Is going to grandparents at Christmas a new thing?

[Pinknike]

When I was a child we didn't leave he house on Christmas Day, it was always present, breakfast, watch tv then Christmas dinner.

These days all I hear is people with young families venturing out to their parents, in laws or other extended family. A lot of the time I hear them saying that they don't really want to go for whatever reason, or how they have to alternate.

I wonder if this is a new thing, or if as a child we lived in our own bubble.

I end up feeling really guilty for declining in laws invitation, but as nice as they are, I like nothing more on Christmas Day than relaxing in my own house.

We took our children up to Yorkshire and the NE almost every year for about 20 years +, used to drive up on Christmas day afternoon (London to Yorkshire) - their father is an organist so always works Christmas eve later and then Christmas morning but we were free after that and the roads are quite clear. We would go on to the NE where my parents were the day after or something like that. We wanted to to see the family etc It was a bit of a trek and I don't think they evre came down here but that was understandable the Yorkshire ones had all the other family there too including elderly people and busy work and church commitments up there and my parents would usually have my siblings staying too. I am sure no one would have objected had we not gone. My father as he got older and my mother was less well used to pay for a meal out for a the whole family and a pantomime trip etc so all that was pretty nice and when we first had children our parents' houses were much nicer than ours with things so quite nice to stay too.

Over the years as I said above it changed and now my parents are dead and I am the granny. I am totally relaxed about who comes here. The 5 children like to get together a few times a year and if that is Christmas day that's good. I certainly wouldn't mind if it were just around the time of Christmas either if that worked better for them.

I think it's normal to see family or stay at home. It depends on the family, we don't all have to be the same.
I used to go to my mum's for Christmas dinner with my kids. But I have four kids now, so for the last 2 years we have stayed home and I have cooked dinner for just the kids, myself and DH. The kids prefer being in their own home with their presents, we can do whatever we want and it's less stress. The day is our own.
We still have the family over in the morning, so still spend time together, but the meal part and the rest of the day is just us.

We always had the grandparents come to us.

Keeping all your relatives out unless they've pre-booked a slot in the manner of a Sainsbury's delivery is what's new, tbh.

Although thankfully it only seems to happen on Mumsnet and not so much in real life. In real life people tend to behave a bit better towards their own parents.

Each to their own, and sure, having finished work on Saturday morning, I'd like nothing more to have spent a couple of days at home in front of the telly.

But I'm sure my daughter will remember with more fondness the fact she has just spent three chaotic, noisy days with her cousins, aunts and uncles and very old grandparents.

I had no living grandparents. We had no car and there were no buses on Christmas Day so we stayed at home. It was pretty boring just the three of us watching what my stepdad wanted on TV. On Boxing day we all crammed into one of our small houses with aunts , uncles and cousins and it was great fun. I see my DGC at the some point every Christmas Day and I or my daughter take turns to host for dinner if they are not visiting ex-DH.

I've only been at home three years because my mum said it was getting too much however refuses to leave her house on Christmas Day so she won't visit us, ditto MIL

Getting used to it now but I'd definitely prefer visitors!

I think that some people do get embroiled in huge journeys with young DC when they would rather stay at home, I think maybe years ago we took on the hosting role a little younger from the older generation?

When I was a kid in the 80s we always used to go to grandparents or another relatives houses at Christmas or they would come to us. I can only remember a handful of Christmasses where we didn't. We all lived fairly close to each other though so it was easier.

Same, all v close. I miss it!

I didn't have living grandparents from age 3 & aunts n uncles lived too far away. My dad was a farmer so couldn't up n leave anyway. I envied the ones who had the big family Christmas tho.these days Wed always have my mum sometimes get in laws n bil n sil n kids or have been to them. Even before dad passed they'd come to us they only up the road why would they have sat in just the two of them?!

Some years we went to my grandparents for a big family gathering, some years we stayed home as a four. I much preferred the big busy house, but I guess my parents must have felt they needed a break from it sometimes (hence the occasional quiet Christmases) so maybe it had its stresses that I didn't see as a child!

