Thanksgiving and seeing Family

[dmoney]

Those of you who either have divorced parents or whos SO's are divorced, how do you do thanksgiving and other holidays?

We are spending actual thanksgiving with my parents. Then over the weekend seeing his dad and his new wife, and seeing his mom.  My parents happen to also be leaving the following Tuesday to go back to Florida.  They are pissed we wont be seeing them over the weekend, but when I tried to explain to them that we would be seeing them for actual thanksgiving that isn't a good enough answer.  My sister is trying to explain to them that they cant see us for the holiday and then all weekend long but they still don't seem to get it.  They have been spoiled in a sense because they get to spend every holiday with my sister as her in-laws are in Canada and only come into town for one of her kids birthdays. 

 So really trying to get some ideas as to how you all split your time up when it comes to seeing family.

I should add that this year was the first year since DH and I have been engaged that we did not see my parents for Rosh Hashannah besides seeing them in synagogue because we did one night at home just us, and then one night with my MIL and her side of the family.  In the past, we did one night with my family and one night with my MIL and not seen my FIL. 

Thanks!

[baytosa2013]

Before we moved out of state, We would spend Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with DH's family and then go see my dad on Christmas day. My mom isn't in the picture. I've been splitting holidays since I was 10 years old though since that's when my parents divorced so it's always been a thing having to negotiate who gets what time. We are flying home for Christmas this year and we will be there 10 days. 1 week will be spent with his family and friends and 1 week with mine so everyone is happy.

[dmoney]

Nov 16, 2015 14:26:59 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

This has never really been an issue for H and I since we have no family that lives anywhere near us and haven't since we have been married.
If it were me though, I would make sure to spend a majority of time with the people who are traveling from out of town. If they are spending money to fly to see you, I would make sure to see them for more than one day. It isn't clear whether your MIL or FIL live near you, but if they do, I would see them before the Holiday if you can and then spend Thanksgiving and the following weekend with your parents while they are in town. If my mom flew into town and I only saw her for one day while she was here, she would be extremely hurt.

ETA. You could also suggest a joint Thanksgiving dinner - with your parents and IL's all together. We did this one year when we flew back to CA. We had my grandparents, sister and her SO, my mom and my IL's all together for dinner. That way no one's feelings were hurt about not spending the holiday with us while we were in town.

@jemomma I should of clarified My parents have been in town since April, living with my sister (they have been her child care since she went back to work) and that's not fault for not doing so.  They are going to their new "home" of Florida for a month and then will be back in town in January for my sisters Twin's 1st birthday, and then the following weekend we will be down in Florida.  

We had suggested doing a joint dinner where we would invite my MIL to my sisters house (she is hosting since she has the space and we don't) and my sister has refused to have anything to do with my MIL.  Because of this we cant do a joint one.  Only reason why we didn't invite my FIL is because he had already made it known that he was spending the holiday with his wife's family.   So while yes but parents are in "town" technically, they have been in town since April, and we see them on average every week where we don't see my In-Laws, mainly because they don't throw a hissy fit if we don't see them. 

I wish we could do one giant thanksgiving with all sides of the family, but seeing as how my in-laws cant be in the same room together for more then 5 minutes without starting a fight.  

So trying to get an idea as to how others do it when separated families are involved. 

[silv3rlining]

I don't really have a (good ( relationship with my dad so he doesn't factor into the occasion. We've always lived geographically closer to my mom so we usually visit with her more throughout the year and spend holidays with DHs family. As we have to travel out of state for that. I've been trying to get DH to agree to alternating holidays (especially now that we have 2 kids) bc I want to start making our own holiday traditions.

This year we're hosting DHs family and invited my mom and one of my brothers but my mom is being weird and doesn't want to "intrude" on DHs family. I may try to convince her to anyway. I know MIL/FIL might find it odd if she's not there since usually BILs MIL or SILs MIL joins us when they host....

[dmoney]

I really just cant wait till we have a house big enough to host. Then we can invite whoever we want. If you dont want to come. then thats your issue, but if we have extended the invitation to say my family and my MIL or my FIL and his wife. you choose not to come, You cant be mad at me for not seeing you. Dh just needs to get a job now, so that we can start saving again so that we can put money aside to buy said bigger house.

[jessila]

My mom started a tradition of "Cousin's Thanksgiving" a few years ago. It's her side of the family on the day before Thanksgiving. She hosts and we all bring something to share. Then we spend thanksgiving with my ILs. Black Friday I spend shopping with my family.
My mom started the tradition so we could all see each other and not feel obligated to eat dinner twice on Thanksgiving.
Now Christmas festivities are their own version of ridiculous hot mess.

[Deleted]

My mom lives locally. My very aloof dad lives in TN. DH's married parents live on the east coast. It not something I've ever thought about. I won't travel for holidays if I can help it because of the stress and crowds so we just do the holidays in our own house and invite my mom to come here. Occasionally we're able to get my brother and my niece who live 45 minutes away up for a bigger family thing sometime around Christmas, but they both work in as prison guards now and are almost always working on the holidays so it's hard.

I love the idea of big, traditional family GTG's but my experience reality of them, with my family, is that they are an awkward, PITA, disaster. I think it would be different with DH's family if we lived closer to them. He might disagree with me on that though.

[mrsmonogrammed]

We used to do 3 Thanksgivings in 3 states, but we've now cut it down to 2. We travel to MI to see my extended family as eat around 1pm (time difference is a lifesaver!), and then come back home to IL to have dinner with DH's parents around 6. Then DH, MIL, and I go out Black Firday shopping at midnight or stupid early like 4am. We'll see how it goes with having a baby and traveling this year. I might start having our own t-giving and inviting everyone over for that:)

[Deleted]

We usually do 2 thanksgivings. We do my parents house in the morning and do a thanksgiving at around 12 then we drive an hour to DHs brother's house and do thanksgiving around 5pm. By the end of the day we are stuffed full of food! This year I think we are just doing my parents house since we will be exhausted from moving into a temp rental property (we are selling our house).