How to choose whose house to go to for Thanksgiving?!

So we do my parents house (includes dads side) for lunch, my husband's family for dinner/dessert, and my moms side (at my aunts house) on Friday. It's a lot, but it works currently. See if someone's willing to change to dinner time, or if someone is willing to change to Friday. (My family is pretty flexible, whereas my fhs family celebrates on the day every year). Another option is to alternate years, which is what my sister and her husband currently do for Christmas. Good luck!

I would go to his moms for lunch and then go to your grandmothers a little late. That’s what exH and I did when we were together.

This year H and I are hosting thanksgiving. Anyone who isn’t coming isn’t seeing us because we’ve decided we can’t keep trying to keep things even and seeing everyone.

I would try and explain that it’s rare for an adult to even have grandparents and see if he would consider giving you thanksgiving since your holidays are limited with your grandparents and spend Christmas with his family without suggesting that you also make additional trips to your family for Christmas

you have to be fair

if you want christmas instead make a deal, but if you want both you are being inconsiderate and selfish

Ours are a joke, but it's worked for the past 3 years (this will be the 4th) so we have continued to do it.

Thursday: Dinner with my fiance's father at his house (with 10 people total)

Saturday: Dinner with my mother at her house (with 12 people total)

Sunday: Dinner at our house with my fiance's mother and sister (so just us 4)

My father lives in another state, so we fly out there for Christmas. My mom is nice enough to do a big Italian/seafood meal so we don't get three mediocre Thanksgiving turkeys & sides haha! My fiance & I decided that once we have kids, we will host one of the meals (either Thanksgiving or Christmas) at our house and just invite everyone. So if people don't want to attend because they want "their own" meal, then they don't see us for that holiday. Until then, we will do the ridiculous charade we do now!

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Goals! Once we have kids, we are doing this for Thanksgiving. Our house or nothing! It's hard doing 3 Thanksgivings and 4 Christmases.

My H's family lives in another state so we don't run into this issue ever. Basically we decide which holiday we want to buy a plane ticket for and then spend that holiday with his family (though this year with the wedding we are spending both thanksgiving and christmas with my family, who live in the same state we do because we can't afford to travel at the holidays).

My sister though ran into this problem with her boyfriend this year where his family serves dinner the same time we are. They ultimate decided to do dinner at his families and dessert with ours, so just do something similar to that. Or you decide "we got to X's family for one holiday and Y's for the other" There are plenty of ways to split the day without pulling you hair out.

We plan to be the ones to host once we have a house capable of hosting out family, 1. to alleviate the issue for my mother who has been the sole hoster of holidays for my family since I was a child, and 2. Once we have kids it will be easier for everyone else to come to us.

Make the drive lol. I have step parents too and FH family. Every year we chose 2 families houses to go to. Even if it's only for an hour. This year we are going to his moms and then to my moms family since we have been skipping that one for a few years now.

View Quoted Comment Our kids are exactly why we are done going everywhere! They’re almost 2 and almost 6, and dragging them around everywhere for holidays is exhausting!

I would do lunch with MIL and then desert at grama's.

I would do his moms first because it is earlier, then leave there early to go to your grandmothers a little late. That way you can both see your families, since they’re relatively close to each other. I told my H that I wanted to do Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncles this year, because my grandparents will be there. They are the only grandparents that either one of us has left so I like to spend as much time with them as possible!
Last year H and I split Christmas. Christmas Eve (afternoon) at my aunt and uncles house (all my moms side of the family and grandparents were there), then we left early to go to his parents house. I was only able to spend about an hour with my grandparents which was upsetting but I knew we had to compromise somewhere and his mom was apparently personally offended that we even suggested not being there “on time” to her house for Christmas Eve. We then spent Christmas Day with my parents and sister because they’re closest to our house and my mom ALWAYS does Christmas morning.
H has no issue at all with me choosing to spend holidays with my grandparents. He knows how important that is to me. It’s really hard to give up or compromise on holidays with both families, but marrying someone makes it inevitable I guess!

Since they’re local, I’d go early to one and late to the other, do like appetizers with his family and then the meal with yours, based on that timing. That’s more or less what I would do with my family when I was HS/college aged. Dinner with some of my mom’s family. Head to my dad’s family’s for “dessert” [though they ended up often getting a much later start and half the time we ended up there for second dinner!]

H and I can’t do anything like that now as our families are 4 hours apart. His is local, mine is not. I like to use the extra days off to make the trip, but, it still varies. Last year, we had thanksgiving with his family, then drove up on Friday to visit my family , and had a belated thanksgiving with some of my family on Saturday.
This year, my mom is coming here! And we’re going to H’s mom’s together! It’ll be interesting for sure! Our parents get along amazingly, but it’ll be the first my mom’s spent real/small group time with the rest of his family, so it’s kind of exciting to bring her in to my new family world! It didn’t make sense for us to travel to my hometown this year since my dad is out of the country for work anyway

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Soooo true! Everyone wants to see the kids and expects you to drive all over the place for them. Last year we put our foot down and said if you don't come here for Christmas we won't see you. I spent 6 years driving 2 hours to my parents then 1 hour to my sons other grandparents then 3 hours home. It was exhausting and I spent most of my holidays on the road. Now we go to my parents the Sunday before Thanksgiving so my son can do Thanksgiving with his other grandparents for the whole day on Thanksgiving. This year for Christmas we are telling my parents to come down for Christmas Eve and then his dad gets him Christmas day and is finally making his parents drive down here(we live 1 mile apart and our parents all live farther away). My son's dad has a newborn so he is on board with me asking the families to drive down here. Only took 6 years of begging....

Every year we have 3 families to visit that all live an hour apart. It's stressful. We said "screw it!" this year and decided to cook at our house. Just a casual "the turkey will be done at 2, come when you can!" because we don't have the dining room for a formal sit down dinner. I'm assuming people will drop in whenever during their day. This took a lot of stress off of us and I love to cook. FH is also pumped to start our own tradition of cooking since he never had that consistency as a kid. We're letting our families come to us and we are excited to host our first holiday in our home!

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Yeah, it will make sense to see my dad in CA (we are in CO). But for the parent's in CO, they will just have to come to our house or not see us. ESPECIALLY when we have kids, we aren't going to use 3 out of our 4 day weekend eating the same meal 3 times in 3 different places.

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Yay! I'm glad it worked out for you. I don't think I'll beg, I'm just going to text our parents in our state (3 out of 4) and tell them if they want to eat with us we are serving dinner this time on this date. If not, no worries. But with kids, I'm not spending 3 different days out of our 4 day weekend at 3 houses eating the same meal 3 times.

I would go to the earlier one for dinner, then shoot to the later one for dessert.

We rotate years. Last year we were at my parents so this year we'll be at his. They live 5 1/2 hours apart so unfortunately we can't do both.

I'm going to try to start stealing holidays though so that we have both sets of parents at our house every year! 😊

Ugh I hate the endless running around for holidays! FH and I are currently looking for land to build our dream home so that we can host both our families for the holidays. Until then, 3-4 stops it is :/

We combine. For Thanksgiving, my fiancé’s parents are hosting and it’ll be us, my future BIL/SIL, his aunt and then my parents, brothers and stepdads parents.

Christmas, my parents are hosting everyone - my immediate family plus his and some extended.

We’re all about an hour apart, but it’s a huge stress reliever being able to do one event.

We live about 4 hours from his family and 3 hours from mine.

We spend thanksgiving with his family, so mom, sister and grandparents. Then we go to Hershey Park with the family i speak to, my aunt and cousins on Black Friday.

Christmas we stay home cause have a 2 year old and we’re not dragging her all over creation.