Celebrating Holidays Across Multiple States

We normally spend thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. Been like this since before we got married and haven’t been any issue.

My fiance's family lives in a different state than my family. We typically have celebrated Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with my family, though would do either a late or early Thanksgiving with my family, and a late or early Christmas with his family.

My parents and his mom live in the same state, so we don't have the out-of-state dilemma. By my parents are only about an hour away and his mom is about 3.5 hours away. My husband is a plumber and only gets either Thanksgiving or Christmas off while being on call for the other. Our general plan is to go to his mom's place on whatever holiday he has off. For the one he's on call for we either host at our place, go to my parents' place in separate vehicles (in case he gets a call but I still want to spend time with my family), or just celebrate alone. We also have Easter that we generally celebrate with my family (as long as my husband isn't on call that weekend) since his never really celebrated it.

We do end up usually spending a bit more time with my family, but there's an understanding there. My husband and I both work during the week and he's on call just about every other weekend. His mom often works on the weekend, so it's just really hard to see her in general. The general arrangement is that we'll go down to his mom's place if we're able to, but celebrate with my family if we're not or she's not available. It's worked well so far.

My parents alternate Thanksgiving between Maryland (closer to us) and North Carolina. We go every other year when it's in Maryland. The other years we do it with his family who live very close to us.

We started celebrating thanksgiving ourselves and are going to continue with that tradition moving forward. My parents are divorced and it’s difficult enough to figure out where to go, we’re just owning that holiday ourselves. We will celebrate Christmas with his family and other random ones with mine (when we want). I don’t really care what my parents think...

FH and I are kind of dreading this whole situation! Our families are very different - I'm the youngest, my parents are older, and holidays are pretty low-key and chill with just immediate family; he's the oldest, his parents are younger, and holidays are kind of wild (loud, fun, games) and involve extended family (FH's parents always host since their house can accommodate everyone). My family is also a 6+ hour drive away while we (currently) live across the street from his parents We both want to spend the holidays with our families, so I think the only fair way will be rotating between the two locations - one year Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his, then vice versa the next year. We'll have to come up with a new game plan once kids are involved though - fingers crossed my parents will be able to travel to us (they'll be mid-70's by then) and we can host both sides or something!

My FH wants to live near his family, so we are spending every major holiday where we get time off with my family and spending lesser holidays (Mothers and Fathers Day, 4th of July, etc) with his

Both of our families live 10 hours away, so we usually just say we are doing holidays here at our house and anyone who wants to come is more than welcome to. When we have kids we don’t want to be dragging them all over the countryside for every holiday, so we are setting the tone now.

We live really close to my ILs, and holidays are huge for them, so we usually celebrate with them. We have done one Tday with my parents, when we thought the ILs would have to be away, and also because I hadn't done a holiday with my parents in ... a decade? But they live across the country.

Turns out, our parents get along, and now with a grandchild on the way, there's talk of having holidays with all of them. Which would be great! ... I just hate flying.

Honestly, it's just something you have to kind of feel your way through. Maybe some years it's easier to go one place, maybe it's different other years. Traditions are fun, but don't always account for real life.

We trade holidays like kids of divorce 👀. One set gets us for x amounts of holiday and then trading the next year, so on. We are moving back home (where my family lives). FH’s family also wants to invest with my family to buy a big property 150+ acres so we can all live in the same area so nobody has to get left out of family stuff 🙂

We've been dating for 7 years, and just got engaged at Christmas so haven't had to deal with any real holidays since being engaged and I'm DREADING figuring this out when we have to. As of right now, Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve/Christmas Day we both spend separated with our respective Families and Easter we see both families (His family eats early at 3, mine don't eat till 6 so it gives us some time)

Thanksgiving isn't entirely a big day to me, not my favorite holiday, but we will probably do the 1/2 and 1/2 like we do for Easter (probably dinner with one family and desert with another) we're lucky to live the same distance from both our families.

Christmas is where it gets tricky. Christmas Eve is my FAVORITE night of the year (we couldn't do our traditional Christmas Eve in 2020 and I cried the entire day and night) the hill I'm willing to die on is spending Christmas Eve with my family the way I have my entire life, I will not give it up. His family has all of his dad's side over. His dad's side parties much later than my side, so we will most likely go to my families for the entirety and then catch his family at the tail end if at all.

Christmas Day is hard, his whole moms side of the family gathers, where as my family doesn't do much of anything its usually just gifts with my parents and brother then just dinner the four of us. I would feel so guilty leaving my parents alone on Christmas Day while his family gathers all together with aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents (who we see every week at Sunday dinner anyway) so We'll have to see what comes of it this year as our first year living on our own and engaged.

I will say his family pretty much gets all the summer holidays, they have a picnic with at least 50 family members every year for memorial day, fourth of july and labor day where as my family does nothing so we spend a ridiculous amount of more time with his family than mine (much to my dismay)

Our families have always been very chill. We have small families and the holidays tend to be just immediate family, usually just us and our parents, but sometimes 1-4 other family members at most. We celebrate most holidays with his family because they live closer (about 1 hour 15 minutes away, as opposed to my family, which is 4 hours away). We can see his parents with a day trip, visiting my mom is always at least an overnight and her house is pretty depressing, so we try to avoid it. Every so often we make it a point to travel and stay with my mom for one of the bigger holidays (Thanksgiving or Christmas).

This past year was actually the best because we did all of the holidays with our friends (we did Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter with the same other two couples and our dogs) because of Covid and it was a lot more fun than spending time with out families. I'd love to find a way to keep the "friend" holidays alive.