little niece was a year and a half ago, my parents have travelled to have Christmas with my sister and her husband. That’s fine with me - they live right around the corner from our house, so we get to see them all the time (and I do mean all the time).
So it was an easy decision for us to stay home for Christmas, and have DH’s family over - which is what he has been doing for years now. And we both felt it was a bad idea to change that family tradition so soon after getting married (this is his second marriage; his kids are the only grandchildren).
However, just after Thanksgiving, his mom gave us notice that they wouldn’t be coming for Christmas - apparently because we won’t let them bring their dog. Now seriously - this dog is barely housetrained, and is very badly behaved. Last year at Christmas he actually nipped at a friend of the family and drew a little blood. Not acceptable. Plus he can’t be trusted with cats (I have two).
So we are on our own (with the kids) for Christmas this year. Next year (I have already let his family know) we will be going to Canada to ski with friends. The kids are actually quite excited - and so am I. And a Happy New Year to you all!
This is our second Christmas as a married couple, and we’ll be spending this Christmas, like last year, by ourselves. My husband, though self-employed, has a pretty demanding job, which means he often works through the holidays… making traveling from Nashville to Canada (my parents) or to Seattle (his parents) not really possible. It makes me SOOOOOOOOOOOO sad not to spend the holidays with family, but at least we don’t have a lot of stress with travel and going back and forth. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to spend time with family 
We spent Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. I am dreading not spending Christmas with my family next year, but I’m hoping that my FBIL will come back late from military duty again next year so we can have Christmas with the in-laws a few days after Christmas again next year. I’ll put on my big girl panties and deal with it, but I’m not going to like it, that’s for sure.
We spend Christmas Eve with Mr. G’s family. That turns out to be a great compromise because we spent Christmas Day with my family. I sorta understand the pressure you face as an only child, Pengy. Mr. G is an only child and while he loves the extra love and attention he gets, there is often added pressure and guilt that can go along with that position, too. It sounds like you guys have figured out a nice system. You know what would be awesome? If in the future, you and Mr. Peng joined your ‘rents on one their annual holiday vacations! I’ve always wanted to go somewhere tropical during winter time…
We just got married this August but have been together for 2 years. I don’t remember it being such a hassle before to divide up the holidays. We are spending Christmas Eve with my in-laws, and Christmas Day at my parents. My Mom flew to Canada to spend the holidays with my Grandmother who is over from Europe. So on Christmas day it will be just my Dad, my sister, her boyfriend, me and my husband. My husband is an only child and I got a call on Sunday from my MIL telling me that Christmas Eve and Day would be at her house. When I told her that Christmas Day we would be at with my family I got the response: “I can’t believe your going to leave us(MIL and FIL) alone on Christmas Day! Your Mom’s not even here so why go!” Mind you the last THREE Thanksgivings have been spent with the in-laws! It can only get worse in the future when we have kids! That woman is my cross to bear! Maybe I next year I’ll just go on vacation!
We did all the stops this year - each of my (divorced) parents, each of my (divorced) materal grandparents, and his family. Thank goodness all his family is in the same place! Doing the loop, it was pretty much 3 hours between each stop. And the long weekend helped a lot too - we didn’t even start on his family until Saturday.
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Mrs. Penguin, Northern California Age and Occupation: 27, Weddingbee Editor in Chief Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Doctor of Physical Therapy Engagement Date: January 29, 2007 Wedding Date: June 7, 2008 Blogging Since: September 14, 2007 Venue: Winery in the Gold Country About Me: I love the Spice Girls, dogs with underbites, bean burritos, making messes, high fives, avoiding showers, crossword puzzles, blogs, weddings, and blogs about weddings!
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