Married + young family: do you split Christmas day or stick to one side?

[Candleflower12]

1. Married + young family: do you split Christmas Day or stick to one side?

No, we make Christmas our little family day. Anyone is welcome around for pastries and Buck’s Fizz in the morning. But I want the kids to enjoy the day with their new toys. We watch Christmas films and play board games. I don’t make Christmas dinner - we just have festive party snack food all day.

Then we see one half on another day (say Xmas eve)and the other half on a different day (Boxing Day) . I wouldn’t be spending my day travelling.

I hated travelling when I was a kid - I wanted to stay and enjoy all my toys!! So that’s what we’ve done ever since kids were old enough to realise - so about 3ish.

it means we host his side one year and my side the other year but I’m happy with that.

I'd stick to one side. It's too stressful for you and not fair on young kids to do two separate houses on Christmas day, imo

Christmas Day at home is far easier with small dc.

We do alternate years - any family and DHs.

No interest in driving around to different places with the kids, I don’t think that’s enjoyable for them.

Happy to go to someone else’s house for a few days, or do it at mine - but, one place and no driving!

Parents were divorced and Christmas’s growing up always involved traipsing around and I hated it. You’re making your own family now and are allowed to create new traditions!

We alternate 25th and 26th with each side each year, and have our own “at home” Christmas on 24th or 27th eating nice food and opening presents. I don’t love the travelling about but it’s the only way everyone gets to see all the family and I definitely can’t be arsed hosting them all at my house

Christmas goes in 3 year cycles.
Y1: my parents (hosted by Mum)
Y2: in laws (hosted my me, usually)
Y3: just us at home.

Stay in one place.

When mine were that age, we did different things in different years - going to my parents, staying at home inviting my parents, sah and inviting in-laws, going to in-laws, staying at home just us, going away for a few days to stay with dh's sister, going (for the day) to my sister.
So no fixed 'alternate years', but never trying to fit in more than one place.

Quite often if we didn't see one set of our parents on Christmas Day, we'd get together for drinks or for a buffet lunch later in the week, to see everyone and swap presents.

Christmas is a season lasting December 1st to January 5th.

Any visit to the family within the season counts as the Christmas visit.

It becomes a whole lot less stressful if you allow your celebrations to cover 6 weeks. I always saw my grandparents on one side a few days before and on the other side a few days after.

When DS was 1 MIL and FIL came to us
When DS was 2, we went to mother's and step's. He did not settle or sleep.

When dS was 3 we said you are welcome to visit us. Mother and Step said "no thank you we don't leave home at christmas".

For the next 13/14 years PIL came to us and we went to mine for NY. PIL continued to come to us and MIal did on her own until Covid.

When DS wanted to party on NY Eve, mother and step started coming the weekend before Christmas.

I would never consider splitting Christmas Day between houses

Me neither. It’s supposed to be enjoyable. Being taken from your own house away from your new toys and then to go to someone else’s for a few hours then again to yet another house sounds like the worst way to spend a day ever.

One side Christmas Day and one side Boxing Day and swap each year. I’m not spending my day travelling. As LO gets older I will probably host.

Since Covid, we host one year; and DS hosts the next.

DD2 lives a 10 minute drive away with her OH. DD2’s cooking skills are not up to a Xmas dinner, and her OH, who is not English, says his organisation skills aren’t up to it either. He comes from a very different culture and cuisine. He absolutely loves our family Xmas, despite it not being part of his culture.

DS lives 10 minutes away from us in another direction. He says he much prefers going to someone else’s house, where they do all the cooking, than spending the day in the kitchen himself.

DDIL is not English either and her Xmas traditions are quite different. Christmas Eve is her big day, which they celebrate with her friends. Her parents are both dead. They say it’s too expensive to fly back to her home country for Christmas Eve.

DGC love our house, as it’s bigger than theirs. Usually, they don’t want to leave.

Wr stay at home and issue an open invitation. Quite happy if everyone comes to us or no one does.

Older child now but we’ve had it at home with both sets of parents since she was born. However neither of us have siblings so for us family is just the parents so they’ve come to us all that time. They get picked up , fed and then driven home.

We did exactly that and my kids loved it. They got more presents and to spend time with all their cousins. If we suggested just staying at home they would’ve hated it, visiting both sides who weren’t far away was all part of the fun for mine

My husband and I used to alternate between parents each year. After having kids, we made the decision that Christmas would always be at our house and now we alternate hosting (parents/siblings) and having a ‘little’ Christmas (just us and the kids). To be honest, I’d prefer a ‘little’ Christmas every year (and visit family before and after 25th) so I can just be in my pjs and focus on the kids but at this time, hosting is easier than the months of guilt tripping!

We live locally to all our families (maximum drive of 20mins), so we do generally see all of them on Christmas Day.

We do breakfast at home just us, MIL hosts lunch every year (for her, us, my 3 SILs and their families), and my mum usually hosts dinner (for her, us, my 2 sisters and their families, and my childless aunt and uncle) although my sister and I have also hosted before. We sometimes see my dad, step mum and half brothers for a drink on Christmas Day (they live a few houses up from my MIL), otherwise we see them on Christmas Eve. This year they’ll be in New Zealand (where my step mum is from) for Christmas, so they’re planning to host something on New Years instead.

We don’t mind travelling around, the drive really isn’t far at all and we enjoy spending time with our families. It can feel busy, but we’d find sitting around at home boring to be honest. Our DC (aged 7, 5 and almost 2) love to play with their cousins and don’t seem bothered at all that they can’t play with their presents all day. Timing has become more important since having kids though - instead of staying at my mum’s for hours over dinner like we used to, we aim to leave by 7:30/8pm at the latest to get the kids in bed.

We have 4 sets of grandparents due to divorces so we make no attempt to split it. We just do what we want, whether that’s having it on our own or with one grandparent/step if they’ve invited us.

We do

1. My family
2. DH family
3. Just us

We don't live locally so seeing family involves an overnight stay either us to them or them to us. I don't mind hosting every year but it tends to work out I only host number 1 or number 2 every other year so some years I get 2 years off hosting others just 1

We stay at home. We don’t have any family over either. Mainly due to travel distance.

once we had children we wanted to have Christmas Eve at home and have the day relaxed without timing pressure from having to get in the car and drive places especially as thats not fun for kids.

we do have early Christmas celebrations with family and swap gifts. Which IMO is actually nicer than doing it on Christmas Day as it feels less pressured.

When our dses were small, we had Christmas at home, usually just us, though a couple of times my PIL came. We did schlepp the boys all the way to my mum's house once (she lived over 4 hours away), and whilst it was a lovely Christmas, it was an awful lot more work, and we didn't do it again.

We always just stayed at home with our small children. They were much happier, all they ever wanted to do was play with their toys, run around screaming and eating chocolate ( and maybe a few pigs in blankets).

The thought of making them wear nice clothes and sit up straight at someone’s else’s dinner table eating a multi course dinner while adults talk about who had died since last Christmas makes me feel stressed just thinking about it.

We see extended family on Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and other days over the festive period.

BTW For those of you worried about my lack of discipline as a parent, they have all turned out to be functioning adults. But thank you for your concern 😬

Depends if everyone is nearby @Candleflower12
When we were kids all our family was close. Both sets of grandparents and my unmarried aunt came in the morning. Dad's family went to his brothers after that for lunch and the rest of the day. We went to Mum's sisters or they came to us.
We had no family nearby so we just did a random selection, occasionally at home just the 3 of us, sometimes my parents house sometimes the in laws. If we were staying at home anyone was welcome but we usually had one or other set of parents.
Now we just have the 3 of us and my mum at ours