Christmas - when did you stop alternating?

[ThousandCows]

DH and I have always alternated Christmases between his family and mine - well, technically we've alternated between 'his choice' and 'my choice', but up until last year it worked out as going to each of our families.

This year we've got our two DC (2.4 and 4m) and I'm starting to wonder about starting our own tradition with our 'new' immediate family.

So, did you start spending Christmas Day apart from your parents/in-laws? If so, when? What do you do instead? And why?

Always in my own home - anybody who wants to come very welcome.

We go to either my family in Belgium or to DH’s in Canada or they come to us. This year everyone is coming to us - my parents, sister, brother in law, niece and nephew from Belgium and DH’s parents over from Canada, his sister, her husband and two nephews from the US. Our DT’s will also be home from Uni. Luckily both sides of the family get on well and DH and I love hosting a full house.

When we had 3 DC's I think. We just realised it was far easier to stay at home and everyone was welcome to visit us if they would like to. It works well for us. My brother usually joins us for Christmas day (dad also used to). The in laws come in the morning for a drink and exchanging of presents. Then we go to my grandparents on boxing Day. But I might invite them here this year.

Yep once we have children, we hosted. Everyone welcome including extended family and extra boyfriends/girls friends etc. But we are not budging with the kids. It’s nice for Children to wake up at home on Christmas Day and feel relaxed and play with their toys etc.
PIL complain as they have 3 grown up DC all with their own grandchildren and now they have to rotate, where as I know MIL would like to have everyone at hers. But my parents only have me, so it wouldn’t really work.

When DD was born.
My family lived in the South East, and OH's family lived in the North East. We lived in between.

After DD was born we told each family that we had spent many years travelling to see them at Christmas, and if they wanted to see us they had to travel.

After spending DC2's first Christmas with both the IL's and DP's in a rented holiday home [shudders at the memory]

Now Christmas is strictly DC's, DH and me at our house and we let the DC's choose what we eat

This is the first year we won’t have either of the children and their families. It will be very different.

We've been doing it for 20 years! DC are 12 and 9. We've just had the 'maybe we could host instead?' conversation with ILs and they were so happy I wish we'd suggested it years ago!

We stay home and my entire gang come here. About 22 of us altogether.
Boxing Day is spent at MIL’s. Works out best for everyone as dps siblings have in-laws living far away so they go elsewhere for Christmas Day and everyone piles over to MILs for Boxing Day - best two days of the year! Dp always goes over early to help his mum, she loves hosting her brood but she’s in her 70’s and appreciates the help.
Works for all of us.

We always host ILs at ours on Xmas day and go to my parents on Boxing day.

The kids love it. One day to play at ours with their presents, another at my parents, with my brother, SIL and uncle getting more toys and playing lots of games as a family.

We all have a fab time!

We have everyone to us. I used to cook but got fedup of doing it every year so now we go out it's usually me,dh our four kids, his two brothers, my mum and his dad. No one else has a partner so would all be alone on Xmas day plus our kids are young so they love to see them at Xmas.
After dinner everyone comes to our house for games, drinks and a bit of picky food later on.

We previously had a 3yr rota (my parents, his parents, on our own). When DD was about 6yo, we stopped the rota and stay at home, just us. We live quite a way from our families and siblings.

We travel to see family either before or after Christmas. The great thing is that the kids open their stockings and can play all day with their stuff on Christmas Day. There's no worry being sat in my pjs all morning and we have a nice (but not crazy) lunch of all our favourite things

Oh we've always done that since we married, the DC are 7&9 now.

My parents are 4 hours one way and MIL 4 hours away in the opposite direction.
First year with DH we went to our respective parents; second year & DC1 was only a few weeks old and we were home alone; years three to six we alternated; subsequent three years and this year we have hosted my parents and MIL at ours and invited siblings too (all of whom are childfree).
My godparents are still good friends with my parents and they managed to set up their alternating Xmas arrangements so that their children were both with their in-laws the year I was with my in-laws so then they & my parents could spend it together.

I moved away for uni, and ended up in a job straight out of uni where I worked the first Xmas day and Boxing Day, so spent it with in laws. We’ve done various things with DH family, but now the kids are still young we stay home and put out an open offer to any family who want to join us. In a few yrs I think we will consider letting someone else do the cooking though.
I agree that patterns lead to expectations though

DC are similar ages to yours OP and we still alternate. It’s much more relaxed and easier for us that someone else does the cooking and hosting, especially as DH only ever has a couple of days off for Christmas.

I would like to think we won’t have to change until DC are old enough to want to spend Xmas Day at home but sadly it’s probably more likely we will take over when our parents are no longer up to the task.

We stayed home Christmas Day and alternate Boxing Day each (if parents want to cook). It's not fair to take DD from
Her new toys

We always went to my family for dinner, before and after DCs born as old house was too small and I like to see more than just us. It's the one day of the year you were likely to see nearly everyone. Then we moved and I host for my older family and now don't usually see everyone else until Boxing Day or not at all now. DH's family never did anything Christmas day and did their own thing on the day which suited us. MIL has never been interested in seeing us Xmas Day so I feel no need to alternate anything. My GPs aren't getting any younger, I'm very close to them and I want to spend it with them whilst I can.

Oh and I do prefer staying in and hosting rather than going out.

We never have - I last spent Christmas Day with my family when I was 22. We see my parents the weekend before Christmas for a nice meal somewhere, we see FIL on Christmas Eve and then we have the day itself just us and the dog. We don’t have kids so it’s mostly just watching crap telly and making a big dinner in our pyjamas and a bit drunk

We have it here. PIL and my DP are always invited. Sometimes they do sometimes they go to other siblings.

This year we have a housefull as everyone wanted to be together after an awful year.

We alternate between us having anyone who wants to come (my parents and my brothers) and going to my parents. His have never shown any interest whatsoever, even pre kids his mum told us not to bother coming because they were having marks and Spencer's ready meals and preferred to watch tv - I dutifully invite them via their Christmas card when we host (his mum and step dad) and they don't bother even replying. His actual dad spends it with his half siblings, never bothered inviting us.

As soon as my first child was born.

Surely If people have extended families or siblings you can’t always insist Xmas for everyone is at yours?

We only have one, and a small house, so usually spend at either of our parents. We drive there are present opening. 1 hour one way or 3 hours the other

We stopped 2 Christmases after DS1 was born. Everyone is invited to us but last year they all had better offers, which we were delighted meant it was just us 4. As to how...well, until last year we had the only DC on both sides and there’s still only one cousin.