To ask when you started having Xmas at your own home?

[Username7654321]

This is first Xmas for us with a baby and I'd quite like to spend it with just DH and DC.

MIL however would be livid - she loves to do the whole shebang (which I am really not into). DH will just go along with what she plans.

So at what point did you stop going to parents/in-laws for Xmas and have your own? How did they take it? When did you tell them? Did anyone's partners/husbands/wives not want to and you had to battle for it?

Why Xmas. Why not just write Christmas!!

Why DD why not just daughter - never actually understood the need for the 'darling' part if I am honest!

The irony is Xmas at MY parents is quite nice. It’s a ball ache of a flight but once there it’s relaxed and fun, with no weirdness.
Maybe I shouldn’t celebrate too early - the in laws are moving about a thousand Km closer to us next year so we will probably see more of them not less. But in smaller doses... (grasps desperately at straws of positivity...)

In your shoes I’d stay home, big up the ‘own Christmas traditions’ thing and visit the in laws at a time that suits YOU as well as them. I loathe being summonsed, it stresses me greatly and makes me very unhappy.

I won’t even go into the horror that is Swedish Christmas food. Smoked and pickled and generally slightly dead/preserved in unpleasant ways meat and fish. No veg. No mince pies. No Christmas pud. No turkey. It’s like five days of scurvy and indigestion, with half an hour of daylight and it’s -35 out so you can’t even nip out for a walk for very long. But the house is heated to about 26 degrees. So you boil.

#prayforanatidae

We rotate Christmasses between my in-laws and my parents - in-laws are an hour away, my parents are in England (we're in NI). This year I'm too pregnant to fly so it means two years in a row with my in-laws which my parents are far from delighted about. My mum keeps talking about how now we owe her two years etc etc. But honestly, next year what I really want is to spend it just me, DH and our new baby - I'd happily see my in-laws for the afternoon but I want Christmas morning in our own house. But I know my mum will be apoplectic and I just don't know what to do!

Only after my Mum died. Now my dad, sisters, their families all come to us. I find it hard to imagine a Xmas just the 4 of us. It wouldn't be the same at all. You can have a quiet, relaxed day at home with nice food any weekend. You don't need Xmas.

While she was still alive she once said that she would do Christmas until she was 70, then it would be my turn. Sadly we didn't make it that far.

Funnily enough, it's just occurred to me that this would have been the year she was 70 and I would have been doing Xmas anyway!

But even when we went to my parents, quite soon after we had children we started to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning here. Stockings in bed, nice breakfast, our own family presents round the tree. Then 90 mins drive to my parents for Xmas lunch and Boxing Day. Much preferred that to staying there Xmas Eve. A nice balance for us.

Beginning of my twenties (mum was still alive and I had different IL than now). Although I do now spend one day with my current IL because I do really like them.

In my experience it is best to phone them 4-6 months before to tell them that you want to do christmas in your own way this year. Then don't pick up the phone for a week and let them be pissed off but don't discuss it with them. It's not up for discussion. You just want to do it your way this year. After the first christmas they'll be over it.

I looooove christmas and it makes me sad to hear a lot of people complaining because you have to do something. It's your festive holiday too! Do what you like.

I do invite everyone I know who might be alone with christmas. I hate to see people lonely.

The first 2 Christmases after we were married, we went "down home", which meant Christmas lunch at DPILs and Christmas dinner at DPs. We decided on year 3 that our waistlines couldn't keep dealing with that (each knew we were eating in the other, but insisted we have "a taste" of theirs, as they piled the plates high!). So we stayed home. The next year we travelled, but rented a cottage for the 2 of us (both houses were full realistically and this meant we could also entertain everyone once).

The following year, DD was due (arrived 6am on 26th!) so we stayed home and, for the first and only time, had dinner at my DGPs house nearby. We also stayed home for DD's first Christmas, travelled for her 2nd, and have done a mix ever since. Almost always, since then, we rent a cottage when we travel (except the first year that DFIL had died as it was too late to book one - there are very few available and we usually have to book by Easter to get one for Christmas).

This year, I warned everyone back in January that we were staying at home this year, as expectations were being raised again and we really need a year to hunker down as the nuclear family. We will visit everyone over the season just not for Christmas Day.

Funnily enough, no one has ever accepted an invitation to have Christmas at our house either. Maybe sometime they will.....I really can cook turkey fine, it's only a Christmas cake that I have never made.....

Another vote for coordinating with wider families well in advance of December. We hold off til after the August Bank Holiday to talk about arrangements, then get it settled and any meals out booked. Anyone who prefers not to coordinate like this, is welcome to join in or not, as suits them. Simples.

As for the mother claiming to be owed two years worth...smile and nod.

I don't think it would be fair to tell your MIL now, just 10 days before Xmas, if she has been assuming you would spend it with her. That's really not kind.

Those of you whose children are growing up/getting married with lives of their own etc - have you thought about your expectations of future Christmasses? We have an only DS and I really don't want to be the sort of parent who puts pressure on her child to 'come home for Christmas'. I honestly feel I can genuinely enjoy Christmas without having to see my DS on the day and I would hate the thought that he might come home to us whilst his partner goes to her/his family.

(And to the question about going away for Christmas - yes it is expensive ).

First year we lived together (were also engaged and expecting dd1). Since then have always stayed at home with dd and now dd2 and hosted my dps, dhs aunt when well enough and my adopted dsis who now has dcs. Have also had a few friends in and out over the years.

I'm surprised so many adults are still so passive and easily manipulated by their parents, and that so many people have never had to work over Christmas so can always go visiting folk and host visitors. Are you all teachers?