The first year we owned our house we hosted both families, so around 12 people for Christmas dinner. It was great fun but exhausting. This year we have a 5 month old and quite a few of the other mothers of babies I know said they were hosting this year because 'they didn't want to travel with the baby'. I was quietly agog that they thought that would be the low effort option, and it turned out that I was the only one who has hosted the family Christmas before. I suspect it didn't turn out as relaxing as some of them thought ('it'll be nice because we can have the morning chilling out the three of us...' - what, chilling while cooking dinner for ten?!)

We used to go to my maternal GPs on Christmas Day when I was really little - I’m talking toddler little.
Then for some reason we started staying home - just me, my sister, and parents. Then when we got older, me and my sister’s boyfriends started spending Christmas with us.
Now we are both moved out and have our own DCs we still go to my parents even though we both live a trek away.
I’ve offered the last few years to do Christmas dinner at mine as it’s closer for my Dsis but was met with a look of horror and disdain from DM

We always went to maternal grandparents on Christmas day and paternal side on boxing day. I think my mum did the same growing up. We've been doing the same thing but next year I might try and get them to come to ours. We end up with very excited, very tired girls.

When I was a child sometimes we would be at home, sometimes our grandparents or other family. When our children were tiny and we only had 1 or 2 we went to my grandparents or the in laws. Now they are bigger and there's 3 of them we find it easier to stay at home and have people come to us.

It’s not a new thing for the Royal Family:
metro.co.uk/2018/12/25/inside-sandringham-the-home-of-the-royal-family-christmas-since-1952-8274425/

We never stayed elsewhere or went to visit family members but certainly left the house for compulsory church attendance and walks.

We sometimes had extended family members who would otherwise have been alone, but I don't remember having grandparents until my mother's mother was widowed.

My parents expected everyone to go to them until recently and until the last year or so would not contemplate not being able to attend their own church multiple times at any Christian festival, so inviting them/ suggesting they consider being elsewhere was viewed as being somehow inappropriate.

The hosting thing might have changed partly because people current in their late 50s - 80s expected to be in a bigger huse than their parents by their 30s, but nowadays the young families tend to only be able to afford smaller houses than their parents.

There is also an attitude I'm curious about though - did the 60s perhaps herald the beginning of a different attitude in young adults?

It strikes me that though people talk about the entitlement of millennials, those who became adults in the 60s and 70s seem to expect the world to revolve around them.

Mothers day is an example - in the late 70s and 80s mothers day was all about my mother (not her mother or my father's mother, whom we didn't visit or as far as I know send gifts). However as she became a grandmother in the early 00s she still felt it was about her primarily, before the mothers of the new generation. My MIL had the same expectations.

Similarly with Christmas - my parents expected people to come to them if they wanted to see them when we were small children (and as we grew up), and continue to have the same expectations when their children had small children (and as they grow up)...

Obviously different families have different traditions, but I wonder if there isn't something to expectations sticking with the people of one generation who have no wish to pass one a pivotal role...

I think it will be VERY interesting in 20 years time when all the people who never give the time of day to their children's grandparents (usually the father's side in fairness) are MILs themselves. Sitting home alone on Christmas day and wondering why.

It was normal for us. Alternating maternal and paternal grandparents each year. The staying at home with just your DP and kids thing sounds like it's getting more popular these days, which seems a bit sad to me, but I suppose it depends on the family.

I think it will be VERY interesting in 20 years time when all the people who never give the time of day to their children's grandparents (usually the father's side in fairness) are MILs themselves. Sitting home alone on Christmas day and wondering why.

Ah, but I have a theory about this - I think it's a 'grass is greener' thing. So those who had big family Christmasses as children resented being driven about and not being at home to play with their toys uninterrupted, so do the 'just our little family' Christmas thing for their kids - but those who grew up with quiet, immediate family Christmasses grew up envying the loud, big, chaotic gatherings they saw on TV and adverts, and so want that for their children. So rather unfairly, a lot of those MILs will get an invite as their children will want a houseful, whereas those driving around or hosting a hoard are more likely to be left alone as their children insist on nuclear family only!