Holiday family merging

As a married couple, I cannot imagine celebrating holidays separately. Of course your birth family is important, but your family unit should be the highest priority. To me that means not separating for special occasions. I don't think many people merge their family get togethers unless they want to host, but instead just do rotations. For instance, we do Thanksgiving lunch with my in laws and Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Then for Christmas, we do Christmas Eve with the in laws and Christmas Day with my family.

Are you willing to spend one holiday (such as, Thanksgiving) with his family, and you both spend the other holiday with your family? You could see your family either the day before or the day after Thanksgiving (while you see his family on Thanksgiving), and see his family Christmas Eve and your family Christmas Day?

We normally do Christmas eve with inlaws. Christmas day with my family. And thanksgiving we celebrate with my parents early, then go to my inlaws for dinner

My FHs family rotates the host every year! One of my FBIL's wife's family is very close and get together every year for the holidays. What they do is they have Christmas eve with her family, then Christmas day with my FHs family. The same goes for Thanksgiving.

You could also do one year you see your family for Christmas and his for Thanksgiving, then swap it for the next year?

Definitely merge together. My husband and I split holidays we would spend a certain amount of time with his family and the rest of the time with my family. Have you thought about doing one family for thanksgiving and one for Christmas?

I have no advice but I get the struggle, I have no idea how I'm going to manage the holidays especially when we have kids smh. Good luck on figuring it out

I have a lot to say on this topic.

Background: We come from families that both celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, and mine celebrates Hanukkah. We have 5 family units between the 2 of us.

For our first holiday season when we were still dating, we separated and each stuck with our own family's celebration. We didn't like that and decided to stick together for all holidays after that.

The next year we tried the "please everyone" approach, which meant we had to travel (locally) to 4 different households (we are both children of divorce; my dad's side is too far away and we visit there separately, usually for New Year's). That was exhausting and awkward (here's some gifts and food, ok, we have to go now!) and overall no fun.

The next year we decided one place for Thanksgiving, one place Christmas Eve, and one or two places Christmas Day (depending on who else was going where). This was MUCH better on us. Each holiday was enjoyable again. Various family members probably grumbled behind our backs, but that doesn't bother us.

Initially, we thought we might alternate every year on a schedule, but it has worked out to be different every year depending on a variety of factors, and it's fine. Some years we have hosted, inviting the 3 local sets of parents. But we don't usually try to merge any of the family units. The key to all of this, we have learned, is to decide between ourselves what we want to do, let each family group know, and then just stop discussing it.

My family members are planners and his are not. So, honestly, sometimes we don't see his family on a particular holiday because they can't make up their minds what they want to do. Oh well.

We rotate each year... so this year we did thanksgiving with his family, and christmas is with my family. next year, 2021 we will do thanksgiving with my family, and christmas with his family. and back and forth.

My parents always host Thanksgiving for my family every year. His family rotates between his parents and his aunt and uncle. Luckily, all 3 families live in the same town. My family doesn't celebrate Christmas, and we dont really celebrate Chanukah anymore either. We've trying doing both Thanksgivings in 1 day, as well as Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his. Last year, his family came to my parents house for Thanksgiving, which was great, since everyone was together. We have a 1 bedroom apartment, so us hosting anything is not really feasible. I would see what works best for you two, but as Caytlyn said, I could not imagine spending any holiday separately from my husband.

With divorced parents I swear this was the story of my life growing up. Now my FH and I both have parents who have been divorced... we used to split up when we first started dating. Now we alternate Thanksgiving (one year his family, one year my family). This year we actually told everyone we would not be attending and staying home. We both work Black Friday and it becomes way too hectic. For Christmas we usually go to one house Christmas Eve and another for Christmas Lunch/Dinner. We take the weekend before and after and coordinate with the other two families to celebrate. Basically we ask for their plans and between the two of us decide where to go.

My husband and I have families that both do xmas big, my in laws do a big xmas eve celebration and my family we do a xmas day celebration. Our families get together well but we would need a bigger space to accommodate everyone together. At the same time, my extended family does a xmas eve thing so what hubby and I do is that we start at my extended families house, then end the night at his moms house. The next day my family comes to my house and we celebrate together. The day after xmas this year we'll be doing my fil house. I would not have liked to be separate from my husband, not when were engaged and much less when we got married.

I do Christmas at my house. Everyone is welcome to come, but I don't travel at Christmas (of course, this is made easier by the fact I have a kiddo and I refuse to move her around on such an important holiday). Last year, my future in-laws came up on Dec 23 and we had a big Christmas tea on Christmas Eve, and then they went home. We spent Thanksgiving Day with them, and it all worked out fine. The most important people to spend the holidays with are you and your spouse (and your children when/if you have them). It's impossible to please everyone. Start making your own traditions!

You can do the morning/mid day with your fiancé’s family’s and the evening/night with yours, or swap to your liking. You can do this for every holiday of the year, or swap this routine for each holiday of the year. Make it work for you and your fiancé in the end.

You both have to be willing to compromise and so does your respective families. My parents are divorced, so we used to do every holiday at my grams (moms mom) and then thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with my dad and his family. I no longer speak to my parents, so since we’ve been together, my husband and I have done thanksgiving with his family (my sister usually goes on vacation with her husband and son) and Christmas Eve with his family and Christmas Day with mine, since his family usually celebrates Xmas eve anyway. Now that we’ve moved across states, it’s a little harder. Thanksgiving will be our first holiday here, so my sister and her family are coming down, and we are going up for Christmas to see everybody. It can get complicated, but at the end of the day everyone has to be understanding, and my husband and I don’t want to spend the holiday away from one another.

Under normal circumstances we see both families for Thanksgiving (usually dinner with one and dessert with the other) because everyone is local. Christmas is easier because my inlaws are Jewish, but we usually see them the next day anyway because my FIL's birthday is December 26th. We have been hosting New Years' Eve get togethers with my parents and in-laws and my grandmother for the last few years. For Thanksgiving this year, we are doing Zoom only. My in-laws are doing Zoom with everyone (FIL is a doctor, BIL is in med school, lots of exposure), and my mom is doing Thanksgiving in person, indoors and maskless despite an increasing COVID surge so we are not attending. I have not made any decisions about Christmas yet other than that we are shopping early but given the status right now and the likely increase in gatherings and travel over Thanksgiving, I'm guessing the surge will take off and Christmas will not be happening either.

What we usually do is Christmas eve with my future in-laws and Christmas day with my family

We do Thanksgiving at both our parents. We usually go to his parents around noon, eat, relax and then go to mine for the evening. Same with Christmas eve and then Christmas day is just the 2 of us. Been doing it for 3 years now and it works great. No fights, no confusion.

My husband and I usually go to my parents for lunch on holidays and spend dinners with his parents. I couldnt imagine separating from my husband for holidays, especially once we have children that just wouldnt work. You could also do every other holiday, for example Thanksgiving with your fam and Christmas with his etc

If they get on well and have celebrations together now and then, fine. But just because you two merged, does not mean the rest of your family want to adopt hers, or the rest of hers want to be bound with yours. Most of the time, unless you have just parents, the rest of the family, even just a single sister or brother, do not wat merged families. Decide who you are visiting when, or which holidays to stay home and start your own traditional ways. Before there are any kids in the picture, some newlyweds use holiday weekends to travel. This year, No. But be careful of always refering to holidays with your parents. At some point, you will want to just be home.