Some of us actively want to see our families at xmas, it has nothing to do with being manipulated.

And there are a million jobs other than teaching that you don't have to work on xmas. Almost all of them in fact. WTF are you talking about?

We will once DD is 3 or 4 I imagine. DPs family had her first (which was disastrous and we left at 1am on Boxing Day in a taxi because of drunken fighting) and are having her second this year much to my annoyance but it was booked before asking us, along with massive passive aggressive guilt trips. My family would love to have us next year but now DPs dad who was not involved in his life until he knew we had money wants to have us next year apparently and he was guilt tripping us about not coming to his home country with him this year. DPs family are all lonely/single with no family around other than us so he feels guilty and obligated to fulfil their wishes. My family have offered to host them all on top of the aunties/uncles/grandparents they already have every year, but the in laws only like eating out at Christmas apparently. I hate it all and just want to do something simple at home with DP and DD, the stress of making everyone happy has ruined Christmas for me, I've been dreading it for months. We live within 10 minutes of all our family at the moment so there is no reason they couldn't just pop in during the day so DD can enjoy playing with new toys, but instead she will be cooped up in a high chair in a restaurant with me dealing with her crankiness so everyone else can have their way. But we are likely to be buying a house in the new year and moving about an hour away on the train. Easy for my parents as they have a flat in the city we will be moving to but not for the in laws who refuse to travel. I have zero sympathy for them now and will be enjoying our family Christmas on our own. In my opinion Christmas should be about children, not adults.

I was 36. For ds's first Christmas we went to my sisters but then we moved to a bigger house so we've hosted for the last two years.

We used to alternate Christmas between my DPs and my DILs, until we had our DD (now 8). Now we have Christmas day at home just the three of us, and then visit the rest of the family Boxing Day.

This year is my first Christmas in my home and I am 46!
We've alternated between PIL and my parents. PIL one hour away, my parents (now just my Dad, two hours away). I've dreaded all the travelling between the houses every year.
But not this year - we move house next week and I've put my foot down (still getting resistance but I'm not backing down).

We have done this since we moved in together and have always seen mil Christmas Eve and my parents Boxing Day. We found it was easier as then there were no arguments over who's turn it was unlike my sisters who now are in a rut of always having to go someone's house Christmas Day when they really want to have there own.

This is going through be our first Christmas at home. It will be Dh, 3yo dd and me. We have an excuse though, as I’m 33 weeks pregnant. Otherwise, I don’t know if it would happen. We’d host, but we’d have to invite sil, bil and their 3 dcs as well as pils and gfil. There wouldn’t be room for us here, so it will just be a quiet one for once, .

*to be

1st year we were married we stayed home with some friends only. It caused some shouting and unpleasantness and then weeks of sulking. But was worth it because we broke the tradition and were then more free to make different arrangements.

I’ve done Christmas in my own house every year since I had my own house at 18.

Everyone is different surely? Some people hate the fuss of it all or big family gatherings, whilst some love it. Some like to alternate. Nothing wrong with any option.
We alternate between my parents, the in laws, everyone to us and then just us on our own. It works for us but it’s not for everyone.
If family members have a problem with you wanting a Christmas on your own once in a while then that is their problem!

Oh god OP set the boundaries now. I initially did but let them erode and ended up having to fight a hundred times harder to reassert them this year. Before children, I had no problem spending every Christmas at MIL’s. I’m NC with my own DM and wasn’t going to stop DH from seeing his family, so for the first fifteen years, all good. Then the DC happened and I said we’d alternate - one at her house sixty miles away, the next at ours. DS’s first Christmas? Of course that had to be at hers. It was his first! And who were we to deny her that special occasion… So we stayed over with a just-crawling baby in a house not remotely child-proofed (think sharp-cornered marble hearths with crystal vases on, etc. that they didn’t want moving) and it was fucking horrible. I had to sit vacantly watching soaps all day (not my thing), hiding away to breastfeed lest I offend MIL’s partner’s eyes, and watching her inanely try to make DS tear open presents that he had no interest in for the best part of thirty minutes till I finally had to intervene before he had hysterics. Second Christmas should be at mine. MIL pouted and sulked. It was too difficult for her to travel, even though she turns up on a sixpence when it suits her. It’s her job to make Christmas dinner. She would be “all alone”. Apparently her partner and her own DD don’t count. In the end I gave in and said okay, but insisted we went and returned on the same day. It was, again, horrible. Speny half the day driving. She bought him messy presents but didn’t want him to play with them there. More vacant staring at soaps. We hadn’t even left the house before she was applying full-on guilt-trips about wanting to have her DGS over for his third Christmas too, and after seeing DH end up miserable with guilt, I again caved. Fast forward to this year, we now have three DC, and in the middle of the year when the DTs arrived I made it crystal clear that we were absolutely not budging out of this house for Christmas. For months I’ve heard every possibly permutation of why she can’t come to us, why if she does come, she can’t possibly stay so it’s hardly worth the effort of travelling so far for such a short visit (ya think?!?), of how awkward her partner will feel in our house, of how our house is too small for her to cook, and on, and on, and on. I am proud to say, though, that I finally stood my ground and we will be having our fourth Christmas-with-children at home. She comes Christmas Eve, and leaves on the day at lunchtime. Her partner doesn't want to come so no hiding away needed. And we will NOT be watching their choices of mindless shit. We’ll be watching ours.

I just can’t imagine not being with my parents on xmas day. It’s a special time. I can be home with just my immediate family any other time of the year! For me, xmas IS about extended family